Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/386

372 was impossible to keep out men who were farmers only to the extent of a garden or back yard. In those days lawyers, doctors, merchants, discovered in themselves a marvelous interest in agricultural pursuits, and joined the Grange. As a Granger remarked, they were interested in agriculture as the hawk is interested in the sparrow. Two Granges were organized in New York city; one, the "Manhattan," on Broadway, with a membership of forty-five wholesale dealers, sewing-machine manufacturers, etc., representing a capital of as many millions; the other, the "Knickerbocker," one of whose first official acts was to present the National Grange with a handsome copy of the Scriptures—a gift causing some embarrassment. A similar one was organized in Boston, which made great trouble before it could be expelled; and one was found in Jersey City, with a general of the army as its master, a stone-mason as secretary, and the owner of a grain-elevator as chaplain. But discordant elements were not all from other professions. Thousands of farmers had been carried in by the enthusiasm of the movement, with no idea of the nature and aims of the order. Some expected to make a political party; others, to smash the railroads; almost all hoped to find in co-operation a panacea for poverty. There was great lack of discipline, but no discipline could have harmonized such a body. The first outbreak was in the direction of democracy. Lay members were eligible to but four of the seven degrees, and this was denounced as aristocratic, opposed to the spirit of democratic institutions. Along with this came the cry that the National Grange was growing too rich. In vain it made liberal donations of seeds and provisions to sufferers by grasshoppers and floods, and spent large sums in distributing crop-reports among the order. The clamor continued till the faint-hearted in the Charleston session in 1875 carried a measure to distribute $55,000 to the subordinate Granges—about $2.50 to each! Prominent Grangers have maintained that the causes of Grange decay are to be found in this and the other measures of the same session curtailing the power of the National Grange. The true cause has been seen to lie deeper, in the failure of business enterprises. These measures had some influence, however. They were the beginnings of endless tinkering with the constitution, and the cause of quarrels innumerable. Among other quarrels was one with the Grange of Canada, over the question of jurisdiction. Soon afterward came the first open break in the ranks. An Illinois Grange voted to disband, alleging pecuniary reasons and the autocratic rule of the National Grange. Many still had dreams that the order was to spread over the world, but the co-operative leaven had begun to work, and there was soon no mistaking the tendency to decay. At the annual meeting in 1876, four thousand Granges were reported delinquent. Salaries were at once reduced—the master's from $2,000 to $1,200, and the secretary's from $2,500 to $2,000. It was vainly attempted to stem the tide by issuing an official organ, the "Grange Record." In 1879 the master's