THE RISE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT. 203 



creased greatly after the close of hostilities, and the tide was swelled 

 by men turned adrift in the disbanding of the armies. The cry was 

 for railroads to open the country, and the speculative spirit, induced 

 by an inflated currency, was quick to second it. Land-grants of enor- 

 mous extent were made by the General and State governments, and 

 Western municipalities vied with each other in bonding themselves to 

 offer inducements to railroad-building. In the years 18G5-'71, $500,- 

 000,000 was invested in Western railroads. D. C. Cloud, in his " Mo- 

 nopolies and the People," makes the statement that " one acre out of 

 every eight and a half of the entire area of Iowa has been given away 

 to railroad corporations. . . . There were land-grants, subsidies, bonds, 

 subscriptions, and taxes to the amount of five per cent of our entire 

 valuation in one year." Every farmer wanted a railroad, and every 

 one with any pretense to economic knowledge wanted two, to keep 

 down charges by competition ! Railroads and population reacted on 

 each other. The consequence was, that both railroads and population 

 moved too far west, accumulating debt in the inflated currency as they 

 went. There was little traffic for the railroads in anything but grain. 

 So long as the price of this was high, all went well, and they were 

 suffered to go on their reckless way with little remark save a clamor 

 for more competing roads where the pinch of discrimination was felt. 

 But conditions changed. The price of wheat began to show the effect 

 of the enormous increase of production. The demand caused by the 

 Prusso-Austrian and Franco-German wars ceased. The grasshopper 

 became a burden. The farmers, who had gone into debt in flush times, 

 felt the pinch of an appreciating currency. A villainous tariff, in- 

 creasing the cost of transportation and of everything they bought, 

 conspired with the rest to produce unavoidable distress. Add to all 

 this the crisis of 18T3, and it is not strange that there was a "Farmers' 

 Movement." " Organize ! " was the universal cry, and there were as 

 many reasons for it, in the farmer's mind, as he had needs and griev- 

 ances, fancied or real, and these were legion. Owing to the change 

 in economic conditions, wheat could no longer pay transportation 

 charges and be profitable. According to the report of the Senate 

 Committee on Transportation to the Seaboard, the average price of 

 wheat in Chicago fell thirty-three cents from 1868-72, while the charge 

 for transportation to the East fell but nine cents. The farmer was 

 forced to feed his grain to his cattle or use it for fuel. In this state 

 of things the railroad loomed up before him as the only obstacle be- 

 tween himself and his hungry Eastern brother, whose needs he was 

 anxious to supply — for a fair compensation. A toll for transportation 

 exceeding the price he received seemed a priori a monstrous extor- 

 tion. To aggravate mattei's, the railroads were run with unparalleled 

 short-sightedness. The terra " railroad official " was a synonym for 

 insolence. There had been great corruption in the building of many 

 of the roads, and such imperfectly comprehended terms as "Credit 



