THE RISE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 647 



their fellow-clerks and their wives, to experiment with the ritual. 

 The experiment proving satisfactory, Kelley resigned his clerkship 

 and started out to proclaim the Grange to the world, armed only 

 with a few dollars and a sort of introductory letter from the other 

 six to mankind at large. 



He was not a success as a lecturer. Moreover, he made the 

 mistake of laboring in the larger towns, instead of in the country. 

 The four or five Granges that he coaxed into life at once pro- 

 ceeded to die, and he finally reached Minnesota penniless, but 

 not discouraged. Even while the six at Washington were be- 

 coming faint-hearted, and writing to him that the landlady was 

 pressing them grievously for hall-rent, and that it would be wise 

 to give up the whole business, he could issue the circular with 

 which I began, dilating upon the success of the order and the 

 distinguished agriculturists at Washington who founded it. At 

 his home, near Itasca, he worked on furiously, now dodging a 

 creditor, again obliged to postpone answering letters for want of 

 means to buy postage-stamps, till finally signs of success began 

 to appear. He had organized a few Granges in Minnesota, and 

 was able to detect a growing interest in other states. The prime 

 necessity now was to encourage this feeble beginning, and by all 

 means to keep it under the delusion that it was part of a power- 

 ful national organization. To this end every cent that could be 

 earned or borrowed was used in distributing photographs of the 

 founders, along with a mass of circulars and documents purport- 

 ing to come from the national office at Washington. Every 

 important question was ostensibly referred by Kelley to the exec- 

 utive committee at the same place, and the decisions and power 

 of this mythical body were held in great awe by the patrons. 

 But other men were becoming interested and going to work. In 

 Minnesota they were able to organize a State Grange, having 

 mustered the fifteen district Granges required by the constitution. 

 Two years later the State Grange of Iowa was organized, and its 

 Worthy Master crossed the country to attend what the founders 

 were pleased to call the " Fiftieth Annual Session of the National 

 Grange." He was the first member of the order to meet with 

 the seven. What he thought on ascertaining the real state of 



