306 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 







National Farmers' League which was established in Massa- 

 chusetts in 1889, primarily for the purpose of securing a law 

 regulating the sale of oleomargerine. 1 As one organization or 

 one group of organizations declined, however, others arose to 

 take their places and the farmers' movement went on. By 

 1890 the Grange had recovered sufficiently from the disasters 

 of its early career to begin a reconquest of its old fields; more 

 or less independent farmers' clubs have continued to flourish 

 in many parts of the West; and today the American Society of 

 Equity, with purposes similar to those of the Grange, though 

 perhaps more openly political, is enrolling large numbers of 

 farmers in its ranks. 



The influence of the Granger movement as an example of 

 organization was not confined to the agricultural class. When 

 the order of Patrons of Husbandry was at the height of pros- 

 perity an attempt was made to combine the workingmen of 

 the country into a similar secret society adapted to their pur- 

 poses. The order of Sovereigns of Industry, of which the very 

 name betrays an imitation, was founded by William H. Earle 

 in Massachusetts in i874. 2 Like the Grange this order was 

 composed of subordinate, state, and national councils and the 

 preamble of the constitution adopted by the National Council 

 at its session in Philadelphia in 1875 declared its purpose to be 

 to elevate and improve the condition of the laboring classes of 

 every calling. It further expressed an intention of presenting 

 an " organized resistance to the organized encroachments of the 

 monopolies and other evils of the existing industrial and com- 

 mercial system." The hand of fellowship was extended to kindred 

 organizations and " especially to the Patrons of Husbandry, 

 whose colossal growth and power already command that consid- 

 eration so justly due to the great basic industry of agriculture." 3 



1 Butterfield, in Bailey, Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, 295; Chamberlain, 

 Farmers' Alliance, ch. vii. 



2 Earle was intimate with Dudley W. Adams, master of the National Grange 

 from 1873 to 1875. He admitted that his inspiration came from the Patrons of 

 Husbandry. Bemis, in Johns Hopkins University, Studies, vi. 37. On the Sov- 

 ereigns of Industry, see ibid. 37-52; R. T. Ely, The Labor Movement, 174-177. 



3 Sovereigns of Industry, Constitution . . . revised and adopted . . 



