The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1874-03-13
SUPPLEMENTARY.
q

ton Of q grange here, wereput in type
we have had q call from Col. bennett
He explained the reason he declined tt
organize the list Of forty-nine planters
and farmers that was presented to him
into another grange, was that the rules
of the order did not permit two oranges
to be in less than FIVE miles of each other
Per contra, as veryfew on the list re-
side about Opelousas, he was asked, We
are informed, to locate it at some Other
place, so as not to violate the rules; but
he still declined. In conversation with
him we wanted to know why other than
agriculturists were admitted to the or
der, in violation OF the resolutions OF the
national grange. He said the custom
was to admit any one, it the
grange applied to would do it,
whose interest did not conflict with that
of the order; and we inferred from the
general tenor of his conversation that a
grange could admit or keep out anyone,
it mattered not what his vocation might
belt could take in a pure lawyer and
keep out q pure farmer. He mentioned
one instance where two oranges were
organized in less than five miles of each
other. He mentioned merchants rs q
class whose interests contiicted with
those of grangers.
Itseems to amount to about this: ifthe
controlling influence in a grange want a
certain indi vidual to be let in, even if
he is not a practical farmer, he is ad-
mitted on some remote agricultural in
terest-his wife has land that somebody
leases and c~ultivates, or he has O garden
which is cultivated by o hired man, or
his COW grazes on the commons. If the
controlling influence wants him kept out,
though he may be a farmer pure and
simple, he is rejected.
AS to merchants, it would seem that
from the way farmers apply to them for
advances, they must consider them their
friends; but the grangers put them un-
der ban. When the grangers establish
their store, the keeper thereof will be q
merchant. If he sell for cash, others
can sell as cheap. II he sell cheap to
grangers and high to outsiders, he had
better require cash for the cheap or he
will go the way that some of our other
credit merchants have gone. We heard
of a merchant over the river who had
two prices for his ~goods-low for the
oranges and high for the gentiles. The
latter began to stop patronizing him,
and he had to throw off the former to
save himself. -. ~-.#. ...--
Merchants are q necessary part OF
civilization and since the days OF the
patriarchs the world has not been with
out them. 1t is not the legitimate bust
ness of merchants to supply farmers
with what they should raise themselves
with corn and meath this sectiOn. They
are the means of Interchange of the sur
plus commodities of different sections.
Our merchants here do not want to sup
ply our farmers and planters with what
they should raise themselves, they have
done it only as q matter of necessity;
and it has injured both parties. The
merchants want to buy their surplus
products, and supply them with what
they can not raise. lie the merchant sup
plies them with everything, it is losing
business for him, and no substantial
profit for them. The merchants are not
the natural enemies of the farmers; and
their interests do not conflict. The mer-
chants have kept men from starving
here, who would not make an earnest
sensible effort to help themselves. Let
the farmers do their duty to themselves
and buy from the merchants for cash on
ly what they absolutely need and can
not raise or make, and they will get it
cheap, have no cause to complain of the
merchants, and both parties prosper.
We almost despair Of this until the mer-
chants break by advancing to the far
mers, when the latter will have to do it
through absolute necessity, rs is the case
with some this year. o.
A grange store will not remedy the
evil it is a mere expediency, a lei
camille fiction, that will be exploded to
somebody's cost in one season. The
farmers must work out their own ma
terial salvation, by economy and a large
production of all the necessaries Of life
at home. .'
Whether the grange movement is a
good horse for politicians in this section
to ride into office on, remains to be
seen. Like knownothingism, it has
too many faces to it. It runs one in
one section and one in another, as may
be expedient. Putting down railroad
mOnnpplies was the chief one in the
West. Here we have no railroads, and
some other must be presented. We
have two steamboats,, which viii the
grangers selectto put down the other
withg The same may be asked in re-
gard to the warehouses. But the sum
mum bonun, the millennium of the
grangers is to consist in their store,
where everything is to be hanght for
nothing, and, may be, on a credit. Who
will be condemned to keep this stores
and where is the capital to come from
The chief planks in the grangers
platform ought to be. t
|. None hut actual farmers or plan
tiers admitted.
2. Every member must pledge himself
to raise corr and meat enough for him.
self and family and those serving and