Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1874 — The Grange Not Declining. [ARTICLE]

The Grange Not Declining.

There are some who deduce from the facts that the newspapers do not teem with the doings of the “ Grangers” as they did a year ago—that ever and anon Grange officials find it necessary to admonish and exhort their subordinates that they do not let .the interest of the meetings run down —that occasionally there arise troubles and rumors of troubles, grumblings about National Grange funds, secessions, bickerings, heart-burnings and strife in the Granges there are some who conclude from these circumstances that the force of the Grange-flood is spent and that the Order has already reached the acme of its power, or is even now declining. These persons deceive themselves — some willfully, all egregiously. From the first there has been an exaggerated notion abou 11 h e i n tent ien s an d -pessibil die s of the Grange. Panic-stricken office-holders thought they recognizedthe hand-writing on the wall that sentenced them to political decapitation. Conscious of rottenness they started a cry that the Grange was going to control,every thing—to elect Grange Legislatures, a Grange Congress and Grange judiciaries— to confiscate railroads and fix prices of produce—to break contracts and to sequestrate the capital invested on the faith of those contracts. The Grange was" credited with all this and Other Communistic bosh, partly in ignorance and partly with the design of bringing it into odium. The reality is that the Grange never set itself to do any of these things. All of its official utterances have been characterized by extreme good sense, conservatism and modesty. ’ Doubtless the Grange is less talked about than it has been, but instead of declining it is getting down steadily to its right work, is accomplishing sthe mission with .which it commenced life, viz.: The promotion of the welfare of its members, social, mental and pecuniary—the better fitting of the farmer for his-duties as a citizen and the cultivation of a spirit of neighborly love and fellowship. There are many reasons why the farmers are less demonstrative now than they were a year back, and it is" this quietness which gives rise to the idea that the Grange is dying. The principal reason is, that the farmers, as a class, are now vastly better off than they have been for years. No observer could fail to note the thriving appearance of the hundred-thousand country visitors to the Chicago Exposition. New clothes and contented, sun-browned faces met the eye and gladdened the heart at every turn. Substantial, stalwart, healthylooking yeomen piloted happy wives and any number -of “ arrows” through the throng, examining things with the critical eyes of persons intending and able to purchase. The palace stores of rebuilt Chicago were patronized liberally—and the farmers are the only people who are aow able to do this. To what extent these better times are owing to the societies, sbme other fellow may calculate. The facts that, before the Granges and Clubs existed, the farmers were poor,-’‘and that, now tfje organizations exist, farmers’ circumstances are improved, are enough for us. The crowds which visited Chicago during last month.m^y.be taken as indicating that, except in districts afflicted with extraordinary calamities, there is now ven little distress in the rural districts. And this, again, may’ be taken as a cer-

tain indieatio n of a renews 1 , on a per- ' manent basi g, of that business enterprise I which und’je speculation has wrecked. I By and tty the good times of the .farmers j will reacjh the trades. The mercantile ! atmosp'jere will be clearer and purer, ; and, 3 ave among direct victims, the i September cyclone will be regarded as a bles .sing. . | x’he Grange movement has now been ■ established long enough to show for ' 'vhat purposes it is adapted and in what I direction it fails. The average city in- : teilect has realized the fact that there is ’ some new, mysterious leavpn at work in politics, which will have to be allowed for in future. For the first time the farmers have asserted - their political power and it has been recognized. That in the elections just terminated, or now in course, the farmers have not swept the decks, is because they have not been willing to incur the odium of running a farmers’ party. Still, they have made and will make themselves severely felt, and the Forty-fourth Congress and the various new Legislatures will be all the purer for it. |pie excellent thing the Grange has certainly done—and that is, it has awakened the American producer to a sense of the high position he ought to hold as a political unit, and of the low position in which, in fact, he stands, I The farmer now knows that the reason of his political insignificance is that he has neglected his duties as a citizen. The intelligent use of the ballot is. the one thing most wanted. Let the Grange continue its-work in this direction, carefully eschewing anything which will give it the color' of a secret politica society, but freely handling those great questions which affect the interests of the farmers as a class, but which ought not to be made partisan questions. In running Grange stores, the Patrons, as a rule, have been unsuccessful. The probability of this failure we pointed out a year ago. It is but the history of cooperative effort repeated. Where cooperative stores have been successful they are. generally found, on investigation, to be more properly co-operative trading societies, supported to a large degree by profits on purchases by nonmembers. Others of the successful cooperative stores have been established or coddled into existence by large employers of labor who aim to better more the working qualities than the financial condition of There are many directions, however, wherein Granges have co-operated with remarkable success—notably in the way of co-operative purchasing, in which line, as yet, the greatest benefits of the movement have been manifest. The Granges have recognized the equality of men and women by admitting the latter on equal terms to their deliberations and social enjoyments. To the courage and sagacity which incorporated in the Grange the recognition of woman as an equal is to be attributed, in no small degree, the Order’s progress. It is an article of belief among the sex generally, and contributors to the Western Rural “ Fireside” department in particuj 1 ar, that no women are so much oppressed as farmers’ wives. In answer the farmers have stepped boldly to the van and have presented their wives to the vvorld as their recognized equals. We must not omit to point out the vast importance of the Grange or Club as a court of arbitration in disputes between members. For this purpose, alone, it will pay to keep the societies going. To say nothing of the lawyers’ fees actually saved, there is the possibility that the pettifoggers who infest country districts may be starved into honesty, by decrease of their business, and compelled to cease setting people by the ears for a living. Considerations of space prevent us from going into this matter as fully as we could wish. We think, however, that we have already shown the unlikelihood of the Grange being allowed to languish. Farmers will not be so blind to their interests as to let the thing drop, now that the feasibility of perfect organization has bee.n proved. And it must be taken into account that it is only from within that the Grange is assailable. So long as it remains true to its enunciated principles, any assault upon it from without is trouble thrown away. Its position is simply impregnable. When it falls, it will be from dissensions within. All Patrons who have the good of the Order at heart 0 will submit to any annoyance rather than be the means of introducing discord into its ranks. — Western Rural.