Year: 1873

An exchange says; The mem!
bership is confined to those who
are producers from the soil, and
even those find it necessary to
show a clean record free from any
taint of monopoly. Editors who
take a bold and determined stand in
behalf Of the objects Of the Order
are admitted as a matter Of COM
pliment.


The mere fact that a man is a
farmer does not qualify him for
membership. He must be free from
any entangling alliances with mon
opoly. He may own a thousand
farms, and yet, if his interests are
more closely identified with railroads
or with manufacturing, he is not en-
titled to place among the Oranges.


One among the first feelings that
the initiatory exercises of the Order
impress upon the farmer is that he
has an occupation or calling inferior
to none in the land. This is decided
ly wise and beneficial, for it has a
tendency to make the farmers place
a higher estimate upon themselves
as a class. It encourages a spirit
of enterprise and pride in the pur-
suit of farming. The farm is the
basis of all the country's wealth,
and it is for the farmer to feel
himself a sovereign and independent
being. Those of all other pursuits
exalt their business, and yea there
is not one that could not better
be dispensed with than that of
the farmer. Let all the farmers of |
the country suspend their work for
one year, and the whole world |
would be brought to it's knees
let anything else stop, and the
farmer snaps his fingers in the face
of the world, and says he cares
nothing for it at all, for he can
live on the products of the farm


Why, then, with all this great
balance in favor of the husbandman
should he feel dependent upon any
class or corporation? Why should
he be subject to cliques and rings,
organized against the farmer, he
has heretofore not even organized
for defence. They have deem con-
tent to live and hope that better
judgment would prevail, but they
have despaired of that now, and,
deeply feeling the wrongs and
impositions crowded upon them,
have determined to strike for their
rights.


While the Oranges have no
partizan sympathies, as a body,
they naturally find themselves in
antagonism with the leading fea-
lures of the Republican policy
the tariff which has built up
vast iron and steel monopoly,
which has increased the price of
all the farmer had to buy and
decreased the price of all he
had to sell the railroad monopoliea
which have grown up almost ex-
clusively under the aid of venal



Republican Legislatures and Re-
publican Credit Mobilier Congress
the land monopoly which threatens
to introduce the English landlord
system into the United States, and
which system has been made posi-
BILE by the wholesale voting away
by Congress Of the public lands to
vast railroad corporations.


To fight these things will be as
natural and as necessary to the
farmer as it is for him to plow. He
will fight them involuntarily in the
fulillment of his pledge emily to vote
for those men for office whose in
terest is identical with his own. The
Oranges have no use and place for
political tricksters, and, therefore,
the party which, during the past ten
years has forced this Generalization
upon the country can expect nothing
at their hands.


Already in Iowa the membership of
this order includes about one-half of
the voting population, marshalled |
into one thousand Oranges. In
Wisconsin there are several hundred,
and we are indebted to Mr.. J. P.
Beck for the ioformation that there
are three hundred and fifty Oranges
in Illinois, one hundred and forty-one
of which were organized in the month !
of March.


The indictment against Susan B.
Anthony for voting, charges that she
was a person of the female sex con-
trary to the laws of the United |