THE RISE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 651 



farmers, who had gone into debt in flush times, felt the pinch of 

 an appreciating currency. A villainous tariff, increasing the cost 

 of transportation and of everything they bought, conspired with 

 the rest to produce unavoidable distress. Add to all this the 

 crisis of 1873, and it is not strange that there was a " Farmers' 

 Movement." " Organize ! " was the universal cry, and there were 

 as many reasons for it, in the farmer's mind, as he had needs 

 and grievances, fancied or real, and these were legion. Owing to 

 the change in economic conditions, wheat could no longer pay 

 transportation charges and be profitable. According to the reportv/ 

 of the Senate Committee on Transportation to the Seaboard, the 

 average price of wheat in Chicago fell thirty-three cents from 

 1868 to 1872, while the charge for transportation to the East fell 

 but nine cents. The farmer was forced to feed his grain to his {/ 

 cattle or use it for fuel. In this state of things the railroad 

 loomed up before him as the only obstacle between himself and 

 his hungry Eastern brother, whose needs he was anxious to sup- 

 ply for a fair compensation. A toll for transportation exceed- 

 ing the price he received seemed a priori a monstrous extortion. 

 To aggravate matters, the railroads were run with unparalleled ^ 

 short-sightedness. The term "railroad official" was a synonym 

 for insolence. There had been great corruption in the building 

 of many of the roads, and such imperfectly comprehended terms 

 as " Credit Mobilier," "watered stock," and "Wall Street specu- ^ 

 lation," were in everybody's mouth. Most of the stock was owned - 

 in the East and in Europe, and the expression " absentee owner- 

 ship " began to arouse somewhat the same feeling as in Ireland. 

 The Nation pleaded for the widows and orphans who were kept 

 from want only by their railroad-stock, but the farmer replied 

 that the stock was in the hands of such orphans as Commodore 

 Vanderbilt and Jay Gould, who could look out for themselves. 

 Add the fact that the railroads felt the hard times as much as<^' 

 the farmers ; that for very self-preservation the traffic at compet- 

 ing points was so furiously fought for as to make rates ruinously 

 low, while each road extorted all it could squeeze where there was 

 no competition, and it will not seem strange that the " Farmers' 

 Movement" developed, on one side, into a political organization 



