Year: 1875

|; published BY REQUEsT.l


THE PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY.
Address Delivered by b. U. Watkins, of


Maine Prairie, at Grange Celebration.
We have men who are constantly
| looking to our interest. When an
advertisement attracts your attention.
and benevolently proposes to give you


ten dollars for one, ifyou are Grang-
er you need only ask advice Of your
Grange Master or Secretary, and if
there really be any such golden oppor-
tunities they will find the truth Of it
and report without your having to
risk the dollar you already have.
Thousands Of dollars have been flch-
ed from unsuspecting ruralists by ad-
| vertisements Of "new inventions" ""gift
enterprises" and lotteries which a


little hard sense and good advice
might have saved to them that earn
ed it instead Of going to support
worthless and vicious class of society.
Teaching farmers to act together
against the aggressions Of fraud and
imposition is one of the grand designs
of our organization. 1t is not our
intention to injure any legitimate bus
mess, nor to pull a hair from the head
Of. any law-abiding citizen, but we do
not wish to be sold out to the getters
up Of humbug advertisements. If
Changers would only live up to their
privileges, a great reformation in
newspaper morality would soon super
| yene. For bad as human nature is
thought to be, it is not bad enough to
publish lies and pay for them at pub
lishers' rates, if they get nothing in
return!


But we have, at last, fallen upon a
money crisis, commonly called hard
times. Wheat is low and possibly
may be lower; but, fellow Grangers,
if you are not in debt, if you can re-
frain from buying at present rates,
times are not bad. All the commodi-
ties we need will soon be correspond
ingly reduced, and the times will be
as good as ever. Indeed, We should
hail the present crisis as an augury
Of the very thing we have so intensely
desired. We have hoped and longed
for facilities for getting our grain to
the eastern market, but so long as
there was redundance Of currency,
the poor of our Atlantic cities could
exc out a livelihood, and capitalists
were Of course satisfied but since
times have changed, there are thous-
ands Of these poor thrown out of en-
ployment, or their wages so shortened
that they cannot meet the expenses of
food and raiment. Hence, a cry for


bread is raised under the windows
and in ear shot Of the millionaire
capitalist. Millionaires can we'll af:
ford to let poor folks die if they
would only keep at a respectful dis
tance, but they cannot afford to hear


them cry for bread. tits we'll known
at the East that there is bread enough
| and to spare in our great Northwest ;
but how are they to get at it cheaply
is the question for them now to agi-
tate. Had times gone on as they
we're, there would have been no
general inquiry into our railroad
grievances, and could we have pre-
vailed on some statesman to glance at
our oppression, he would have smiled
and said: "Minnesotians want to
sell their wheat!" :But now when
this oppression is felt at both ends of
our trade route, and when the bread
cry comes up from famishing thous-
ands, it will enter the ears of the
Lord of Sabbaoth, and these heart
less, ,soulless monopolists will have to
succumb, to Power superior even to
that of public sentiment. But pub
lie sentiment is even now already
aroused. This winters session of
Congress will be called upon to act in
behalf of the starving poor; will be
urged to open up new outlets for our
surplus grain-thoroughfares, which
no monopolist can prevent; to starts
ship canal from the Father of Waters
to; our ;grest Inland Sea-; to make the
Mfiasissippi nayigable for ships up to
St. Louis; ). and when these improve
ments are made, we will be secure
from the oppression. Of railroad car
riers. But such gigantic enterprise
as this will require the cooperation
of both eastern and western men, but
it. will take the cry of their own poor
to arouse, our friends in the East.
They will have felt the imperative
necessity Of such move, and such
feeling is beginning already to mani
fest itself. The New York Tribune
proposes to stop paying off the public
debt and let it be increased two hum
| dred millions rather than postpone
the great work of cheapening the
transportation Of bread. Two hun
| dred millions of national funds could
| not be better expended than in break
ing the tyrannical imposition of these
monopolies and in permanently unit
ing the interests Of West and East in
thestrong bands Of commercial equity
and mutual dependence.


| Fellow Changers, with the signs OF