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move proved abortive and but one new grange was organized in the State during the year1o. Late in 1870 Kelley transferred his headquarters to Washington and turned over most of the work of organization to deputies appointed by himself or by the masters of State Granges. By this time stage granges had been organized in Minnesota and Iowa and in the latter state especially, the granges began to multiply rapidly in 1871. In June of that year, J. Wilkinson, one of the successful Iowa deputies began operations in northern Illinois and succeeded in establishing five additional granges in the State before the end of the year".

By 1872 the agitation for railroad regulation had reached considerable proportions in Illinois and the farmers were beginning to look about for some means of joint action against oppressive railroads and monopolies. Up to this time the leaders of the Patrons of Husbandry had emphasized mainly the social and fraternal aspects of the order but they now determined to lay more stress upon the opportunities which it afforded for protective and co-operative organization."2 To many farmers it seemed that here was the weapon which they had been looking for, ready-fashioned for their hands, and as a consequence the order now swept over the states of the Northwest like a prairie fire.

The work begun by Wilkinson in Illinois in 1871 was continued in the spring of the next year; and on March 5, 1872, Kelly met the Masters of the Illinois granges at Dixon and organized the State Grange on a permanent basis, with Alonzo Golder as master and O. E. Fanning, secretary. Considerable activity ensued and the year 1872 saw the organization of between sixty and seventy subordinate granges in Illinois, mainly in Whiteside and

10 Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 245, 269-272, 285, 289, 295; Prairie Farmer, XLI, 89, 130, (March 26, April 30, 1870).

11 Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 333, 339; Paine, The Granger Movement in Illinois, 10.

12 Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 256-259, 302-305, 315, 320, 322, 385, 409.

Lee and the adjoining counties in the northwestern part of the State13. On May 1, the State Grange held another meeting for the installation of officers and other business; and in August, the Patrons of Whiteside county held the first of the grange picnics which were to become very popular in the State in the next few years. The first annual meeting of the State Grange was held in December, 1872, with seventy granges represented and in the next month, six masters of State Granges and a number of deputies representing in all eleven different states, assembled with the "Founders" in Washington and reorganized the National Grange on a permanent basis. For the first time the control of this great agricultural order passed into the hands of actual farmers1.

After this the work of organization went on rapidly and Illinois quickly stepped to second rank among the grange states, Iowa continuing to hold the lead. The number of local deputies at work in Illinois increased from fourteen in January, 1873, to fifty in August, most of whom had charge of two or three counties, while there were in addition a dozen general deputies commissioned to organize anywhere in the State. Secretary Kelley's report of May 19, 1873, credited Illinois with 431 granges; and 750 masters attended the second annual session of the State Grange at Bloomington, December 9, at which time it was estimated that there were eight hundred granges in the State. This number was nearly doubled during 1874, 704 granges being organized that year, making the total 1533 according to the official report of January 1, 1875. The third session of the State

13 Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 359, 368, 374; National Grange, Proc., VI, 8, (1873); Prairie Farmer, XLIII, 100, 153, 273, 284, 292, 356, 388, 401, 404, (March-Dec., 1872); Paine, Granger Movement in Illinois, 10.

14 Nat. Grange Proc., VI, (1873); Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 414-421; C. Darrow, Patrons of Husbandry, 38-40; A. Messer, The Grange, 5; N. A. Dunning, Farmers' Alliance History, 235; Pierson, in Pop. Sci. Mo., XXXII, 199-208; D. W. Aiken, The Grange, (U. S. Dept. Agric., Special Report, No. LV, p. 7.)

Grange held in January, 1875, marked the culmination of the movement in Illinois15.

The story of the decline of the order during the next decade is almost as striking as that of its rapid growth during 1873 and 1874. Nearly half of the fifteen hundred odd granges in active operation at the opening of 1875 had gone out of existence by November of the same year, the official report for that month showing only 789 granges with 29,063 members. The mortality among the granges the next year was not so great and 646 were reported on October 1, 1876, but the average membership had fallen from about sixty in 1874 to less than twenty, the total membership in the State at this time being only about 12,639. Year after year the decline went on, with practically no new granges being organized, until in 1885 the lowest point was reached with only ninety-six subordinate granges. Since that date the order has managed to hold its own and even to increase a little, but it has never regained its old importance in the State1.

