BUSINESS COOPERATION 273 



It was open to Patrons only and entrance fees ranging from three 

 to fifteen dollars, depending upon age, were collected from appli- 

 cants. These fees were kept as a reserve fund, but when the 

 fund exceeded ten thousand dollars the surplus was to be used 

 to pay death claims. Otherwise the death claims were to be 

 met by assessments of one dollar upon each member but were 

 not to exceed two thousand dollars. At the end of six years, 

 the Elmira society had a membership of about eleven hundred, 

 and ten death claims had been paid. The by-laws of the society 

 were circulated among Patrons all over the country, and furnished 

 a model for the organization of a considerable number of similar 

 societies in other states, usually under the auspices of the state 

 granges. Patrons' mutual aid societies were thus established 

 in Arkansas, 1 Tennessee, 2 Kansas, 3 and Wisconsin, 4 in 1875, in 

 North 5 and South Carolina 6 in 1877, in Maine 7 and New 

 Hampshire 8 in 1878. The Patrons' Benevolent Aid Society of 

 Wisconsin had a membership of about eleven hundred in 1880; 

 but this began to decrease soon after and it went out of existence 

 about 1890. As a general rule, Grange life insurance does not 

 appear to have been as successful as fire insurance. It worked 

 all right for a few years; but soon the death rate began to increase 

 and then the membership generally decreased. 9 



1 Arkansas State Grange, Proceedings, v. 23 (1877). 



2 Tennessee State Grange, Proceedings, ii. 55 (1875). 



3 Kansas State Grange, Proceedings, iii (1875). 



4 Wisconsin State Grange, Proceedings, iv-xvi (1876-88); Patrons' Benevo- 

 lent Aid Society (Wisconsin), Annual Circular with Articles of Incorporation and 

 By-Laws, 1878; Lea, Grange Movement in Wisconsin (Ms.), 16-18. 



5 North Carolina State Grange, Proceedings, iii, iv (1876, 1877). 



6 " Essays Read before the South Carolina State Grange," in South Carolina 

 State Agricultural and Mechanical Society, Transactions, 1877, pp. 24-27. 



7 Maine State Grange, Proceedings, vi. 29, 32, 39 (1880). 



8 New Hampshire State Grange, Proceedings, i-iii, v, vii (1875-80). 



9 A curious insurance scheme made its appearance in Alabama. The Grangers' 

 Life and Health Insurance Company of the United States was organized by 

 private parties at Mobile in 1875 an d agreed to give the state grange twenty-five 

 per cent of the first premium on all policies obtained through the influence of the 

 order. Alabama State Grange, Proceedings, iii. 5, 36 (1875). 



