Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1874 — What Does All This Mean? [ARTICLE]

What Does All This Mean?

The Fourth was very generally celebrated by the Patrons of the Western States, and the assemblages in some instances reached many thousand's in number. Grange picnics and celebrat-iqnssre becoming more and more frequent, and are attended with constantly -increasing numbers. A few- weeks since, while Hon. J. W. Childs was addressing an assemblage of 6.000 farmers at Cpldwater, a telegram was received from Marshall, saying that C. L. Whitney, Esq,, was addressing an equally large congregation of farm ers at that, place. Reports from the immensc Grange picnic recentty held in ST." Joseph County, Mich., state that a procession of 1,400 teams was formed, and the crowd was estimated by thousands. The Northern, Grange, in alluding to the immensity and -frequency of such gatherings,among the farmers, very pertinently asks: “ What does all this signify? Does it mean that the farmers are supremely happy, and come together in vast multitudes simply to congratulate and felicitate each other on their good fortune? Would that this were the ease; but we fear it is not so. Deep-seated causes underlie such demonstrations. They are not for mere show’ or pastime; they mean much which it would be well for the country to early comprehend. They contain no threats or bluster, but they* mean that -a- giant has been awakened from a long sleep and is about to take a position •as a peer of the realm, In short, it all means simply that new light is dawning upon the 700,000 hard-worked, poorlypaid, but thinking farming people of Michigan. That the voice of the agricultural people, which has hitherto been uttered only in single chorus from the isolation of the farm, and hence unheeded, shall, by reason of its combined volume, reach the ear of the land. May the ear of authority heed the voice of the people.’’ — Pacific Hural Press.