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The Agrarian Crusade, A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics

S >> Solon J. Buck >> The Agrarian Crusade, A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics




Of all the causes of the rapid collapse of the Granger movement,
the unfortunate experience which the farmers had in their
attempts at business cooperation was probably chief. Their hatred
of the middleman and of the manufacturer was almost as intense as
their hostility to the railroad magnate; quite naturally,
therefore, the farmers attempted to use their new organizations
as a means of eliminating the one and controlling the other. As
in the parallel case of the railroads, the farmers' animosity,
though it was probably greater than the provocation warranted,
was not without grounds.

The middlemen--the commission merchants to whom the farmer sold
his produce and the retail dealers from whom he bought his
supplies--did undoubtedly make use of their opportunities to
drive hard bargains. The commission merchant had such facilities
for storage and such knowledge of market conditions that he
frequently could take advantage of market fluctuations to
increase his profits. The farmer who sold his produce at a low
price and then saw it disposed of as a much higher figure was
naturally enraged, but he could devise no adequate remedy.
Attempts to regulate market conditions by creating an artificial
shortage seldom met with success. The slogan "Hold your hogs" was
more effective as a catchword than as an economic weapon. The
retail dealers, no less than the commission men, seemed
to the farmer to be unjust in their dealings with him. In the
small agricultural communities there was practically no
competition. Even where there were several merchants in one town
these could, and frequently did, combine to fix prices which the
farmer had no alternative but to pay. What irked the farmer most
in connection with these "extortions" was that the middleman
seemed to be a nonproducer, a parasite who lived by chaining the
agricultural classes of the wealth which they produced. Even
those farmers who recognized the middleman as a necessity had
little conception of the intricacy and value of his service.

Against the manufacturer, too, the farmer had his grievances. He
felt that the system of patent rights for farm machinery resulted
in unfair prices--for was not this same machinery shipped to
Europe and there sold for less than the retail price in the
United States? Any one could see that the manufacturer must have
been making more than reasonable profit on domestic sales.
Moreover, there were at this time many abuses of patent rights.
Patents about to expire were often extended through political
influence or renewed by means of slight changes which were
claimed to be improvements. A more serious defect in the
patent system was that new patents were not thoroughly
investigated, so that occasionally one was issued on an article
which had long been in common use. That a man should take out a
patent for the manufacture of a sliding gate which farmers had
for years crudely constructed for themselves and should then
collect royalty from those who were using the gates they had
made, naturally enough aroused the wrath of his victims.

It was but natural, then, that the Granges should be drawn into
all sorts of schemes to divert into the pockets of their members
the streams of wealth which had previously flowed to the greedy
middlemen. The members of the National Grange, thinking that
these early schemes for cooperation were premature, did not at
first take them up and standardize them but left them entirely in
the hands of local, county, and state Granges. These thereupon
proceeded to "gang their ain gait" through the unfamiliar paths
of business operations and too frequently brought up in a
quagmire. "This purchasing business," said Kelley in 1867,
"commenced with buying jackasses; the prospects are that many
will be SOLD." But the Grangers went on with their plans for
business cooperation with ardor undampened by such forebodings.
Sometimes a local Grange would make a bargain with a certain
dealer of the vicinity, whereby members were allowed special
rates if they bought with cash and traded only with that dealer.
More often the local grange would establish an agency, with
either a paid or a voluntary agent who would forward the orders
of the members in large lots to the manufacturers or wholesalers
and would thus be able to purchase supplies for cash at terms
considerably lower than the retail prices. Frequently, realizing
that they could get still more advantageous terms for larger
orders, the Granges established a county agency which took over
the work of several local agents. Sometimes the Patrons even
embarked upon the more ambitious enterprise of cooperative
stores.

