Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/847

Rh and extravagant methods of its first winter, and in the summer and fall of 1888 it was further crippled by attacks of "The Southern Mercury" the State Alliance organ, on its business management. This caused internal dissensions which threatened at one time to disrupt the order, creating two bitter factions, which for a long time refused to be reconciled. Early in 1889 the business manager of the Exchange resigned, and a new one was elected in his stead. Meanwhile there had been a change in the editorial management of the "Mercury," and the spirit of true fraternity soon reasserted itself, the order becoming again firmly cemented, though it had lost materially in members. However, the better part remained, and the Alliance has since been happily progressing in all that relates to social and economic education.

The management of the Exchange during 1889 was conservative and judicious, and, under other circumstances, he would doubtless have made it a successful enterprise, but it was too heavily encumbered, and the confidence of the order in it had been sacrificed. His report to the State Alliance, August, 1889, is as follows:

The State Alliance, in August, 1889, passed a resolution providing for a voluntary trust fund of $75,000, or enough to discharge the entire indebtedness of the Exchange, but not to be used until raised in full. The trust fund never reached a third of the required amount, and in December last the Exchange building at Dallas was sold under mortgage for $35,000. Immediately there-after the manager proceeded to wind up the affairs of the Farmers' Alliance Exchange of Texas.

To recapitulate: The Exchange commenced to do business