Evening star., 1940-12-26
Grange Has Pushed
.Work for Growers
Tor IA Years
Nation Of FomiIy-Sized
Forms Is Objective
Of Million Members
By the Associated Press.

q "
Grange, largest of farmer organi-
cations, still hews to the line In
quest of its biggest goal--an America
free from agricultural tenantry.
1t shuns anything it believes
might stifie agricultural freedom of
effort. 1t opposes strongly many
New Deal theories of production and
marketing.
An agriculture of family sized
farms is the vision of approximately
100000 farm and rural folk in
4 the Nationwide fraternity.
They reaflrmed belief in this ideal
at their recent 74th annual conven-
tion in Syracuse and all the other
approved legislation was so much
brick and mortar to strengthen the
foundation of the ideal.
Instrument of Agrarian Reform.
Mild-mannered Fred j. Freestone,
chairman of the Oranges National
Executive Committee, elaborates:
Consider our opposition to Fed
eral production control. 1t doesn't
mean we are against social and eco
nomic reform; after all, the Grange
itself has been an instrument Of
agrarian reform since its foundation.
But we feel that production or
crop control is beneficial only to
the large, corporate farms, not to
the small farm owner"
Mr.. Freestone adds:
'Its not a matter of surpluses,
anyhow, the way we look at it. It's
really problem of underconsump-
ton that should be attacked through
proper marketing and more efficient
transporta ton"
Special Pleader for Farmer.
Ever since 1867 when Oliver Hud-
son Kelley, young Government
Agricultural Bureau clerk, set out
with $3.50 to interest farmers in a
useful fraternal order" designed to
protect them against frauds and
> impositions," the Grange has been
a wary, hard-hitting special pleader
d. for the American farmer.
1t also has been much more than
this.
AS a secret fraternity it has erased
regional barriers and those set up
by specialization in crops. Provid-
ing community centers-there are
more than 5000 local Oranges in
81 States-it has relieved the social
tedium of rural areas and spon-
sored educational and occupational
projects.
Its pioneering in cooperative pur-
chasing and marketing led to estab-
tich Nf pn
Federation, popularly known as the
G. L. F., which operates huge grain
elevators, fertilizer factories and
hundreds of markets and stores.
Through its insurance companies
officials estimate it has saved far
mers millions of dollars in potential
losses from fire, tornado, hail, casu-
atty and automobile theft.
Assigned to Make Survey.
Mr.. Kelley, assigned in 1867 to
= make survey of the South's de-
vastated and neglected farms in the
wake of the Civil War, had the in
spiration for the grange literally at
the muzzle of loaded squirrel gun.
AS a northerner, and a prying one
:, at that, Mr.. Kelley was unwelcome
In the ruined manor houses and
tumbled-down farm shacks to which
he drove horse and buggy over roads
still bearing three-year-ol ruts of
artillery wheels.
He wanted desperately to do some
thing to help heal the intersectional
breach and revive once-prosperous
agriculture.
At one farm sullen voice warned:
Another step and you're a dead
man! I've got gun on you"
The Government clerk halted a
moment, then in a wild guess i'm
plored:
You wouldn't shoot a brother
Mason, woulud you?"
Leaves With an Idea.
A moment later Kelley was a guest
in the house, obtaining the informa-
ton he wanted. He came away with
an idea-why not farmers frater-
nifty to bring Americas agricultural
workers together?
Within three months Mr.. Kelley
had interested five other Govern
ment employees and working far
. mer in the idea. His niece, Miss
Carrie Hall of Boston, contributed
the happy suggestion that farm
women be given role in the Or
ganization.
Mr.. Kelley named it the Order of
\. Patrons of Husbandry, the name it
bears formally today. Local, county
and State units were termed
"granges" in the sense that lodge"
Is used by other fraternities.
Thus "the grange" became sy-
nonymous for the Patrons of Hus-
handy, and members style them
selves simply "grangers."
''While at no time losing sight OF
the practical aim, that of bettering
the farmers lot" Mr. Freestone eX-
plains, Mr.. Kelley felt that the
ritualism and fraternal side of the
organization would have stabiliz-
ing result.
at had the immediate result of
bringing the farmers together, and
1t has had the effect since of often
making unity when the grange, in
its more practical activities, ran into
rough going"
National Point Of View.
Inclusion of women in the organi-
cation on an equal footing with
men, a startling innovation at the
time, served to emphasize the es-
, sential democracy of the order on
which it prides itself today.
The grange boasts it always has
cultivated a national point OF view.
Leaders stress that in the develop
ment of agricultural policies there
=, should be a reasonable amount OF
give-and- take, as between different
sections and groups in the interest
of the industry as whole.
At the base of the intricate pyra-
mid that is the grange, within the
5000 local units, much OF this ma
tional policy is formulated in open