162 THE GROUNDSWELL. 



ficiary societies having their own branches. The feature in 

 question could work no harm among the Patrons, any more 

 than among other order, in the country. On the contrary, 

 it might be the means of still further consolidating the ag 

 ricultural masses. 



THE ILLINOIS &quot; STAATS-ZEITUNG&quot; ON THE GRANGES. 



The following extract from this leading German news 

 paper well expresses the feeling which should govern this 

 matter : 



&quot; A German recently publicly protested against the 

 Granges. He thought the control of the reform move 

 ment ought not to be left in the hands of secret societies 

 with mystic signs and ceremonies of inauguration. Like 

 the country, he regarded its welfare, and the furthering of 

 the same, as the common privilege and duty of all ; and here, 

 where every laudable object may be openly prosecuted, so 

 patriotic an undertaking must not become the exclusive 

 property of a few, nor yet must it be enveloped in a mantle 

 of secrecy, and surrounded with a mysterious hocus-pocus. 

 Such secrecy and hocus-pocus is hypocrisy and deception on 

 the one hand, and superstition and folly on the other. 



&quot;The man who wrote this views the thing in too gloomy 

 a light. Deception and folly can not be discovered in the 

 farmer associations. The thing, of course, would be wrong 

 if they sought to accomplish a specific political object in a 

 secret manner. But, as is to be seen from the declarations 

 of the chiefs of the Order, politics is not really the object. 

 Not in their capacity as members of granges do the farmers 

 take part in politics, but in their capacity of members of 

 public farmers associations, who publicly discuss, and in their 

 resolutions publicly declare, what they want. We will only 

 point to the county conventions of the farmers in Illinois, 

 and to their platforms and nominations. 



&quot; Not a few German farmers belong to the English- 

 American granges. But their participation in the Order 

 would be far greater if there were German granges, which, 



