AS A POLITICAL FORCE 1 07 



judges was frustrated, 1 and in Ohio a law fixing the salaries of 

 county officials was passed in 1875, against the proposed repeal 

 of which the state grange protested vigorously in i876. 2 In 

 addition, the general watchfulness and suspicion of public 

 officials which was inculcated by the granges undoubtedly served 

 to check to some extent the corruption and extravagance which 

 permeated the government of many states during the decade 

 following the Civil War. 3 



Numerous other legislative projects, mainly of local interest, 

 attracted the attention of different state granges. Thus in 

 California, a committee of the state grange circulated a petition 

 asking the legislature to establish a general system of irrigation 

 under the control of the state. Some of the granges, located in 

 parts of the state where the direct advantages of the proposed 

 system would not be felt, refused their support to the measure; 

 but a bill embodying the features of the proposed system was 

 presented to the Assembly in January, 1874, by a Granger 

 member from Los Angeles. This bill, known by the name of 

 its introducer as Venable's bill, passed the Assembly by a majority 

 of thirty votes, but was defeated in the Senate, through the 

 influence, it was claimed, of the San Joaquin and King's River 

 Canal Company, a corporation which controlled a considerable 

 part of the private irrigation business of the state. The Grange 

 committee in its report to the state grange, made in the fall of 

 1874, intimated strongly that money was used with the senators 

 to defeat this measure. 4 



In the proceedings of a number of southern granges, resolu- 

 tions are to be found which reflect the conditions prevailing in 

 that part of the country during the era of reconstruction. Thus 

 the South Carolina Grange, at its fourth annual session in 1875, 

 asked for legislation to prohibit the traffic in produce at night, 5 

 and in Mississippi in the same year, the state grange demanded 



1 Paine, Granger Movement in Illinois, 32. 



2 Ohio State Grange, Proceedings, iii. 85 (1876). 



3 Dunning, Reconstruction, ch. xiv. 



4 California State Grange, Declaration of Purposes; Carr, Patrons of Husbandry, 

 146-148, 183-185. 



6 South Carolina State Grange, Proceedings, iv (1875). 



