COLLAPSE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 61 



Its methods of organization, too, while admirably 

 adapted to arousing enthusiasm and to securing 

 new chapters quickly, did not make for stability 

 and permanence. The Grange deputy, as the or- 

 ganizer was termed, did not do enough of what the 

 salesman calls "follow-up work. " He went into a 

 town, persuaded an influential farmer to go about 

 with him in a house-to-house canvass, talked to the 

 other farmers of the vicinity, stirred them up to 

 interest and excitement, organized a Grange, and 

 then left the town. If he happened to choose the 

 right material, the chapter became an active and 

 flourishing organization; if he did not choose wisely, 

 it might drag along in a perfunctory existence or 

 even lapse entirely. Then, too, the deputy's ig- 

 rorance of local conditions sometimes led him to 

 open the door to the farmers' enemies. There can 

 be little doubt that insidious harm was worked 

 through the admission into the Grange of men who 

 were farmers only incidentally and whose "inter- 

 est in agriculture" was limited to making profits 

 from the farmer rather than from the farm. As 

 D. Wyatt Aiken, deputy for the Grange in the 

 Southern States and later member of the executive 

 committee of the National Grange, shrewdly com- 

 mented, "Everybody wanted to join the Grange 



