USA > Indiana > Vigo County > History of Indiana from its exploration to 1922, Vol II > Part 21
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22 Agricultural Reports, 1853.
847
THE STATE FAIR
1855, at Indianapolis. There was some dissatisfac- tion among the exhibitors on holding the fair away from Indianapolis, and some dissatisfaction by board members on account of decreased receipts. As a re- sult the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh were held at Indianapolis. The eighth was held at New Albany under the auspices of the Floyd county society. Mili- tary activity induced the board to omit the fair in 1861 and from then till 1865 it was little more than an adjunct of the state sanitary commission. In 1865 it was held at Fort Wayne and in 1867 at Terre Haute. All since have been held at Indianapolis.
The first was held at Military park, where the board felt considerably crowded. The fair of 1860 was held on the board's own ground which soon be- came Camp Morton. Here they were held until 1892. By 1890 the city had grown around the old grounds and in 1891 they were sold for $275,100 and the Voss farm, 214 acres, lying two miles northeast of the old fair grounds, was purchased.23 On the new grounds a first-class, one mile race track was constructed. In the course of the succeeding years the new grounds have been provided with suitable buildings and facil- ities for exhibition purposes. For many years the General Assembly gave scant recognition to the fair but since 1896 a more generous policy has been fol- lowed. In 1908 a magnificent colosseum was built for the board at a cost of over $100,000. This building alone has a seating capacity of 12,000.24 The work of the state board of agriculture has been of vast im- portance. The state horticultural society, the cre- ation of a national department of agriculture, the geological survey of Indiana, Purdue university, the
23 Agricultural Reports, 1891, pp. 29-31.
24 No attempt can be made here to give more than a meager outline of the work of the state board of agriculture.
848
HISTORY OF INDIANA
county fair system, county and local agricultural so- cieties, the scores of state and local live stock raisers' and breeders' associations, promotion of veterinary science are only the more important lines of its activity. Among its leading members have been four governors, Joseph A. Wright, first president of the board; Gov. James D. Williams, of Knox county ; Claude Matthews, of Vermilion, and James A. Mount, of Montgomery.25
25 The plan of this chapter has been to give a detailed pic- ture of farm life in the fifties, and indicate the lines of develop- ment. The reader will be able to compare conditions then with those of the present and note the progress.
CHAPTER XXIX
GREENBACKERS AND GRANGERS
§ 152 ECONOMIC REVOLUTION
The greatest economic change in our state history took place during and soon after the Civil war. The change in process during the late fifties was hastened by the necessities of the war. Already the railroads had begun to undermine the system of household manufactures. By reducing freight rates it had been made possible to ship wheat, corn and hogs to market rather than flour, whiskey and pork. Every change of this kind released labor on the farms and made it necessary to buy abroad articles formerly produced at the home. Thus released from the loom and spin- ning wheel at home, hundreds of young women pre- pared themselves to earn money teaching school. A reference to the reports of the state superintendent of schools will show how rapidly this change took place.
Young men relieved of the tedium of making flour, whiskey and pork, turned to clearing more land and raising larger crops. The decade of the fifties was notable for the invention and introduction of farm machinery. On account of the plenty and cheap- ness of farm labor this machinery was slow in finding a sale in Indiana. Mowers, reapers and threshers attracted attention at the state and county fairs but only a few were sold to the farmers.
The railroads and the Wabash and Erie canal cut deeply into the flatboat trade during this same period. This not only released a large number of workers · but turned commerce to that extent toward the east.
850
HISTORY OF INDIANA
The old burr grist mills, from five to ten in each county, which had formerly given employment to several men in the neighborhood preparing flour to be hauled to the nearest shipping point, either closed down or resumed their former custom grinding. In each and every case laborers were dispensed with.
The war accentuated this change rather sharply. Before the war the change was retarded in each case by the displaced laborers and the usual conservatism of an agricultural population. The Civil war sud- denly withdrew every able-bodied laborer that could be spared. Not only were about 200,000 men with- drawn from active labor in the state but their em- ployers became wholesale buyers of supplies for the subsistence of these men, at prices never heard of before. The tempting prices caused the farmers to buy farming implements freely and employ every available agency to increase their crops and take ad- vantage of the rising prices. Thousands of women became active laborers on the farms.
