38 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



in farmers' organizations and to hold positions of 

 trust in his township and county. 



By 1873 Taylor had acquired considerable local 

 political experience and had even held a seat in the 

 state senate. As president of the State Agricultural 

 Society, he was quite naturally chosen to head the 

 ticket of the new Liberal Reform party. The brew- 

 ing interests of the State, angered at a drastic tem- 

 perance law enacted by the preceding legislature, 

 swung their support to Taylor. Thus reenforced, he 

 won the election. As governor he made vigorous 

 and tireless attempts to enforce the Granger rail- 

 road laws, and on one occasion he scandalized the 

 conventional citizens of the State by celebrating 

 a favorable court decision in one of the Granger 

 cases with a salvo of artillery from the capitol. 



Yet in spite of this prominence, Taylor, after his 

 defeat for reelection in 1875, retired to his farm and 

 to obscurity. His vivid personality was not again 

 to assert itself in public affairs. It is difficult to 

 account for the fact that so few of the leaders dur- 

 ing the Granger period played prominent parts in 

 later phases of the agrarian crusade. The rank 

 and file of the successive parties must have been 

 much the same, but each wave of the movement 

 swept new leaders to the surface. 



