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Agriculture Mother Of All

Agriculture Mother Of All image
Parent Issue
Day
22
Month
August
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

AGRICULTURE
MOTHER OF ALL

Says E.P. Cole at the County Grange Rally

IT WAS HELD WEDNESDAY

The Working of the Grange System Explained--Address by Capt. E.P. Allen

The principal speaker at the Washtenaw grange rally at the Joseph Warner farm Wednesday was E.P. Cole past lecturer of the New York state grange, who said in part:

"Agriculture is the mother of us all. It feeds us and is great part clothes us; but in spite of the importance of their calling farmers do not wield the influence in national affairs possessed by many other classes. Why is this so? It is because the farmers are not organized. Their homes are considerable distances apart, and the tendency is for each family to live along without much thought of its neighbors and without entering into very close relations with others socially or in a business way. The farmers should stand firm against iniquitous combinations; they should work as a class to secure a more equitable disposition of their products, to reform the tax evil so that personal property will be made to stand a fairer proportion of the taxation "burden."

Mr. Cole explained the working of the grange system; with the subordinate, county, state and national granges, with their safeguards against the centralization of power, which make them an ideal organization.

"The object of the grange is the furthering of agriculture," continued Mr. Cole, "and it has taught the farmer many things. The organization proposes to better the conditions of the farmer in every possible way, through the principle of co-operation-- socially, educationally and in a business way. The grange is not a political party nor can it be used to promote party interests, but it works to place men in office who will work for ideas and not party."

"Among the things which have been accomplished by the grange is the passage of pure food laws; the developing of the national bureau of agriculture and the establishment of federal agricultural experiment stations."

Mr. Cole pointed out that the farmers as a class do very little to secure legislation that will give them a fairer show in the competition of the world, and he assured them that membership in a live grange furnishes the incentive and the opportunity for most effectively remedying this deficiency.

E. P. Allen, the next speaker, endorsed Mr. Cole's plea for the grange, taking up the benefits to be derived in a less material sense. "The country depends upon the morality of the coming generation," he said, "and if the moral standard is not upheld, the fate of Greece and Rome will stare us in the face. I fear that we are drifting away from the old ideals and principles; and it is the farmers alone who can reclaim us. They are the conservative class of the land and it is they alone who can stay the rush for worldly pleasures to the forgetting of everything else."

In closing, Mr. Allen discussed "Good Roads," which he said is one of the most important questions now confronting the farmer. "The grange can do much to solve this problem," he said, "by securing the enactment of laws that will build and maintain good roads at the public expense."

In the address of welcome Andrew Campbell said that the company needed no formal greeting as they knew they were welcome. The response was by John McDougall.

Among the granges represented at the rally were Ypsilanti, Pittsfield, Stony Creek, Saline, York, North Lake and Willis, and among the guests from of the county were James R. Clark of Wayne, J.R. Brayton of Wayne, and J. W. Morris of Monroe.