The close of the war reversed all these tendencies. Thousands of young men returned from the army to find their places taken by machines. Wholesalers and jobbers bought all the surplus produce and shipped it to the large cities where it was manufactured into its final form. Released from all difficulties of mar- keting and manufacture the farmers increased their output rapidly. On top of this came a break in pro- duce prices, a rise in the price of machinery and an increase in freight rates. Such were the underlying conditions surrounding the struggle carried on dur- ing the seventies between the farmers and their eco- nomic enemies.
As shown in another chapter, railroad construc- tion was pushed with energy from 1850 to 1860. In the former year there were 228 miles; in the latter
851
ECONOMIC REVOLUTION
2,125 miles in Indiana. Capital to the extent of $34,- 457,030 had been invested. The more important of these roads ran east and west, and already they had begun noticeably to turn commerce along the paral- lels.1
Of a total number of 6,938 school teachers in Indi- ana in 1861 there were 1611 women2 and in 1866 out of a total of 9,493 teachers 4,163 were women.8 There are no available statistics to show how many women worked in the fields but it is common knowledge among the older generation that on every farm one might expect to find women and children at work. Especially was this true during the last two years of the war when a great deal of machinery was being used.
The census of 1850 did not give the value of the farming implements in Indiana but did give the value of all such implements made in the state at $146,025. Since few were brought in, this might be taken as ap- proximately correct for all the implements in use. By 1860 this item had increased to $709,645.4 By 1880 this same item had reached $20,470,988, a per capita expense of about $10, or five and one-half per cent. of the total farm products. Domestic manufactures as noted in chapter XXII declined sharply, throwing a per capita expense on farmers of about $200.
The young men released from farm work by the introduction of machinery went west in large num- bers and on the plains of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota, with the aid of improved farm ma- chinery, entered into an unequal competition with the folks back home in the production of corn and wheat. It would burden this narrative too much to quote all
1 Eighth Census, Preliminary, 226.
2 State Superintendent's Report, 6.
3 State Superintendent's Report.
4 Eighth Census, Preliminary, 169.
852
HISTORY OF INDIANA
the statistics concerned with this question but the wheat crops of 1860 and 1879 will illustrate the point. Illinois rose from 24 to 51 million bushels; Indiana from 15 to 47; Iowa from 8 to 31; Kansas from 1-5 to 17; Minnesota from 2 to 34; Missouri from 4 to 24; the whole country from 171 to 459.5 A still greater increase is shown in the case of corn.
The natural result of this was a steady decline in prices or a steady rise in the value of money. Wheat on the Indianapolis and Chicago market, the demand was entirely local, brought about eighty cents in 1857. By 1866 the price had risen to $2.00 and by 1880 had settled down to $1.00. This decline was general in farm produce. On the other hand freight rates refused to respond to the general decline. Tempted by the rush of settlers to the northwest, the railroads, having extended their lines farther than sound business would warrant, found it necessary to hold rates up or bankrupt and many did both."
§ 153 GRANGERS
Local organizations or clubs of farmers had been common in Indiana at least fifty years before the Grangers came. None of the earlier organizations were secret. Most of them were not only public but organized under general statutes. Such were the county agricultural societies organized in 1852 and later. Many counties-Washington, Wayne and Ma- rion especially-had had independent agricultural societies since the early thirties. In certaini com- munities local horticultural societies, social and pro- fessional in their nature, had long been in existence.7
