138 THE GROUNDSWELL. 



At length, reaching Fredonia, 1ST. Y., a second dispensa 

 tion was granted. From here he went to Columbus, 0., 

 where another Grange was organized. From thence, in due 

 course of travel, he went to Chicago, where the fourth dis 

 pensation was granted. 



Of these four dispensations, the first two retained vital 

 action, tfie third resulted in a total failure, and the fourth 

 proved but little better. Before long, the Chicago Grange 

 ceased to hold meetings, and became as virtually dead as 

 the one in Ohio. In this condition it remained until No 

 vember, 1873, when an effort was made to revive the inter 

 est of its members ; and while this history is being written, 

 strong hopes are entertained that the reorganization of this, 

 the first Grange in Illinois, will be entirely successful. It 

 has amply proved that large cities are not favorable to the 

 growth of an Order for asserting the rights of the farmer. 



The history of the Order will show that the principal ob 

 stacles to the successful prosecution of the enterprise lay 

 with the farmers themselves. The reasons were, that they 

 required to be roused by their enemies no less than by their 

 friends they had first to be educated to the proper point, 

 through the well-organized and constantly increasing power 

 of legalized monopolies, using their accumulated capital to 

 bind still closer the shackles of the farmer and the other 

 producing classes of the nation. 



DISCOURAGEMENT, BUT NOT DESPAIR. 



Discouraged, but not despairing, still urging the import 

 ance of the Order, and wanting only money to carry on the 

 good work, Mr. Kelley, one month after leaving Washington, 

 reached Minnesota, in which State, it will be recollected, 

 his. farm was situated. In this great grain-growing State 



