THE OUTCOME OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 

 By Charles W. Pierson 



(From l^e Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XXXII, No. 3, p. 368, January, 

 1888. Reprinted by Permission of D. Appleton and Company) 



THE founders of the Grange thought they were establishing 

 an Order whose aims were to be social and educational. 

 But these were soon overshadowed by the co-operative, anti- 

 middleman feature. This drew more into the Order than all 

 other considerations combined, at one time almost threatening to 

 transform our farming population into a race of traders, and this 

 was likewise the chief cause of Grange decay. Fighting middle- 

 men, unlike fighting railroads, was a legitimate kind of activity, as 

 it had nothing to do with politics or theology the two subjects 

 tabooed by Granger law. Unfortunately, the story of Granger co- 

 operation is recorded nowhere and thoroughly known to nobody. 

 Those who know most preserve a discreet silence, mindful of 

 questionable transactions and failures, now generally forgotten. 

 No sooner had Kelley established a few Grangers in Minne- 

 sota in 1869 than they set up a clamor for leasing flouring-mills 

 and appointing agents in St. Paul and New York, in order to 

 mill and ship their own grain. However farcical might be the 

 position of the founders at Washington, they at least were con- 

 servative enough to disavow this action. But upon Minnesota's 

 threat to secede they yielded, a^d an agent was appointed in 

 St. Paul. His first commission chanced to be to buy a jackass 

 for a patron, whereupon one of the founders rhade comment : 

 "This purchasing business commenced with buying asses; the 

 prospects are that many will be sold." As soon as the National 

 Grange fell into the hands of farmers, there was a movement to 

 make it the head of a gigantic co-operative scheme. It was pro- 

 posed to have three national purchasing-agents, stationed at New 



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