5 United States Census, 1860, p. 200, and 1880, p. 177.
6 These were called "Wild Cat" roads, from the fact that they were built for exploitation and not for service.
7 O. H. Kelly, The Patrons of Husbandry, 18: "Agricultural societies have done much good by establishing fairs; yet these
853
GRANGERS
Some of the earliest Granges were formed by char- tering these societies and initiating their members. However, there was little articulation among the farmers. In the United States the occupation num- bered nearly six million out of a total of twelve mil- lions of workers. There was no class consciousness nor professional pride. At a time when railroaders, bankers, manufacturers, merchants, and jobbers were combining and pooling interests, farmers acted as individuals, each doing the best he could in the game of trade.8
The Grange seems, however, to have had its ori- gin in an attempt by the government to stimulate farm production and thereby lower prices. In Janu- ary, 1866, President Johnson sent O. H. Kelly, an employe of the bureau of agriculture, on a tour of the south to study agricultural conditions. It was on this trip of almost a year that Kelly formulated the idea of the Grange.9
are generally the work of a few right-minded, enthusiastic men, aided oftentimes by aspiring politicians. At these fairs the great attractions generally are implements and works of art, while the products of the soil offer the least attractions, and to bring the farmers out in any numbers, it is actually necessary to introduce as a prominent feature, horse-races and numerous side-shows."
8 E. W. Martin, The Grange Movement, 408.
9 O. H. Kelly, Patrons of Husbandry, 19: "Of membership, I should advocate both sexes being admitted, having separate degrees for the ladies, yet all meet in common. Making the expense of each degree but one dollar, would place it within the means of all. The secrecy would lend an interest and peculiar fascination, while the material for manufacturing new degrees to keep up an interest would be inexhaustible; and here I can safely say no order could surpass this in sublimity of the degrees that can be introduced. My plan of work is this: Having a complete but temporary organization of an United States lodge, dispensa- tions are to be granted to lecturers to organize in several counties in each state; these county organizations to elect one delegate each to the state organization, and the state organization one each
854
HISTORY OF INDIANA
The organization was fashioned in a general way on Masonry. There were to be subordinate lodges, state lodges, and a national. In the subordinate or grange were four degrees, Laborer, Cultivator, Har- vester, and Husbandman with their coordinates, Maid, Shepherdess, Gleaner and Matron for women. Men and women met together without distinctions. The state Grange conferred the degree Pomona; the national Grange those of Flora and Ceres. The rit- ual formed a beautiful system of moral lessons based on the common activities of farm life.
The founder of the order, O. H. Kelly, was a citi- zen of Minnesota. Through a friend of his in St. Paul he became acquainted with John Weir of Terre Haute whom he appointed a special deputy for Indi- ana.1º Near Terre Haute, December 24, 1869, Honey Creek Grange No. 1, the first in the state, was organ- ized. There were 28 members, about half of whom were women and half men. Three evenings later the second one, Terre Haute No. 2, was organized with Harvey D. Scott as master.11 These were the only granges opened in 1869. It was not till early in 1871 that the first grange hall in the state was built by Honey Creek lodge.12
Excepting the organization of a lodge at Indian- apolis early in the year, little was done in the way of organization during 1870, but early in 1871 Oscar Dinwiddie, of Orchard Grove, Indiana, applied for permission to convert a farmers' club of that place
to the United States. As soon as the majority of the states shall be represented, the temporary organization shall be permanently organized by the United States delegates."
10 Patrons of Husbandry, 180.
11 Patrons of Husbandry, 215, 216.
12 Patrons of Husbandry, 302.
855
GRANGERS
into a Grange.13 June 3, 1871, this grange was or- ganized with thirty members.
The State Grange of Indiana was organized March 1, 1872.14 John Weir, who, with the aid of Secretary Kelly, had organized the first subordinate, organized the state grange and became its first mas- ter. The order grew with astonishing rapidity in 1874. At the beginning of 1874 there were 423 granges ; in March there were 985; and in June 1,409, with 53,141 members. The high water mark was reached in 1875, when a process of consolidation of the smaller granges began. The total organizations in 1876 was reported as 2,036, but already this had been reduced to 1,944 active bodies by suspension and consolidation. These statistics from the Pro- ceedings of 1876, are, however, evidently wrong as Secretary Kelly enumerates 2,994 granges organized by 145 deputies in Indiana before January, 1875.15 The organization at any rate had been carried on too rapidly and many organizations were soon aban- doned.16 For the second quarter of 1875 the state grange paid the national dues on 59,981 members. By the close of 1878 the number of members had
18 Ibid, 328.
14 Ibid, 374. The numbering of the Annual Proceedings be- gins from 1870. The date is given in the Sentinel, Oct. 3, 1873, as Feb. 28. Jan. 15, 1873, there were 49 granges in the state.
