The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-05-19
To be reported
The A, and M. College of Mississippi.
HISTORY OF ITS ORIGIN.

Chicasaw Messenger.
The CLARION in answer to an inquiry in
reference to the act of the Legislature
creating the A. and VI. College, g yes Hon.
J. b. Yellowly the credit OF being the first
to introduce a bill having for its OBJECT the
establishment of such college. We are
tolerably familiar with all the steps taken TO
secure to the Agrculturists of Mississippi,
what he can now truthfully denominate the
most prosperous and promising Industrial
school in the south, and We trust we viii be
pardoned if we display little egotism in
giving more extended history of the origin
of this Institution, than our contemporary
chose to do. As early 1874, the question of
a bona fde Agricultural and Mechanical
College, in lien Of the side-show established
at Oxford was agtated before the State
Grange of Mississippi, which assembled at
jackson that year The measure found
earnest advocates in the persons of w. l..
Hemingway, J. B. Yellowly, Put Darden,
DR.. Phares, q. w. Gill, Frank Burkitt and
Others, then prominent members of the
State Grange. At each subsequent annual
meeting the subject was discussed, and at
the meeting held in Jackson in 1876, it was
resolved to memorabilia the Legislature to
pass an act establishing an A. and NJ. Col
lege, in accordance with the terms of the
act of Congress donating what was known
as the Agricultural Land Script fund, and
a committee was appointed TO draft and pre-
sent the memorial. Hon. j. b. Hellowiy we
think was a member of that committee, and
did subsequently introduce bill substan-
TALLY the same as was afterwards adopted
in the lower house, bat it was defeated.
At the meeting OF the State Grange, held at
Holly Springs in December, 1877, the sub
ject was again presented for the Considera-
ton of that body and Il new committee was
appointed to again memorialiZe the Legls-
IatGre to do something for the farmers and
mechanics OF the State. When the Legs-
lature of 1873 assembled, Mr.. Gellowly was
not a member but the State Grange found
in the person of Gen. w. F. Tucker, of
Chickasaw, an able, and as the result proved,
a more successful champion of its pet
scheme State Industrial Institution at
which the sons of the working men of the
State might receive a practical education at
a comparatively small cost Gen. Tu, ker
not a Granger, but being fully inn
pressed with the justice of the demand made
by the farmers and knowing the enduring
benefit which must necessarily accrue to the
State, used all his energy and persuasive elo-
oueuce to give the movemet an impetus which
no argument could check and no opposition
could withstand, and success overwhelming
and triumphant crowned his efforts in the
House. In the meantime Gen. West had
introduced Dill IN the senate, Whlcn was
substantially the same Gen. fuckers
bill, and this bill was passed and sent to the
House, which owing to the pressure upon
the time of the House, Gen. Tucker accep-
ted, and the Senate bill became law
Thus it will be seen, that TO the State
Grange as a body and not to any individual,
belongs the credit of having first set the
ball in notion but that body, as must also
the great mass of Agriculturalists OF the
state, will ever feel grateful to those men
s'without the gates" prominent among
whom and towering above their fellows are
the names of Tucker and West,) who rem
dered such valuable assistance in building
an enduring monument, commemorative OF
the persistence and sagacity of the leaders
of the great farmers movement in Miss:s-
sippi.