26 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



opposition. When the Grangers began to speak of 

 their function in terms of business and political co- 

 operation, the forces against which they were unit- 

 ing took alarm. The commission men and local 

 merchants of the South were especially apprehen- 

 sive and, it is said, sometimes foreclosed the mort- 

 gages of planters who were so independent as to join 

 the order. But here, as elsewhere, persecution de- 

 feated its own end; the opposition of their enemies 

 convinced the farmers of the merits of the Grange. 

 In the East, several circumstances retarded the 

 movement. In the first place, the Eastern farmer 

 had for some time felt the Western farmer to be his 

 serious rival. The Westerner had larger acreage 

 and larger yields from his virgin soil than the 

 Easterner from his smaller tracts of well-nigh ex- 

 hausted land. What crops the latter did produce 

 he must sell in competition with the Western crops, 

 and he was not eager to lower freight charges for 

 his competitor. A second deterrent to the growth 

 of the order in the East was the organization of two 

 Granges among the commission men and the grain 

 dealers of Boston and New York, under the aegis of 

 that clause of the constitution which declared any 

 person interested in agriculture to be eligible to 

 membership in the order. Though the storm of 