15 Patrons of Husbandry, 433.
16 Proceedings of Fifth Annual Session Indiana Grange, 26: "Upon taking possession of the office, Jan. 1st, 1874, I found 267 granges registered as paying dues. One year from that time Jan. 1, 1875-there were registered 2,002, being an increase of 1,735, or at the rate of 147 per month; an increase unprecedented in history and unequaled by any order before known to the world. During the year 1874 organization was the only consideration; in the enthusiasm of the hour everything else was overlooked. Granges were often organized too near each other, a great many were improperly instructed, and many not instructed at all."
856
HISTORY OF INDIANA
dwindled to 521 granges and 16,426 active members in Indiana.
The founders of the state grange had several aims to accomplish, all comprehended in the general amel- iorization of the farmer's life. Agricultural educa- tion, better social privileges,17 professional training, political consideration by state and nation and pro- tection in their commercial dealings were the leading feature of their program.18
§ 154 LIBERAL REPUBLICANS
The first serious revolt in the political parties of Indiana after the Civil war came in 1872.19 Traces of
17 Oct. 2, 1873, at a granger picnic on the fair grounds of Muncie, it was estimated that 8,000 people sat down to a granger picnic dinner .- Sentinel, Oct. 3.
18 Annual address of Worthy Master Henley James, Proceed- ings, 1874, p. 11. The grange stood for a Department of Agricul- ture, with a cabinet position, loyally supported Purdue, favored government control of railroads, opposed restriction of the cur- rency and did much to improve rural schools and country life generally.
19 George W. Julian's "Journal," Indiana Magazine of His- tory, XII, 334: "Johnson was inaugurated today at 11 a. m., and took the oath, and he has already been in the hands of Chase, the Blairs, Halleck, General Scott, etc. Chase has again gone crazy about the presidency, and it is said is now plotting for the State Department as a stepping stone. Vain thought! The war committee today sent a request for an interview with the president and will probably secure it tomorrow. Having spent most of the forenoon in caucus with Wade, Chandler, Covode, Judge Carter and Wilkinson, correspondent of The Trib- une, who is determined to put Greeley on the warpath. In this caucus we agreed upon a new cabinet, which we are tomorrow to urge upon Johnson, among other things placing Butler in the State Department, Stebbins of New York in the Navy and Covode Postmaster-General. I like the radicalism of the members of this caucus, but have not in a long time heard so much profanity. It became intolerably disgusting. Their hostility toward Lincoln's
857
LIBERAL REPUBLICANS
the division were noticeable earlier but no outbreak came. Friction between the administration and cer- tain reformers was apparent before Lincoln's death. Sumner, Julian, Schurz, Greeley and others had freely criticised.20 The same line of cleavage was noted in the reconstruction legislation. Finding that Grant was sure to stand by the Republican organiza- tion the self-styled "Liberals" organized for open opposition.
As noticed in a former chapter the Republican majority in Indiana had slowly dwindled since the close of the war. In the off election of 1870 the state had gone Democratic by approximately 2,500 votes. However, Governor Baker, Senators Morton and Daniel D. Pratt, Vice-President Schuyler Colfax and six of the eleven congressmen were Republicans. Senator Morton was facing re-election with a handi- cap of 17 holdover Democrats in the state senate.
There was no great amount of enthusiasm for Grant in Indiana but there was less for any one else. Colfax and Morton were both mentioned for the presidency but both were loyal to Grant and neither would permit his name to be used. Even this would not have aided in appeasing the Liberals. The cam- paign in Indiana had little of state interest in it fur-
policy of conciliation and contempt for his weakness were un- disguised; and the universal feeling among radical men here is that his death is a Godsend. It really seems so, for among the last acts of his official life was an invitation to some of the chief rebel conspirators to meet in Richmond and confer with us on the subject of peace. The dastardly attack upon Lincoln and Seward, the great leaders in the policy of mercy, puts to flight utterly every vestige of humanitarian weakness, and makes it seem that justice shall be done and the righteous ends of the war made sure. The government could not have survived the policy upon which it had entered."
20 Julian, Political Recollections, 332.
858
HISTORY OF INDIANA
ther than the struggle of the party leaders to keep their footings on the shifting political sands.
