Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-08-25
The Politics of the Grange.

1t has been n matter of no little concern
to politicians that hundreds of thousands of
sturdy men of this country were organized
under one banner with common purpose
this vast array of farmers has been to them
a terror; they have been tormented with
the fear that, to them, it would be an army
Of Cloths and Vandals which in its might
would, ere long, sweep down upon them and
blot them out OF existence. Many of the
members Of the order, themselves, have sup.
posed it was part of the mission of the
grange to Immediately enter the temple and
with scourges drive forth the money changers
and purge every department Of the govern
ment OF the corruption with which it is reek-
ing.
But so far the frantic fears of one side
and the impatient hopes of the other side
have been disappointed. No such over
whelming, public results as the anxiety of
some, both outside and inside the gate, pre-
dicted, have been realized. The giant arm
of the Patrons has never been stretched
forth toward the politician with violence.
So, too, those who have attempted to use the
grange in the furtherance of political schemes
have most sigually and dsastrously failed
in fact the order itself may be regarded as a
failure by those who have been looking for
great political catastrophes and revolutions.
And yet the grange is a deep and mighty
river Of thought with innumerable branches
ever flowing out into the great ocean of peo-
Piles minds with resstoss sway but with no
characteristic Of turbulence. Public opin-
ion is the result OF education aud not of
force its growth cannot be FASTENED by vic.
lence; all attempts to secure relief in COM
munism aud labor strikes have only served
to rivet stronger the letters of which they
vainly hoped to rid themselves.
1t is universal law that whatever is of
quick growth will soon decay; the fruit that
rpens early does not keep, but that which is
longest in maturing is the fruit that lasts
through all the year, Surprising the ma
tional mind could have been made to yield
to excitement in obedience to the grange it
would doubtless have been premature and an
entire waste of effort, because the farmers
are not yet prepared to assume a leader.
ship in public affairs, There is, however,
an influence in operation that is gradually
but surely thrusting back the old order Of
things aud giving place to new and better
one. Down under every one of the twenty
five thousand sub. oranges is an incalcuable
fund of thought and of every well regulated
subordinate grange is sinking its shafts far
enough below the surface to strike new
springs Of water. A new epoch in the phil
osophy Of farmers has had its beginning,
because they are not satisfied to submit en-
tirely to the direction and management
of other classes and as they began to in
quire into the fruitluness that attended
their calling they at length saw the neces-
sity Of examining their own abilities and
Understandings to see whether they were
capable of occupying any higher position IN
the scale of importance. The old and arbi-
trary idea of the fixed inleriority of the agsi-
cultural classes is thoroughly exploded.
They find the range of seli-improvement uu.
bounded aud the very audable desire pos.
sesses them to rise higher 10 the scale of iu-
telligence, They do this by the upprecia-