intellectual enjoyment
in the picnics and celebrations which brought neighbors together in
hilarious good-fellowship. In 1873, however, the gatherings took on
unwonted seriousness. The accustomed spread-eagle oratory gave place to
impassioned denunciation of corporations and to the solemn reading of
a Farmers' Declaration of Independence. "When, in the course of human
events," this document begins in words familiar to every schoolboy
orator, "it becomes necessary for a class of the people, suffering from
long continued systems of oppression and abuse, to rouse themselves
from an apathetic indifference to their own interests, which has become
habitual... a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that
they should declare the causes that impel them to a course so necessary
to their own protection." Then comes a statement of "self-evident
truths," a catalogue of the sins of the railroads, a denunciation
of railroads and Congress for not having redressed these wrongs, and
finally the conclusion:

"We, therefore, the producers of the state in our several counties
assembled... do solemnly declare that we will use all lawful and
peaceable means to free ourselves from the tyranny of monopoly, and that
we will never cease our efforts for reform until every department of
our Government gives token that the reign of licentious extravagance is
over, and something of the purity, honesty, and frugality with which our
fathers inaugurated it, has taken its place.

"That to this end we hereby declare ourselves absolutely free and
independent of all past political connections, and that we will give our
suffrage only to such men for office, as we have good reason to believe
will use their best endeavors to the promotion of these ends; and
for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor."

This fall campaign of 1873 in Illinois broke up old party lines in
remarkable fashion. In some counties the Republicans and in other
counties the Democrats either openly joined the "Reformers" or refrained
from making separate nominations. Of the sixty-six counties which
the new party contested, it was victorious in fifty-three. This first
election resulted in the best showing which the Reformers made in
Illinois. In state elections, the new party was less successful; the
farmers who voted for their neighbors running on an Anti-Mo