{"product_id":"2940013673595","title":"THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE, A CHRONICLE OF THE FARMER IN POLITICS","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I. THE INCEPTION OF THE GRANGE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     II. THE RISING SPIRIT OF UNREST\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     III. THE GRANGER MOVEMENT AT FLOOD TIDE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     IV. CURBING THE RAILROADS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     V. THE COLLAPSE OF THE GRANGER MOVEMENT\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VI. THE GREENBACK INTERLUDE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VII. THE PLIGHT OF THE FARMER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VIII. THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     IX. THE PEOPLE'S PARTY LAUNCHED\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     X. THE POPULIST BOMBSHELL OF 1892\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     XI. THE SILVER ISSUE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     XII. THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     XIII. THE LEAVEN OF RADICALISM\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE AGRARIAN CRUSADE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I. THE INCEPTION OF THE GRANGE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen President Johnson authorized the Commissioner of Agriculture,\u003cbr\u003ein 1866, to send a clerk in his bureau on a trip through the Southern\u003cbr\u003eStates to procure \"statistical and other information from those States,\"\u003cbr\u003ehe could scarcely have foreseen that this trip would lead to a movement\u003cbr\u003eamong the farmers, which, in varying forms, would affect the political\u003cbr\u003eand economic life of the nation for half a century. The clerk selected\u003cbr\u003efor this mission, one Oliver Hudson Kelley, was something more than\u003cbr\u003ea mere collector of data and compiler of statistics: he was a keen\u003cbr\u003eobserver and a thinker. Kelley was born in Boston of a good Yankee\u003cbr\u003efamily that could boast kinship with Oliver Wendell Holmes and Judge\u003cbr\u003eSamuel Sewall. At the age of twenty-three he journeyed to Iowa, where\u003cbr\u003ehe married. Then with his wife he went on to Minnesota, settled in\u003cbr\u003eElk River Township, and acquired some first-hand familiarity with\u003cbr\u003eagriculture. At the time of Kelley's service in the agricultural bureau\u003cbr\u003ehe was forty years old, a man of dignified presence, with a full beard\u003cbr\u003ealready turning white, the high broad forehead of a philosopher, and the\u003cbr\u003eeager eyes of an enthusiast. \"An engine with too much steam on all the\u003cbr\u003etime\"--so one of his friends characterized him; and the abnormal energy\u003cbr\u003ewhich he displayed on the trip through the South justifies the figure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKelley had had enough practical experience in agriculture to be\u003cbr\u003esympathetically aware of the difficulties of farm life in the period\u003cbr\u003eimmediately following the Civil War. Looking at the Southern farmers\u003cbr\u003enot as a hostile Northerner would but as a fellow agriculturist, he\u003cbr\u003ewas struck with the distressing conditions which prevailed. It was not\u003cbr\u003emerely the farmers' economic difficulties which he noticed, for such\u003cbr\u003edifficulties were to be expected in the South in the adjustment after\u003cbr\u003ethe great conflict; it was rather their blind disposition to do as their\u003cbr\u003egrandfathers had done, their antiquated methods of agriculture, and,\u003cbr\u003emost of all, their apathy. Pondering on this attitude, Kelley decided\u003cbr\u003ethat it was fostered if not caused by the lack of social opportunities\u003cbr\u003ewhich made the existence of the farmer such a drear monotony that he\u003cbr\u003ebecame practically incapable of changing his outlook on life or his\u003cbr\u003eattitude toward his work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeing essentially a man of action, Kelley did not stop with the mere\u003cbr\u003eobservation of these evils but cast about to find a remedy. In doing\u003cbr\u003eso, he came to the conclusion that a national secret order of farmers\u003cbr\u003eresembling the Masonic order, of which he was a member, might serve\u003cbr\u003eto bind the farmers together for purposes of social and intellectual\u003cbr\u003eadvancement. After he returned from the South, Kelley discussed the plan\u003cbr\u003ein Boston with his niece, Miss Carrie Hall, who argued quite sensibly\u003cbr\u003ethat women should be admitted to full membership in the order, if it was\u003cbr\u003eto accomplish the desired ends. Kelley accepted her suggestion and went\u003cbr\u003eWest to spend the summer in farming and dreaming of his project. The\u003cbr\u003enext year found him again in Washington, but this time as a clerk in the\u003cbr\u003ePost Office Department.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070174052592,"sku":"2940013673595","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013673595_p0.jpg?v=1763584181","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013673595","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}