y, including
deduction of the amount of mortgages from assessments of mortgaged
property; "a just income tax"; reduction of salaries of officials and
their election instead of appointment, so far as practicable; regulation
of interstate commerce; reform of the patent laws; and prevention of
the adulteration of food. "The combination and consolidation of
railroad capital... in the maintenance of an oppressive and tyrannical
transportation system" was particularly denounced, and the farmers of
the country were called upon to organize "for systematic and persistent
action" for "the emancipation of the people from this terrible
oppression."

The Northwestern Alliance did not attempt cooperation in business so
extensively as did its Southern contemporaries, but a number of Alliance
grain elevators were established in Minnesota and Dakota, cooperative
creameries flourished in Illinois, and many of the alliances appointed
agents to handle produce and purchase supplies for the members. It was
in the field of politics, however, that the activity of the order
was most notable. The methods by which the farmers of the Northwest
attempted to use their organizations for political ends are well
illustrated by the resolutions adopted at the annual meeting of the
Minnesota State Alliance in 1886 which declared that "the Alliance,
while not a partisan association, is political in the sense that it
seeks to correct the evils of misgovernment through the ballot-box,"
and called upon all the producers of the State "to unite with us at the
ballot-box next November to secure a legislature that will work in the
interests of the many against the exactions of the few." The specific
demands included state regulation of railroads, free coinage of silver,
reduction of the tariff to a revenue basis, revision of the patent
laws, high taxation of oleomargarine, and reduction of the legal rate
of interest from 10 to 8 per cent. The secretary was directed to forward
copies of these resolutions to federal and state officers and to the
delegation of the State in Congress; and the members of local alliances
were "urged to submit this platform of principles to every candidate
for the legislature in their respective districts, and to vote as a unit
against every man who refuses to publicly subscribe his name to the same
and pledge himself, if elected, to live up to it."

The resolutions adopted by the National Alliance in 1887 show that
the political purpo