The San Juan County index. (Aztec, N.M.) 1890-19??, 1900-06-29
NEW FARMERS LODGE
100 80 81 MUruAL IL


nuainesa Organization without Polite
Heinz Formed 60 Raise Price Of
wheat and other Farm Produota-Co-
Operation 2 Success.
A dispatch from Abilene, Kansas, to
the Chicago Record says:
Kansas farmers seem likely to enter
on another farmers alliance movement
under another name. They have for
years since the disruption Of the old
organization been without any method
Of getting together, and the starting
OF q new lodge Is taking with great
favor. In this county has begun the
organization of the Knights Of the
Soil, a mutual organization to which
only farmers are eligible and which
proposes to act as a gigantic trust for
the management Of the affairs in
which the farmers are vitality inter
ested. The first lodge in the state
will be In operation ia q few days and
there are hundreds of farmers in adj
joining counties ready to follow it with
further lodges.
The Institution IS very new. Not
more than two months ago Il was
started In Iowa, but there are now
1000 members and organizers are
working in this state, Iowa, Nebraska
and the Dakotas. The objects are diff
ferent from any other institution
among farmers that has been organ
lied in the West, aud II it attains the
requisite membership Il win have a
wide effect on the business interests.
It is particularly intended to extend
the organization through the grain
growing states and to make the union
Of the farmers so strong that it can
command the prices of grain and com
pei the holding of grain for sixty or
ninety days over the whole middle
West. To do this there will be needed
a large reserve fund, and It is pro-
posed to supply this from the lodge dues
and assessments.
The chief organizer, who is here
making arrangements for the opening
of the first lodge in the state, said Of
the objects and purposes of the insti-
tuition: "The knights of the Soil is
strictly a lodge. 1t Is a secret Organi-
cation and its purpose is to enable the
farmer to combat the industrial trusts
that are pitted against him. For this
reason 1t is sometimes denOminated a
farmers trust, though that is q mis-
homer. 1t is merely q friendly union
by which there shall be concerted ac-
ton on the principal business inter
ests Of the day.
How may this be done? Why, in
this way, for example: Some poor
farmer finds that he must, for one
or another, sell his crop on a
low market. He realizes that if he
could hold it for a little while he
could make n fair profit, while if he
is compelled TO sell ii off-hand he must
make nothing or at most a small
profit. Now there is where the farm
ers' organization comes in with it's
beneficient assistance. Through it the
poor farmer will be able to borrow
from his richer neighbor a sum suf-
hcient to tide him over the time Of
need and the lodge win see that the
lender is amply protected. Likewise,
by this mutual agreement to hold for
a higher market the farmers win be
able to regulate to a degree the
market rather than have the prices
that they are to receive for their grain
regulated by the market manipulators
in Chicago and Liverpool. 1t will
give them more of the necessities of
life and will protect them from the
violent ups and downs of the markets
which take from them n large portion
Of their earnings whep. they need il
most.
can organization of this sort is abso-
lutely essential and l believe that il
fills a lOng-felt want. The eagerness
with which the farmers are taking
hold Of it indicates that they think So
as well. It is not the purpose of the
organization to dabble in politics. That
vas what killed the Grange and the
Farmers Alliance, which purpOsed in
their beginnings much the same things
that are the objects of this organiza-
ton. 1t is the rock on which the
combinations of the farmers of the
West have split and it is u intention
to avoid it as far as possible.