The most common type of cooperative store was that in which the
capital was provided by a stock company of Grange members and
which sold goods to Patrons at very low prices. The profits, when
there were any, were divided among the stockholders in proportion
to the amount of stock they held, just as in any stock company.
This type of store was rarely successful for any length of time.
The low prices at which it sold goods were likely to involve it
in competition with other merchants. Frequently these men would
combine to lower their prices and, by a process familiar in the
history of business competition, "freeze out" the cooperative
store, after which they might restore their prices to the old
levels. The farmers seldom had sufficient spirit to buy at the
grange store if they found better bargains elsewhere; so the
store was assured of its clientele only so long as it sold at the
lowest possible prices. Farmers' agencies for the disposal of
produce met with greater success. Cooperative creameries and
elevators in several States are said to have saved Grange members
thousands of dollars. Sometimes the state Grange, instead of
setting up in the business of selling produce, chose certain
firms as Grange agents and advised Patrons to sell through these
firms. Where the choice was wisely made, this system seems to
have saved the farmers about as much money without involving them
in the risks of business.

By 1876 the members of the National Grange had begun to study the
problem of cooperation in retailing goods and had come to the
conclusion that the so-called "Rochdale plan," a system worked
out by an English association, was the most practicable for the
cooperative store. The National Grange therefore recommended this
type of organization. The stock of these stores was sold only to
Patrons, at five dollars a share and in limited amounts; thus the
stores were owned by a large number of stockholders, all of whom
had equal voice in the management of the company. The stores sold
goods at ordinary rates, and then at the end of the year, after
paying a small dividend on the stock, divided their profits among
the purchasers, according to the amounts purchased. This plan
eliminated the violent competition which occurred when a store
attempted to sell goods at cost, and at the same time saved the
purchaser quite as much. Unfortunately the Rochdale plan found
little favor among farmers in the Middle West because of their
unfortunate experience with other cooperative ventures. In the
East and South, however, it was adopted more generally and met
with sufficient success to testify to the wisdom of the National
Grange in recommending it.

In its attitude toward manufacturing, the National Grange was
less sane. Not content with the elimination of the middlemen, the
farmers were determined to control the manufacture of their
implements. With the small manufacturer they managed to deal
fairly well, for they could usually find some one who would
supply the Grange with implements at less than the retail price.
In Iowa, where the state Grange early established an agency for
cooperative buying, the agent managed to persuade a manufacturer
of plows to give a discount to Grangers. As a result, this
manufacturer's plows are reported to have left the factory with
the paint scarcely dry, while his competitors, who had refused to
make special terms, had difficulty in disposing of their stock.
But the manufacturers of harvesters persistently refused to sell
at wholesale rates. The Iowa Grange thereupon determined to do
its own manufacturing and succeeded in buying a patent for a
harvester which it could make and sell for about half what other
harvesters cost. In 1874 some 250 of these machines were
manufactured, and the prospects looked bright.

Deceived by the apparent success of grange manufacturing in Iowa,
officers of the order at once planned to embark in manufacturing
on a large scale. The National Grange was rich in funds at this
time; it had within a year received well over $250,000 in
dispensation fees from seventeen thousand new Granges. Angered at
what was felt to be the tyranny of monopoly, the officers of the
National Grange decided to use this capital in manufacturing
agricultural implements which were to be sold to Patrons at very
low prices. They went about the country buying patents for all
sorts of farm implements, but not always making sure of the worth
of the machinery or the validity of the patents. In Kansas, Iowa,
Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, they
planned factories to make harvesters, plows, wagons, sewing-
machines, threshing-machines, and all sorts of farm implements.
Then came the crash. The Iowa harvester factory failed in 1875
and bankrupted the state Grange. Other failures followed; suits
for patent infringements were brought against some of the
factories; local Granges disbanded for fear they might be held
responsible for the debts incurred; and in the Northwest, where
the activity had been the greatest, the order almost disappeared.

