324 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



ting rich and living in comfort upon the profits of his 

 business and his labor. For many of the discomforts 

 and privations of their lot there are compensations, of 

 course. They do not deny this, though they could 

 hardly be expected to enumerate them in the recital of 

 their complaints, for they belong to the other side of 

 the case. On the other side of the case, too, are con- 

 siderations that pertain to the kind of crops they raise, 

 whether they could not make their business more pro- 

 fitable by the exercise of sounder judgment in the choice 

 of crops to be produced, and other similar suggestions. 

 But underlying all this is a grievance actual and tangi- 

 ble, and that is their present and immediate objective 

 point, to wit : the absolute power over them and their 

 business of the railroad corporations which have been 

 created by their votes. They have seen the railroads 

 discriminating against them in freight tariffs, and pay- 

 ing no heed to remonstrance or protest. They have 

 appealed to legislatures and to courts, and found them- 

 selves met with the money and power of great moneyed 

 corporations ; and finally they have betaken themselves 

 to organization and to trying the force of numbers for 

 the acquisition of what they believe to be their rights. 

 They may be striking out in some cases blindly and in 

 a hasty, unreasoning way ; but what they mean to do 

 is to agitate the subject till it gets some attention and 

 some thought from men competent to devise a remedy, 

 or at least a relief." 



Efforts have been made by some of the Western 

 States to protect their farmers against the extortions of 

 the roads; but little has been accomplished. The rail- 

 road corporations, relying upon their great wealth and 

 their immense patronage, insolently defy the States 



