THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 417 



debt, and finally to check the enormous power of the 

 railroads which have so long been driving the farmers 

 to the wall. In fact, the Grange succeeded so well 

 because it had the art to take the average men and 

 women of the .West and make them work without 

 knowing it, and accomplish what they hardly dreamed 

 of. That it did succeed is a sufficient evidence that it 

 was founded upon a genuine and general popular need, 

 and directed toward a really important object. Even 

 if it should be worsted at last in the struggle against 

 monopoly, it will still have done ample good to justify 

 its existence. 



" What the end of the railroad question is to be no 

 one can yet predict. The difficulties of the case are 

 perplexing, and they vary in different States, nay, in 

 different towns. Thus far we cannot see that the 

 Patrons of Husbandry have made any distinct impres- 

 sion upon the defences of their chief adversary. Rates 

 have been raised rather than lowered on the transpor- 

 tation lines since this agitation began. Legislation 

 where it has been attempted has done little good. The 

 decisions of the courts have settled no great principles, 

 and it is not clear that the courts themselves are not in 

 danger of being unsettled by the popular passion. But 

 it is a great thing to have brought the farmers' cause 

 so prominently before the public that their complaints 

 are now familiar to every intelligent man in the United 

 States. It is a great thing to have created almost uni- 

 versal sympathy for them. It is a great thing to have 

 made the farmers formidable in the eyes of the poli- 

 ticians, started Committees of Congress and the Legis- 

 latures travelling about the country to find out what 

 can be done for them, and terrified caucuses into crav- 

 27 