Although the Grange had a mushroom growth, it nevertheless
exerted a real and enduring influence upon farmers both as
individuals and as members of a class. Even the experiments in
cooperation, disastrous though they were in the end, were not
without useful results. While they lasted they undoubtedly
effected a considerable saving for the farmers. As Grange agents
or as stockholders in cooperative stores or Grange factories,
many farmers gained valuable business experience which helped to
prevent them from being victimized thereafter. The farmers
learned, moreover, the wisdom of working through the accepted
channels of business. Those who had scoffed at the Rochdale plan
of cooperation, in the homely belief that any scheme made in
America must necessarily be better than an English importation,
came to see that self-confidence and independence must be
tempered by willingness to learn from the experience of others.
Most important of all, these experiments in business taught the
farmers that the middlemen and manufacturers performed services
essential to the agriculturalist and that the production and
distribution of manufactured articles and the distribution of
crops are far more complex affairs than the farmers had imagined
and perhaps worthy of more compensation than they had been
accustomed to think just. On their side, the manufacturers and
dealers learned that the farmers were not entirely helpless and
that to gain their goodwill by fair prices was on the whole wiser
than to force them into competition. Thus these ventures resulted
in the development of a new tolerance and a new respect between
the two traditionally antagonistic classes.

The social and intellectual stimulus which the farmers received
from the movement was probably even more important than any
direct political or economic results. It is difficult for the
present generation to form any conception of the dreariness and
dullness of farm life half a century ago. Especially in the West,
where farms were large, opportunities for social intercourse were
few, and weeks might pass without the farmer seeing any but his
nearest neighbors. For his wife existence was even more drear.
She went to the market town less often than he and the routine of
her life on the farm kept her close to the farmhouse and
prevented visits even to her neighbors' dwellings. The difficulty
of getting domestic servants made the work of the farmer's wife
extremely laborious; and at that time there were none of the
modern conveniences which lighten work such as power churns,
cream separators, and washing-machines. Even more than the
husband, the wife was likely to degenerate into a drudge without
the hope--and eventually without the desire--of anything better.
The church formed, to be sure, a means of social intercourse; but
according to prevailing religious notions the churchyard was not
the place nor the Sabbath the time for that healthy but
unrestrained hilarity which is essential to the well-being of
man.

Into lives thus circumscribed the Grange came as a liberalizing
and uplifting influence. Its admission of women into the order on
the same terms as men made it a real community servant and gave
both women and men a new sense of the dignity of woman. More
important perhaps than any change in theories concerning
womankind, it afforded an opportunity for men and women to work
and play together, apparently much to the satisfaction and
enjoyment of both sexes. Not only in Grange meetings, which came
at least once a month and often more frequently, but also in
Grange picnics and festivals the farmers and their wives and
children came together for joyous human intercourse. Such
frequent meetings were bound to work a change of heart. Much of
man's self-respect arises from the esteem of others, and the
desire to keep that esteem is certainly a powerful agent in
social welfare. It was reported that in many communities the
advent of the Grange created a marked improvement in the dress
and manners of the members. Crabbed men came out of their shells
and grew genial; disheartened women became cheerful; repressed
children delighted in the chance to play with other boys and
girls of their own age.

The ritual of the Grange, inculcating lessons of orderliness,
industry, thrift, and temperance, expressed the members' ideals
in more dignified and pleasing language than they themselves
could have invented. The songs of the Grange gave an opportunity
for the exercise of the musical sense of people not too critical
of literary quality, when with "spontaneous trills on every
tongue," as one of the songs has it, the members varied the
ritual with music.

One of the virtues especially enjoined on Grange members was
charity. Ceres, Pomona, and Flora, offices of the Grange to be
filled. only by women, were made to represent Faith, Hope, and
Charity, respectively; and in the ceremony of dedicating the
Grange hall these three stood always beside the altar while the
chaplain read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. Not
only in theory but in practice did the order proclaim its
devotion to charitable work. It was not uncommon for members of a
local Grange to foregather and harvest the crops for a sick
brother or help rebuild a house destroyed by fire or tornado. In
times of drought or plague both state and national Granges were
generous in donations for the sufferers; in 1874, when the
Mississippi River overflowed its banks in its lower reaches,
money and supplies were sent to the farmers of Louisiana and
Alabama; again in the same year relief was sent to those Patrons
who suffered from the grasshopper plague west of the Mississippi;
and in 1876 money was sent to South Carolina to aid sufferers
from a prolonged drought in that State. These charitable deeds,
endearing giver and receiver to each other, resulted in a better
understanding and a greater tolerance between people of different
parts of the country.

