50 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ligently on probabilities; to discountenance the credit system, the mortgage 
system, the fashion system, and every other system tending to prodigality and 
bankruptcy. We propose meeting together, talking together, working to¬ 
gether, buying together, selling together and generally acting together for our 
mutual protection and advancement, as occasion may require. We shall 
avoid litigation as much as possible by arbitration in the grange; we shall 
strive to secure harmony, good will, vital brotherhood among ourselves, and 
to make our order perpetual. We shall earnestly endeavor to suppress per¬ 
sonal, local, sectional and national prejudice; all unhealthy rivalry and all 
selfish ambition. Faithful adherence to these principles will insure our 
mental, moral, social and material advancement. 
“ 4. For our business interests we desire to bring producers and consumers, 
farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possi¬ 
ble. Hence, we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen. Not that we 
are unfriendly to them, but we do not need them. They are surplus, and their 
exactions diminish our profits. We wage no aggressive warfare against any 
other interest whatever. On the contrary, all our acts and all our efforts, so 
far as business is concerned, are not only for the benefit of the producers and 
consumers, but also for all other interests that try to bring these two parties 
into speedy and economical contact; hence we hold that transportation com¬ 
panies of every kind are necessary to our success, that their interests are in¬ 
timately connected with our interests, and harmonious action is mutually 
advantageous. Keeping in view the first sentence in our declaration of prin- 
ples of action, that individual happiness depends upon general prosperity, 
we shall therefore advocate for every state the increase in every practical 
way of all the facilities for transporting cheaply to the seaboard, or between 
home producers and consumers, all the productions of our country. We 
adopt it as our fixed purpose to open out the channels in nature’s great arte¬ 
ries that the life-blood of commerce may flow freely. We are not enemies of 
railways, navigable and irrigating canals, nor of any corporations that will 
advocate our industrial interests, nor of any laboring classes. In our noble 
order there is no Communism, no Agrarianism. We are opposed to such 
spirit, and the management of anj- corporation or enterprise which tends to 
oppress the people and rob them of their just profits. We are not enemies 
to capital, but we oppose the tyranny of monopolies. We long to see the an¬ 
tagonism between capital and labor removed by common consent, and by an 
enlightened statesmanship worthy of the nineteenth century. We are op¬ 
posed to excessive salaries, high rates of interest and exhorbitant per cent, 
profits in trade. Thev greatly increase our burdens, and do not bear a proper 
proportion to the profits of the producer. We desire only self-protection 
and the protection of every true interest of our land by legitimate transac¬ 
tions, legitimate trade and legitimate profits. We shall advance the cause of 
education among ourselves and for our children by all just means within our 
power. We especially advocate for our agricultural and industrial colleges, 
that practical agriculture and domestic science and all the arts which adorn 
the home, be taught in their courses of study. 
