6 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



receipts of any subordinate Granges he should es- 

 tablish. Thus authorized, Kelley bought a ticket 

 for Harrisburg, and with two dollars and a half in 

 his pocket, started out to work his way to Minne- 

 sota by organizing Granges. Cn his way out he 

 sold four dispensations for the establishment of 

 branch organizations three for Granges in Har- 

 .risburg, Columbus, and Chicago, which came to 

 nothing, and one for a Grange in Fredonia, New 

 York, which was the first regular, active, and per- 

 manent local organization. This, it is important 

 to note, was established as a result of correspond- 

 ence with a farmer of that place, and in by far the 

 smallest town of the four. Kelley seems at first to 

 have made the mistake of attempting to establish 

 the order in the large cities, where it had no native 

 soil in which to grow. 



When Kelley revised his plan and began to work 

 from his farm in Minnesota and among neighbors 

 whose main interest was in agriculture, he was 

 more successful. His progress was not, however, 

 so marked as to insure his salary and expenses; in 

 tact, the whole history of these early years repre- 

 sents the hardest kind of struggle against financial 

 difficulties. Later, Kelley wrote of this difficult 

 period : " If all great enterprises, to be permanent, 



