THE RISE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 647 



their fellow-clerks and their wives, to experiment with the ritual. 

 The experiment proving satisfactory, Kelley resigned his clerkship 

 and started out to proclaim the Grange to the world, armed only 

 with a few dollars and a sort of introductory letter from the other 

 six to mankind at large. 



He was not a success as a lecturer. Moreover, he made the 

 mistake of laboring in the larger towns, instead of in the country. 

 The four or five Granges that he coaxed into life at once pro- 

 ceeded to die, and he finally reached Minnesota penniless, but 

 not discouraged. Even while the six at Washington were be- 

 coming faint-hearted, and writing to him that the landlady was 

 pressing them grievously for hall-rent, and that it would be wise 

 to give up the whole business, he could issue the circular with 

 which I began, dilating upon the success of the order and the 

 distinguished agriculturists at Washington who founded it. At 

 his home, near Itasca, he worked on furiously, now dodging a 

 creditor, again obliged to postpone answering letters for want of 

 means to buy postage-stamps, till finally signs of success began 

 to appear. He had organized a few Granges in Minnesota, and 

 was able to detect a growing interest in other states. The prime 

 necessity now was to encourage this feeble beginning, and by all 

 s to keep it under the delusion that it was part of a power- 

 ful national organization. To this end every cent that could be 

 earned or borrowed was used in distributing photographs of the 

 founders, along with a mass of circulars and documents purport- 

 ing to come from the national office at Washington. I 

 important question was ostensibly referred by Kelley to the exec- 

 utive committee at the same place, and the decisions and power 

 of this mythical body were held in ^reat awe by the patrons. 

 But other men were becoming interested and going to work. In 

 Minnesota they were able to organize a State Grange, having 

 :v<l the fifteen district Granges required by the constitution. 

 Tw> years later the State Grange of Iowa was organized, and its 

 Worthy Master crossed the country to attend what the founders 

 were pleased to call the " Fiftieth Annual Session of the National 



the first member of the order to meet 

 the seven. What he thought on ascertaining the real state of 



