76 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



The work of local organization went on rapidly after the 

 Bloomington convention, and many county organizations of 

 clubs and granges were also formed throughout the state. On 

 July 4, the farmers of Illinois took advantage of the occasion 

 to hold picnics and celebrations at which inflammatory political 

 speeches, filled with denunciations of railroads and monopolies, 

 were the rule. Mass-meetings and farmers' conventions, mainly 

 of a political nature, were frequent throughout the summer of 

 1873; and in the fall, many of the county associations assumed 

 the functions of a political party and nominated candidates 

 for office. All this excitement helped on the movement for 

 organization, and on December 15, when the state association 

 convened at Decatur for its second annual session, the secretary 

 was able to announce 830 clubs in the eighty counties from 

 which he had reports. 1 After this meeting the State Farmers' 

 Association drifted rapidly into an Anti-Monopoly party, and 

 this seems to have injured its prestige, for the third annual 

 session, held at Springfield, January 19, 1875, was attended by 

 delegates from but twenty-one counties, although the secretary 

 estimated the number of clubs in the state at sixteen hundred. 

 Accepting this estimate as approximately correct, there were, 

 including the granges, some three thousand local farmers' 

 organizations with a membership of at least one hundred and 

 fifty thousand in a state in which about four hundred thousand 

 people were engaged in agriculture. 2 



Although many delegates from the subordinate granges 

 helped to form the Illinois State Farmers' Association and took 

 part in its earlier meetings, there was, nevertheless, a continual 

 rivalry and even hostility between the two forms of organization 

 from the beginning. The officers of the State Farmers' Associa- 

 tion attempted to keep them in harmony, but the leaders of 

 the Patrons of Husbandry in the state looked upon the clubs 



1 Prairie Farmer, xliv. 36, 59, 100, 217, 220, 225, 409 (February-December, 

 1873); Chicago Tribune, 1873, March 12, p. 2, March 22, p. 4, May 10, p. 2; Ameri- 

 can Annual Cyclopedia, 1873, pp. 367-369; Illinois State Farmers' Association, 

 Proceedings, ii; Flagg, in American Social Science Journal, vi. 105 (July, 1874). 



2 Prairie Farmer, xlv. 27, 129, 155, 161, 195, 275, 403 (1874), xlvi. 35 (January 

 5> 1875); Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1875, P- 393- 