This rapid waning of the grange in numbers and influence was not confined to Illinois, but was general throughout the West where the order had been the strongest and its causes were, in the main, general rather than peculiar to the State of Illinois. Still it will be necessary to summarize them in order to understand the situation here. Undoubtedly the decline was in large part merely a reaction from the excessive growth in the years 1873 and 1874. The system of organization by deputies, the popularity and novelty of the movement, and often the hopes of political and financial regeneration led many into the order who had no permanent interest in its real aims and who began to drop out as soon as the excitement of organization was over and it

15 Ill. State Grange, Proc., IV, 11, (Dec., 1875); Nat. Grange, Proc., VI, 8; Prairie Farmer, XLIV, 3, 260, 355, 401, 403, (Jan.-Dec., 1873), XLV, 131, 411, (April 25, Dec. 26, 1874), XLVI, 27 (Jan. 23, 1875).

16 Ill. State Grange, Proc., IV, (Dec., 1875); Nat. Grange, Proc., IX, 190, (1875), X, 179, (1876); Paine Granger Movement in Ill., 14.

was seen that the order would not prove a cure-all for the troubles of the farmers". Morever the laxness of organizers permitted many to creep into the ranks who were not only not engaged in agricultural pursuits, but whose interests were directly opposed to those of the farmers1. Disgruntled politicians, business and professional men sought entrance into the order during the days of its popularity, purely as a means of personal advancement; and when the influence of the grange began to wane, partly as a result of the discredit which they brought upon it in the eyes of many observing farmers, they hastened to sever their connection with the order1.

The association of the grange with the political movements of the time also contributed in large measure to its decline. In spite of constitutional provisions against political discussions, and the strenuous efforts of the leaders to keep the movement clear from partizan politics at least, it proved to be impossible to prevent a number of subordinate granges from taking an active part, together with other agricultural organizations, in the work of the Independent or Anti-Monopoly party, which flourished at the time. The general public classed all these phenomena together under the designation of the "Granger Movement," and in fact, they were all component parts of the same general movement for the protective and co-operative organization of the agricultural class. Thus, when the political movement was discredited by its extreme radicalism, the order of

17 Wis. State Grange, Proc., IV, 6, (1876); Patrons' Bulletin, (Ky.), Nov., 1876; Patron, June 13, 1877, 5; Bulletin, (Wis.) Feb., 1877, May, 1878; Pierson, in Pop. Sci. Mo., XXXII, 371-373, (Jan., 1888).

18 Everybody wanted to join the Grange then; lawyers, to get clients; doctors, to get patients; merchants, to get customers; Shylocks, to get their pound of flesh; and sharpers, to catch the babes in the woods." Aiken, The Grange, 11-13.

19 Farmers' Union, June 28, 1873, p. 205; Patrons' Bulletin, (Ky.), Dec., 1876; Cal. Patron, Oct. 17, 1877. p. 2; American Farmer, Jan., 1881, p. 9; Pierson in Pop. Sci. Mo., XXXII, 371-373, (Jan., 1888); Aiken, The Grange,, 11-13; Paine, Granger Movement in Ill., 10; Small, Joining the Grangers or Trying to be a Patron of Husbandry.

Patrons of Husbandry had to suffer along with the rest 20

Similarly in the matter of railroad regulation, the order was compelled to suffer in part for the sins of others. The impression seems to have been quite prevalent that its main purpose was "to fight railroads" and large numbers of farmers undoubtedly joined it with this object in view. Consequently, in spite of the conservative position assumed by the National Grange, the order in a number of states, including Illinois, became involved in efforts to secure railway legislation of the most radical sort. The failure of this legislation to accomplish its purpose, for the time being at least, and the storm of disapproval which it aroused was a potent cause for the decline of the order21.

The one feature which probably had more influence than any other in building up the great membership of the order was the idea of co-operative business and this feature also contributed more than anything else to its almost total collapse throughout the West. In Illinois as in other states, extensive co-operative agencies and grange stores were established to buy and sell for the members of the order, and for a time many of these appeared to have wonderful success; but one by one, bad management on the part of officials, lack of support from the members, and too keen competition from outside, forced them to the wall, leaving behind a burden of discredit and indebtedness which almost destroyed the order22.

Indication has already been given that the Patrons of Husbandry, though the largest, most comprehensive, and

20 Patrons' Bulletin, (Ky.), Dec., 1876; Southern Farmers' Monthly, III, 60, (Feb., 1880); Paine, The Granger Movement in Ill., 8, 32-37. 21 Aiken, The Grange, 14, 29; Paine, Granger Movement in Ill., 15-31.

22 Prairie Farmer, XLV, 396,(Dec. 12, 1874); Nation, XIX, 358, (Dec. 3, 1874); Cal. Patron, June 13, 1877), p. 5; Pierson in Pop. Sci. Mo., XXXII, 368-371, (Jan. 1888); Paine, The Granger Movement in Ill., 8, 43.

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