The meetings of the local Granges were forums in which the
members trained themselves in public speaking and parliamentary
practice. Programs were arranged, sometimes with the help of
suggestions from officers of the state Grange; and the discussion
of a wide variety of topics, mostly economic and usually
concerned especially with the interests of the farmer, could not
help being stimulating, even if conclusions were sometimes
reached which were at variance with orthodox political economy.
The Grange was responsible, too, for a great increase in the
number and circulation of agricultural journals. Many of these
papers were recognized as official organs of the order and, by
publishing news of the Granges and discussing the political and
economic phases of the farmers' movement, they built up an
extensive circulation. Rural postmasters everywhere reported a
great increase in their mails after the establishment of a Grange
in the vicinity. One said that after the advent of the order
there were thirty newspapers taken at his office where previously
there had been but one. Papers for which members or local Granges
subscribed were read, passed from hand to hand, and thoroughly
discussed. This is good evidence that farmers were forming the
habit of reading. All the Granger laws might have been repealed;
all the schemes for cooperation might have come to naught; all
the moral and religious teachings of the Grange might have been
left to the church; but if the Granger movement had created
nothing else than this desire to read, it would have been worth
while. For after the farmer began to read, he was no longer like
deadwood floating in the backwaters of the current; he became
more like a propelled vessel in midstream--sometimes, to be sure,
driven into turbulent waters, sometimes tossed about by
conflicting currents, but at least making progress.



CHAPTER VI. THE GREENBACK INTERLUDE

Whatever may have been the causes of the collapse of the Granger
movement in 1875 and 1876, returning prosperity for the Western
farmer was certainly not one of them, for the general
agricultural depression showed no signs of lifting until nearly
the end of the decade. During the Granger period the farmer
attempted to increase his narrow margin of profit or to turn a
deficit into a profit by decreasing the cost of transportation
and eliminating the middleman. Failing in this attempt, he
decided that the remedy for the situation was to be found in
increasing the prices for his products and checking the
appreciation of his debts by increasing the amount of money in
circulation.

This demand for currency inflation was by no means new when it
was taken up by the Western farmers. It had played a prominent
part in American history from colonial days, especially in
periods of depression and in the less prosperous sections of the
ever advancing frontier. During the Civil War, inflation was
actually accomplished through the issue of over $400,000,000 in
legal-tender notes known as "greenbacks." No definite time for
the redemption of these notes was specified, and they quickly
declined in value as compared with gold. At the close of the war
a paper dollar was worth only about half its face value in gold.
An attempt was made to raise the relative value of the greenbacks
and to prepare for the resumption of specie payments by retiring
the paper money from circulation as rapidly as possible. This
policy meant, of course, a contraction of the volume of currency
and consequently met with immediate opposition. In February,
1868, Congress prohibited the further retirement of greenbacks
and left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury the
reissue of the $44,000,000 which had been retired. Only small
amounts were reissued, however, until after the panic of 1873;
and when Congress attempted, in April, 1874, to force a permanent
increase of the currency to $400,000,000, President Grant vetoed
the bill.

Closely related to the currency problem was that of the medium to
be used in the payment of the principal of bonds issued during
the Civil War. When the bonds were sold, it was generally
understood that they would be redeemed in gold or its equivalent.
Some of the issues, however, were covered by no specific
declaration to that effect, and a considerable sentiment arose in
favor of redeeming them with currency, or lawful money, as it was
called.

These questions were not party issues at first, and there was no
clear-cut division upon them between the two old parties
throughout the period. The alinement was by class and section
rather than by party; and inflationists and advocates of the
redemption of the bonds in currency were to be found not only
among the rank and file but also among the leaders of both
parties. The failure of either the Democrats or the Republicans
to take a decided stand on these questions resulted, as so often
before, in the development of third parties which made them the
main planks in the new platform.

