THE FARMERS BURDENS. 133 



isliment of their benefactors. Yet it is true that these men, who 

 stand between you and the market, and whose duty it is to transfer 

 and distribute the products of your labor to and among the con 

 sumers of the same, for a reasonable toll, have combined to flank 

 the law of &quot;demand and supply,&quot; forming rings and corners at 

 your expense, and are gambling recklessly and wickedly your 

 rights and your money being their stakes. They have gotten to 

 themselves fortunes, and, to complete their work, these ill-gotten 

 gains are employed as a corruption-fund, to turn aside the arm of 

 justice, and buy the men to whom you have intrusted .your dearest 

 interests in the State and National Legislatures. Laws that have 

 sheltered you from the rapacity of these capital .combinations are 

 quickly repealed, and other laws are enacted by which other rings 

 are formed to prey as vampires upon your material and industrial 

 interests. 



Extravagant salaries, without precedent elsewhere, are fixed for 

 your public functionaries, while the system of prodigality is inau 

 gurated, which, if continued, must terminate in your bankruptcy; 

 for, to meet this unwise expenditure of public funds, heavy assess 

 ments of taxes must be made, in the apportionment of which a dis 

 crimination, as unscrupulous as it is invidious, is made against the 

 farmer in the interest of the money power. 



This work of public corruption and la/boj^jiapjDJgerishiri ent , to 

 which I have alluded, is by no means connnecTto California, but is 

 wide-spread and threatening throughout our whole country. Its 

 deadly leaven has been at work in the councils of our nation, and 

 threatens to-day, more than any other agency, the overthrow of our 

 free government. At the sight of developments within the few 

 months past at &quot;Washington, good men grow sick and turn away. 



As unpromising as this picture makes our future, we have grounds 

 for hope, for the people are the source of power; and, thank God, 

 they are waking up all over the land in almost every hamlet and 

 school-house. The farmers, yes, and the farmers wives God bless 

 them are in council. For a like purpose you are convened to-day, 

 as American citizens, as representatives of the great producing in 

 terests of California, and as representatives from your respective 

 Granges, to consider the state of the country, and to discuss the 

 necessities of the hour. We are here to form the California State 

 Grange of Patrons of Husbandry. You will remember that the 

 eyes of the oppressed farmers, all over this State, are turned to you 

 for relief, while your enemies will most diligently scrutinize your 

 every act. Conscious, then, of the weight and importance of your 

 duties here, you will, as the State Grange, define for the Order, in 

 this State, a line of future action, which, in your judgment will, at 

 the earliest possible day, most surely emancipate labor from the des 

 potism of capital combinations; one that will bring about the 

 needed reform in your State and inter-State commerce, and drive 

 from places of honor and trust the corrupt horde who have fattened 

 upon your substance. 



With clean hands and pure hearts should we come to such a work. 

 Therefore let each lay upon the common altar of this new Order 

 whatever he may have of selfish ambition, or of mercenary motive, 



