Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1874 — GRANGERS AND POLITICS. [ARTICLE]

GRANGERS AND POLITICS.

There is a little Grange movement going on in Fulton county at the present time which begins to make .a rattling among the dry bone 3 of the old party managers.— Fulton county has been a stronghold of Democracy, hence the movement is denounced as a Republican job, just as in Jasper county the opposition calls it a Democratic movement. Occasionally in tbe controversy upon the wisdom or propriety of Grangers taking part in political matters, an idea is advanced in other counties that is worthy the attention of people here. In a recent number of the Rochester Union Spy a correspondent expresses his opinion upon a certain subject in the following words: “Keep politics from thc Grange ? Nonsense! Why Ave have just commenced' to be politieians in earnest; I mean in the; highest sense of the term, polities as a

civil policy. A Granger should lay aside his prejudices, and ignore old and by-gone, issues. He should know neither Democrat nor Republican as such; support nope as such. His views should be broad and statesman-like. He is a Democrat inasmuch as he favors a government by the whole people, and he is Republican so far as ho is in favor of a representative Democracy. The Grange is elevating in its tendencies, is calculated to lift us above the dirty pool of party politics, and establish us upon a higher, broader plane, where, from a clear standpoint, we calmly view the surroundings; and where, fearing no party lash, but with an eye single to the public good, we adopt and support that policy which seems best calculated to bring about the most good to the greatest number. “I have no complaint to make of any brother for his course in politics; we have large freedom in this direction; but at the same time I much rather see men whom I esteem and delight to honor, come out on abroad basis as people’s candidates. This falling back upon old parties seems too much like the Children of Israel clamoring for the fleshpots of Egypt. We must give up Egypt and her fleshpots; and though we may be detained in the Wilderness for a short season, Jordan is before us, and the Promised Land just beyond.”