The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1874-03-06
Friday, March 6, 1874.
The Patrons, Alarm.

The National Grange of the Patrons of
Husbandry prefers acomplaint which must
be heard and needed. The mere existence
of such body, and the PRONUNCIATION of
such a memorial concerning the separate
grievances of constituency so vast and
hitherto so little regarded, are facts of
significance. They indicate that our poll
tics have reached an almost revolutionary
stage, and that those who are at once our
rulers and despoilers, must devise new
methods of feeding their rapacity and
search out new objects of plumber, or else
forego their lawless indulgences entirely.
The most numerous of the victim classes,
the great farming interest, which but yes
terday was an unresisting prey, IS resolved
to bear no more. 1t will offer no further
temptations to any of the rings. The far
mers have counted their numbers, ascer-
tanned their strength, and concentrated
both in gigantic organization about as per-
fectly adapted to the purposes Of defence
as any voluntary association on the face of
the earth. Trihing with them hereafter
will be perilous indeed; and woe to the
party which fails to abandon the spoilations
of the past.
Our duty at present, however, is not with
the grange but with the grangers cause.
What is it? What is it that a million Of
widely dispersed and constitutionally peace
able agriculturists present as an evil so
general and so deadly that even they have
united, for the first time in the history of
the world, to crush it? If the reader will
take that noteworthy document, the grang-
ers' declaration, adopted at st. Louis and
subject it to the analysis its Importance re-
quires, he will get as the last result of the
progress a single, stupendous, terrible gen.
eric evil the mother of all evils and the
source of all political crimes, whether
against liberty or property 1t is called
monopoly here and class-legislation there.
Credit Mobilier yesterday, salary grab to-
day, Sanborn contracts in one place, and
present-taki in another; but it is the
same in its essential purpose and tenden-
cies, under all names and in every disguise
We refer, Of course, to the hideous politi-
cal and moral corruption, developed day
after day, as if by sort of fatality, which
we see at length, possessing and pervading
every institution created by society either
for its protection or its convenience, which
rots at the heart of the Federal Govern
ment, spreads It's loathsome virus through
State Legislatures and administrations, IN
tects public and private corporations, buys
law, ana pervertS justice.
This it is which converts the very machin-
cry OF government into mere agencies OF
Addition, Division, and Silence, used for
one inevitable and inyariable end, namely,
wholesale and systematic larceny. Re
fine upon terms as we may, the proper
word to describe the felonious transfer of
money from the pockets Of its owners &c
the pockets OF those who have no right to
1t, is larceny; and such is the process
which is now everlastingly going on among
us, sometimes under the forms of law,
but more often in open contempt of even
the semblance Of law. 1t is the grandest
kind OF larceny to take the property Of
the farmers and give it to the railroad
kings or to manufacturers; to take the
Southern States and hand them over bod
lily for spoil and possession to the car
pet baggers and negroes to take the
public lands and turn them over by the
million Of acres to bands of private spec
ulators who never rendered and never in
tended to render any equivalent public
service
Grand indeed was the larceny devised
and executed under Boss Shepherd
comprehensive plan" of Improvement
for the District of Columbia; and equally
grand is the scheme of Kemble and Mann
to stuff all the ballot boxes of Philadel.
phla, and to plumber all the treasures OF
Pennsylvania The plots of such brazen
conspiracies are ever comprehensive The
system of interal improvements recon-
mended in the Presidents message is COM
prehensive enough to swallow countless
millions Of money and demoralize utterly
the purest people that ever existed: and
Gen. Babcock 5 favorite scheme, before he
betook himself to the service of Shep-
herds Board Of Public Works, was also So
comprehensive that it would certainly have
plundered two nations effectually, and ex-
tinguished the life Of the weaker in the
blood of its people.
The principles of this party are written
in that euphonious aud compendious le-
gend, Addition, Division and Silence and
the operation indicated by the terms is
going on in every department of the Fed
eral Government, and in every State and
municipal Government where the profes-
sors Of this immoral science have been in
trusted with power The revolt against
their continuance in place is confined to no
class and the grangers must not expect to
arrogate to themselves the glory of their
final expulsion. 1t is an affair of the Ten
Commandments, and belongs to all hon
est men-N T. Sun.
--------