3GO HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



of age, he has conducted the correspondence which has 

 united the farmers of the State, and prepared the speeches 

 that have roused them from their apathy. Mr. Smith 

 met me at the hotel, and invited me to Willow Farm, 

 remarking that we should have a much better oppor- 

 tunity to talk there, and that he had some letters and 

 documents which he desired to show me. I think that 

 I have before said in one of my letters, that the farmers 

 of this State have two distinct organizations. The 

 Grange is a secret organization extending over many of 

 the States, non-political in its character. The initia- 

 tion fee of the Grange is five dollars for men, and three 

 dollars for women, and a tax of ten cents a month is 

 collected from each member. Entirely distinct from 

 the Grange is the Farmers' Club, an open society, which 

 until the formation or the State Association, was 

 entirely independent. In October last, Mr. Smith, who 

 was then Secretary of the Farmers' Club of this place, 

 called a meeting to be held in Kewanee, on the 16th 

 and 17th of that month, and about fifty delegates from 

 farmers' clubs and granges attended. The sessions 

 were held in a large hall, and a few of the citizens 

 occasionally dropped in, saw a small knot of people in 

 one corner of the room, laughed and went out. But 

 those few men formed the State Association, appointed 

 a State Central Committee, and a committee of one from 

 each county. The Executive Committee there chosen 

 issued the call for the Bloomington Convention of last 

 January, probably the most important farmers' meeting 

 ever held in this State. It is of this State Association, 

 composed of delegates from both clubs and granges, 

 that Mr. Smith is Secretary. 



"Until I met Mr. Smith, I had been unable to get any 



