286 Tli;^ FARMER AS A COOPERATOR. 



time, and was designed to be, as in the main it has finally 

 become, simply a fraternal society for enriching the social life 

 of rural people, broadening their views of economic questions, 

 and uniting them in all efforts for the local, state, and national 

 welfare. It is, and always has been, kept strictly non-partisan 

 in political matters, cariying the rule, possibly, to extremes in 

 discouraging, in the Granges, discussion even on some vital 

 economic topics — such, for examj)le, as the tariff — on which 

 the people are divided sharply by party lines. While this 

 extreme care sometimes appears unfortunate in preventing 

 temperate discussion of such sulyects in subordinate Granges, 

 it probably, after all, has been the main source of strength of 

 the Order, and is its strongest assurance of permanence. It is 

 being constantly made manifest tliat in this country, at least, 

 any endeavor to exert political influence by tlie control of 

 party organization, will result, if persisted in, in the death of 

 the secret society attempting it. 



While the Grange was organized by conservative men, 

 substantially on the lines as above set forth, it would have 

 been impossible, at that time, for the order to have lived on 

 those lines. In very few communities, at that time, would it 

 have been possible to have secured the regular attendance of 

 farmers in assemblies for recreation and mutual improvement. 

 The order struggled along, and was apparently about to die, 

 until tlie organizing force reached tlie central Mississippi 

 Valley. They found there, among the farmers, a condition 

 of social discontent which was particularly favorable to the 

 spread of a new order whose object was the removal of 

 the ills of the farmer. The order as it existed, however, did 

 not answer the purpose. A proposal to study the causes of 

 evil did not appeal strongly to those who wished to remove 

 the evils first and discuss them later. Energetic men of the 

 west saw, as they thought, in the Grange, the means of an 

 immediate reconstruction of rural society by the abolition of 

 the middleman. The principle of buying together and selling 

 together was engrafted on the order, and made its chief corner- 

 stone. This was wholly against the judgment of the founders, 

 and only accepted by them because the only alternative was 