The first attempts at organized political activity in behalf of
greenbackism came not from the farmers of the West but from the
laboring men of the East, whose growing class consciousness
resulted in the organization of the National Labor Union in 1868.
Accompanying, if not resulting from the Government's policy of
contraction, came a fall of prices and widespread unemployment.
It is not strange, therefore, that this body at once declared
itself in favor of inflation. The plan proposed was what was
known as the "American System of Finance": money was to be issued
only by the Government and in the form of legal-tender paper
redeemable only with bonds bearing a low rate of interest, these
bonds in turn to be convertible into greenbacks at the option of
the holder. The National Labor Union recommended the nomination
of workingmen's candidates for offices and made arrangements for
the organization of a National Labor party. This convened in
Columbus in February, 1872, adopted a Greenback platform, and
nominated David Davis of Illinois as its candidate for the
presidency. After the nomination of Horace Greeley by the Liberal
Republicans, Davis declined this nomination, and the executive
committee of his party then decided that it was too late to name
another candidate.

This early period of inflation propaganda has been described as
"the social reform period, or the wage-earners' period of
greenbackism, as distinguished from the inflationist, or farmers'
period that followed." The primary objects of the labor reformers
were, it appears, to lower the rate of interest on money and to
reduce taxation by the transformation of the war debt into
interconvertible bonds. The farmers, on the other hand, were
interested primarily in the expansion of the currency in the hope
that this would result in higher prices for their products. It
was not until the panic of 1873 had intensified the agricultural
depression and the Granger movement had failed to relieve the
situation that the farmers of the West took hold of greenbackism
and made it a major political issue.

The independent parties of the Granger period, as a rule, were
not in favor of inflation. Their platforms in some cases demanded
a speedy return to specie payment. In 1873 Ignatius Donnelly, in
a pamphlet entitled "Facts for the Granges", declared: "There is
too much paper money. The currency is DILUTED--WATERED--WEAKENED
. . . . We have no interest in an inflated money market. . . As
we have to sell our wheat at the world's ;.price, it is our
interest that everything we buy should be at the world's price.
Specie payments would practically add eighteen cents to the price
of every bushel of wheat we have to sell!" In Indiana and
Illinois, however, the independent parties were captured by the
Greenbackers, and the Indiana party issued the call for the
conference at Indianapolis in November, 1874, which led to the
organization of the National Greenback party.

This conference was attended by representatives from seven States
and included several who had been prominent in the Labor Reform
movement. "The political Moses of the 'New Party, "' according to
the Chicago Tribune, was James Buchanan of Indianapolis, a lawyer
"with an ability and shrewdness that compel respect, however much
his theories may be ridiculed and abused." He was also the editor
of the Sun, a weekly paper which supported the farmers' movement.
The platform committee of the conference reported in favor of "a
new political organization of the people, by the people, and for
the people, to restrain the aggressions of combined capital upon
the rights and interests of the masses, to reduce taxation,
correct abuses, and to purify all departments of the Government."
The most important issue before the people was declared to be
"the proper solution of the money question," meaning thereby the
issue of greenbacks interconvertible with bonds. A national
convention of the party was called to meet at Cleveland on March
11, 1875.

The Cleveland convention, attended by representatives of twelve
States, completed the organization of the Independent party, as
it was officially named, and made arrangements for the nominating
convention. This was held at Indianapolis on May 17, 1876, with
240 delegates representing eighteen States. Ignatius Donnelly,
who had apparently changed his mind on the currency question
since 1873, was the temporary president. The platform contained
the usual endorsement of a circulating medium composed of
legal-tender notes interconvertible with bonds but gave first
place to a demand for "the immediate and unconditional repeal of
the specie-resumption act." This measure, passed by Congress in
January, 1875, had fixed January 1, 1879, as the date when the
Government would redeem greenbacks at their face value in coin.
Although the act made provision for the permanent retirement of
only a part of the greenbacks from circulation, the new party
denounced it as a "suicidal and destructive policy of
contraction." Another plank in the platform, and one of special
interest in view of the later free silver agitation, was a
protest against the sale of bonds for the purpose of purchasing
silver to be substituted for the fractional currency of war
times. This measure, it was asserted, "although well calculated
to enrich owners of silver mines will still further oppress, in
taxation, an already overburdened people."

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