The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1884-02-16
La Sale County Grange Address.

SISTERS AND BRoTHERs:--l should be
more than ungrateful did not appreciate
the honor and high compliment you have
paid me in again electing me for the sew
enth time Master of La Sale County
Grange No one appreciates more highly
than do the compliment and this mark
of esteem, and it shall be my highest am
biton to assist YOU to the utmost OF my
ability in advancing the high and noble
aims and objects Of our order. We have
steadily labored on in the years of the past,
catching here and there II CLEAN of sun
shine to encourage us to withstand the al,
verse forces that are continually arrayed
against us Among those who first enlist
ed with us in our grange work some have
passed ON to the higher life, How we
miss them from our circle to-day; their
genial smile, their warm fraternal grasp,
their counsel, encouragement and wisdom
in our deliberations,
The snowy mantle of winter drapeS the
resting place of some while others sleep
beneath the ever blooming roses of the
sonth land yet their love and memory are
deeply engraved on our hearts, and like
golden links in memory's chain they bind
us in closer ties of sympathy and affection
The aims, purposes and principles OF our
Order, as laid down in our declaration of
purposes, were never before so well under
stood and appreciated as at the present
time, and the more it is Investigated and
understood, the higher it is appreciated
The business, wisdom and comprehension
of that declaration of purposes has never
been questioned and never will be, and as
the great masses of mankind become &C
uuainted with our purposes, they become
more in sympathy with us, and to-day some
of the firmest friends of our Order are to
be found in other walks of life. Tis true
we have many diScouragementS and shall
continue to meet them from open enemies
and false friends; we shall meet jeers and
rdicule ,taunts and innuendoes,yet what or
ganization or association but has passed
through the same experience? No effort
to elevate and ennoble the human race has
ever been made but has been met by OPP
posing forces, and our Order is no eXcep-
ton. Yet its course is onward and up
ward, and is now working out nobler,
grander results than ever before We are
too apt to he inpatient and look too soon
for desired resuts-havc hardy learned to
labor and wait When we see what we
have accomplished during the last fourteen
years, we may well take courage and labor
on. The Grange, from its early history,
proclaimed and affirmed what Judge
Dickey declared in public speech in the
old court house, % years ago, that all COP
porate power must be subject to the legis-
lative control of the people. That one
principle fought through the highest
courts of our land; that one triumph of our
Order is worth to-day to our country ii
thousand times more than the Grange has
ever cost No one feels more keenly the
oppression of corporate power than the far
mer. His interests and prosperity depend
very largely on the facilities of inter state
commerce. In no other calling is there
any class so intimately bound up in the
welfare of our country as the farmer, or
more ready to respond to its needs and
wants when in trouble. Corporate power
had at one time 50 cOnCOcted schemes and
perfected plans to rob us of our water
ways, and could even see their plans so
well perfected that they made their boast
that they "were going to dry up the ditch
You, brothers, of Pomona Grange, sounded
the first note of alarm, aroused the masses
far and wide and filed that old court
house to its utmost capacity, even though
the thermometer marked q degrees below
zero and many of our members had to
face the biting blasts for fifteen or twenty
miles across the prairies to reach that meet
ing. Yes, to You of this grange belongs
the honor of those meetings and the intlu-
enCe that was brought to bear on our legis-
lature, whereby an appropriation was Sc
cured to save the ditch. and from that in.
tiuence which has brOadcned and deep
ened until the prospects OF a ship canal,
owned and controlled by our national gov
eminent, is among the near probabilities.
At our State Grange meeting one yearagO
a committee was appointed to lay before
our Legislature the peril our country was in
from the infection and spread of that dread
plague, pleura pneumonia, among the
herds of our country. They gave that
committee an immediate hearing, and took
action to lay the matter before our national
government,
1t is now being investigated, and doubt
less will receive that Legislation its vast i'm
portance demands At the same meeting
committee was appointed to visit and re-
port on the merits of Champaign Indus
trial School. The report of that committee
after thorough investigation, given at our
last State Grange, is that it is school in
avaru uau unrthU nf ,nr ,nptiJopco md