662 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



and at once clamored for subsidies. Others boasted of the great- 

 est prosperity, one making a dividend of 50 per cent the first 

 year. In 1874 two thirds of the elevators in Iowa were in Grange 

 hands. The experiment of shipping provisions directly to South- 

 ern Grange centers was undertaken. In 1876 the patrons were 

 said to own 5 steamboat or packet lines, 32 grain-elevators, and 

 22 warehouses. Some of these were local ventures, but the full 

 treasuries of the State Granges furnished the capital for most of 

 them. It is always easy to experiment with other men's money, 

 and the State Grange officials found no difficulty in getting, with 

 the Grange funds, into enterprises where disaster was inevitable. 

 It came in every instance. The blow was so overwhelming in 

 some states (Arkansas and Nebraska, for example) that they 

 dropped at once from the order. District Granges disbanded for 

 fear of being held individually liable for State Grange debts, and 

 the very name Granger became a reproach. In other states the 

 Grange was greatly weakened, but survived. In Iowa a few 

 hundred of the faithful have struggled on for years, the officers 

 receiving no salaries but devoting all receipts to the debt left as 

 a reminder of past glories. Professor R. T. Ely, in his recent 

 book on " The Labor Movement in America," expatiates on the 

 " grand results " achieved by the patrons in co-operation, and 

 credits the absurd statement that Grange savings in this way 

 amounted to $12,000,000 in one year! Unfortunately, the 

 greater number of enterprises were " grand " chiefly in failure, 

 a fact of which Professor Ely seems never to have heard. About 

 all that survived the wreck of the later seventies were mutual- 

 insurance companies, principally fire-insurance, and co-operative 

 stores. At present, Grange insurance companies are reported 

 from more than half the states and from Canada, and Grange 

 co-operative stores are even more widespread. Successful buying- 

 agencies still exist in five states, and the Delaware patrons have 

 a fruit-exchange. The most interesting state of things is found 

 in Texas, where there are about one hundred and twenty-five 

 Grange stores established on the modification of the Rochdale 

 rules, and banded together in a state association. This holds 



