In light of the hyperbolic reaction from the press, it is worth investigating the actual language of the Cleburne Demands for ourselves. Their basic purpose appears to be to define farmers as a separate, American class; in a similar situation as labor, but not the same. From the start the preamble states that the members will be agitating the legislature "as shall secure to our people freedom from the onerous and shameful abuses that the industrial classes are now suffering at the hands of arrogant capitalists and powerful corporations." The farmers are "our people" who should be linked with but are not the same as labor. Per plank 1: "The recognition by incorporation of trade unions, co-operative stores, and such other associations as may be organized by the industrial classes to improve their financial condition, or to promote their general welfare." Rural farmers are not "the industrial classes" by they identify with them in solidarity of class struggle.
The Cleburne Demands not only identify the rural farmers as a separate class, but an exclusively American one. Per plank 4: "That measures be taken to prevent aliens from acquiring title to land in the United States of America, and to force titles already acquired by aliens to be relinquished by sale to actual settlers and citizens of the United States." So, while the press decried Cleburne as an attack on American manhood, a more accurate description would be a redefinition of American manhood, or, rather, American citizenship, or perhaps most fairly, of farmer American citizenship. Certainly, Wall Street is not allowed membership into the brotherhood (for example, plank 5 excoriates "the dealing in futures on all agricultural products"). Nor are "railroads or other corporations." Per plank 6, it is only those [i.e. farmers] who develop land--not those who merely own it--who can be called "actual settlers." Plank 14 goes for the throat: "We demand the passage of an interstate commerce law, that shall secure the same rates of freight to all persons for the same kind of commodities, according to distance of haul, without regard to amount of shipment; to prevent the granting of rebates; to prevent pooling freights to shut off competition; and to secure to the people the benefit of railroad transportation at a reasonable cost."
Surprisingly, given how important it would become in the ensuing decades, the currency issue does not get mentioned until plank 11: "We demand the substitution of legal tender treasury notes for the issue of the National banks; that the Congress of the United States regulate the amount of such issue by giving to the country a per capita circulation [emphasis theirs] that shall increase as the population and business interests of the country expand." However, here we see why the currency issue would become so important: it is key in defining farmers as a class. Plank 12 goes on to insist on the representation of this class in national government: "We demand the establishment of a National bureau of labor statistics, that we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral, and financial condition of the laboring masses of our citizens; and further, that the commissioner of the bureau be a cabinet officer of the United States." The final plank, #16, solidifies the farmer identity as a class in opposition to big business and in solidarity with but different from industrial labor: "We recommend a call for a National labor conference, to which all labor organizations shall be invited to send representative men, to discuss such measures as may be of interest to the laboring classes."
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