Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-02-14
HOW THEY CAN DO 1T.

HOW THEY CAN DO LII.
We have been asked, more than
once, if the oranges are not a political
organization, what good can they do
the country, outside of their own i'm
mediate interests? We might be con-
tent with the reply, that since the pro-
ducing classes constitute large major
ity of our population. their prosper
ity must infuse healthful vigor into all |
the arteries of commerce, art and sci
ence, and thus advance intellectually, all
the leading interests of the entire
country. But as a purely political
question, let us look at the inevitable
results of the organization, if it be
managed with wisdom and prudence.
In the first place, the oranges are
bringing together men of opposite
politics and party affiliations. When
in council, the word politics, may not
be uttered; but they have come tOgeth-
er to investigate their rights, and their
relations to other pursuits, and the
reasons, why, as the leading industry
of the world, they continue TO be OPP
pressed by government and impover-
ished by combinations of capital. By
such investigation, the grangers obtain
a nearer and clearer view of the truth
and, emboldened by interest-the pros
pect of pecuniary advantage, they en-
ter upon the enquiry resolved to pur-
sue it to its legitimate results and to
profit by them. Thus resolved, they
are not long in reaching the truth,
that the government is basely corrupt
and criminally wasteful that it is aid
ed and abetted by monopolies, of its
own creation; that, to furnish means
to be embezzled, and to meet the de-
mands of extravaganza, and to reward
the criminal services of partizan favor
ties, property is taxed almost to confs-
cation, and producers, are made beasts
of burden to carry the enormous load
of debt which corruption has created.
These truths must, of necessity, be de-
veloped by investigation, and when
learned, the grangers will be at no loss
to discover the remedy and, as voters,
will not hesitate to apply it. Party
ties will have been weakened by new
associations, and party spirit will give
place to impulses of better char
acter-self- protection, and the over
throw of an administration openly at
war with constitutional liberty and de-
voting all its energies to the centraliz-
alton of power and capital.
The investigations, by the oranges,
of their relations to the federal govern
ment, if followed by results, such as
we have indicated, will be equally
productive of good when applied to
States and counties. In all, the inter-
ests Of agriculture have been neglected,
and the farmers have been culpably
inactive, if not Indifferent, as to who
shall make the laws, or fill the respon-
sible offices of State and county. If
an officer, by defalcation, or incOmpe-
tency, entails loss upon State, or coun-
ty, the farmers, as the majority, are
, responsible for it. The oranges can
not close their eyes to this view of the
subject, and will prove worse than a fail
ure, if they do not see toit that the man
they vote for are both competent and
honest-this is the plain duty of every
citizen. In the oranges, personal or
party prediction should have no voice,
unless it be based upon essential quail
fications, and with the advantages the
grangers possess for learning the char
acter and qualifications of each aspir-
ant, ignorance is no apology for a
wrong vote. To correct abuses, in
every department of government, State
or Federal is essential to agricultural
proserity because such abuses fall with
especial force, upon that interest. But
to correct the evil, it is neither
necessary nor polite to get up dis
tinct organization, as political party,
in as much as the work can be done
through the salutary influences of pub
lie opinion, honest conviction and a
patriotic desire to confer the greatest
good upon the greatest number. 1t is
true that the grangers can achieve but
few of their contemplated reforms ex-
cept through the ballot box. But to
repeal an oppressive tariff that looks
only to the increase of the wealth of a
favored monopoly; to break up system
of banking, instituted for the benefit
of partizaH favorites TO whom the peo-
pie are made to pay twenty millions a
year, as bonus, or break up any other
political infamy, it is not necessary
that any corresponding party name
shall be adopted. 1t is sufficient that
the grangers, as the representatives of
the great industry of the world, band
together under their own name, and
make common cause with all who are
striving for the same results and under
whataVar Marty name