ECONOMIC PROGRAM OF THE GRANGE 297 



sonnel of the movement. In Illinois the real organ of agitation was 

 the " State Farmers' Association," composed of local " Farmers' 

 Clubs." Its President, W. C. Flagg, testified in 1873 before the 

 Windom Committee that he was not a member of the Grange and 

 that his organization was an open, political one, not like the 

 Grange, a secret non-political one. (3) Grange principles. The 

 official declaration of purposes of the Grange, adopted in 1874 

 at St. Louis, states that the Grange is not hostile to railroads. In 

 1875 a resolution from Texas favoring railroad legislation was 

 suppressed. Congressman D. W. Aiken of South Carolina, long 

 a member of the Grange National Executive Committee, said in 

 an address, " There existed in Illinois and Wisconsin and other 

 sections of the Northwest agricultural clubs whose province seemed 

 to be to wage war against transportation companies. Anathemas 

 were hurled upon the Grange for making this attack, whereas 

 every Patron of Husbandry knows that the Grange as such was 

 not a participant in the fight from beginning to end." 



However, whoever the farmers were that started the railroad 

 reform legislation, the Grange did quite early become drawn into 

 various economic movements. Mr. Kelley thought he was start- 

 ing a social and educational movement. Hard times in the West, 

 hard times in the East, low prices of farm products, soon caused the 

 original purpose of the Grange to be overshadowed by the cooper- 

 ative, anti-middleman feature. It was this feature which caused 

 the tremendous growth of the Grange from 1870 to 1875, and 

 almost threatened to transform the farmers into a race of mer- 

 chants and traders, 4 As soon as the more radical Granges of the 

 West got control of the National Grange a movement was started 

 to make of it a gigantic cooperative scheme, with three national 

 purchasing agents, one at New York, one at Chicago, and one at 

 New Orleans. This scheme was dropped as impracticable. Then 

 came a period of the buying of patent rights to manufacture vari- 

 ous machines, such as harvesters, mowers, reapers, etc. The 

 Executive Committee expressed the theory of it in these words: 

 " To secure rights to manufacture leading implements . . . is pre- 

 eminently a duty of the National Grange, and a measure of the 



4 An amusing incident occurred in connection with a General Business 

 Purchasing Agent appointed by the Minnesota State Grange. The Secretary 

 of the Minnesota State Grange wrote a letter to Mr. Kelley in Washington, 

 informing him officially that the first purchasing order had reached St. Paul, 

 the order being for the purchase of a jackass. Mr. Kelley wrpte on this letter 

 the following memorandum: "This purchasing business commenced with buy- 

 ing jackasses; the prospects are that many will be sold," 



