<P> The Alliance wanted to change the way Americans worked by pushing for an eight - hour workday . It did away with national banks so private, local banks could be formed . The Alliance wanted an income tax, the freedom to coin its own money and the freedom to borrow money from the government to buy land . The Alliance also tried to do away with foreign competitors who owned land in America . It wanted to directly elect federal judges and senators . The Alliance gained powerful political strength and controlled elections in states in the South and the West . </P> <P> In the South, the agenda centered on demands of government control of transportation and communication, in order to break the power of corporate monopolies . From 1890 it also included a demand for a national "Sub-Treasury Plan" calling for the establishment of a network of government - owned warehouses for the storage of non-perishable agricultural commodities, operated at minimal cost to participating farmers . Farmers would then be permitted to draw low interest loans of up to 80% of the value of warehoused goods, payable in U.S. Treasury notes, under the plan . The failure of the Democratic Party to endorse this initiative was instrumental in causing the Farmers' Alliance to become directly involved in partisan politics through an organization largely of its own making, the People's Party . </P> <P> The Southern Alliance also demanded reforms of currency, land ownership, and income tax policies . Meanwhile, the Northern Alliance stressed the demand for free coinage of large amounts of silver . </P> <P> Political activists in the movement also made attempts to unite the two Alliance organizations, along with the Knights of Labor and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, into a common movement . The efforts and unification proved futile, however . </P>

The farmer's alliance differed from the grange in that the members of the alliance formed