The Democrats met on call of their chairmen, De- cember 27, 1871, and discussed the situation fully. It was determined there to await the action of the Re- publicans and lay their course accordingly. This seemed good policy to all but it was their undoing, as events showed. The Republicans as was well-known, had a family fight on, of which the Democrats ex- pected in time to take full advantage.
The desertions from the Republican party looked serious enough as the Liberal convention gathered at Cincinnati, May 1, 1872. Leading Indiana Democrats and newspapers encouraged the defection. A strange affection suddenly grew up among Democratic of- fice seekers for Greeley, Charles Francis Adams, B. Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz. These latter had within a decade searched the literature of the world for villainous epithets to apply to the Democratic party and even then were running on a platform hos- tile to every fundamental principle of Democracy.
The Republicans, February 22, at Indianapolis, nominated Gen. Thomas M. Browne for governor, supported by a ticket of young men. The platform was national and general, commending both state and national administrations.
The Democrats, June 12, nominated Thomas A. Hendricks for governor on a platform written by the Liberal Republicans at Cincinnati, May 1. It was a battle between Morton for the senate and Hendricks for the governorship in which both won, Hendricks by a majority of ^^1, and Morton by a majority in the General Assembly on joint ballot of 12. Only one other Democrat, Milton B. Hopkins, for state super- intendent, was elected. Hendricks was personally popular. Browne lost many Republican votes on ac- count of his intemperance. The Republicans secured
859
LIBERAL REPUBLICANS
ten of the thirteen congressmen. Thousands of Dem- ocrats felt as Senator Voorhees, that it was almost sacrilege to support Greeley. Had the Democrats boldly put out a Democratic ticket on a Democratic platform it seems they must have carried the state.21 It will be observed that the Liberal Republicans had been, in principle and practice, the most uncompro- mising in their attitude toward the Democrats. As a rule they had stood with Thaddeus Stevens in his Reconstruction policy and had opposed him in the contest for fiat money.
§ 155 GREENBACKERS
The Liberal Republican party died in its youth and innocence.22 Its leaders in Indiana were men of high character but as a political mistake it is un- equaled in our history. Its Republican leaders dropped out of political life; its Democratic allies were not sincere and at once resumed their Demo- cratic affiliation. It failed to touch the great politi- cal and economic issues of the day.
21 These facts are taken from the Indianapolis Sentinel and Journal, the Logansport Pharos and Tribune, the Terre Haute Gazette, the New Albany Ledger, and a few other papers. The platforms are given in Henry's Platforms and McPherson's Hand- book, Turpie's Sketches, Holcomb and Skinner's Hendricks, Foulke's Life of Morton, and Wallace's Autobiography are help- ful. For the Liberal side, see Julian's Recollections, ch. XV ; and especially his speech at the Academy of Music, Indianapolis, June 12, 1872, In his later speeches, 1-26. The Republican vlew · is admirably set forth in Foulke's Life of Morton, II, ch. XII, where liberal extracts from Morton's speeches are given. The attitude of Daniel W. Vorhees best illustrates the average Democrat. His mind revolted at the thought of supporting Greeley, but there was nothing else possible. Joseph E. McDonald refused to support Greeley.
22 Julian, in Sentinel, Oct. 8, 1873: "A party long in power necessarily becomes corrupt; and, once corrupted, it loses the power to purify itself."
860
HISTORY OF INDIANA
The Greenback issue-it was not a well organized political party-had its origin in the Civil war.28 The government during that struggle issues $450,- 000,000 of unsupported paper money, a forced loan. Its intention was, as soon as possible, to retire this currency. The general conditions during the period following the war were not conducive to that policy. With the value of money steadily rising, the debtor class-the farmers and laborers-objected strenu- ously to a policy which would increase the tendency. The Greenback issue in Indiana divided the people generally along this line. There were thousands of Greenbackers in the state who never left the old par- ties ; there were thousands more who went from the Republican to the Democratic party on this issue. The Greenback party never enjoyed the leadership of capable politicians of state-wide reputation.2ª East and west the Greenback issue divided the nation sec- tionally, Indiana going with the West. Though usually conservative, Indiana has since remained a western state on all economic and political issues.
The decade of the seventies in Indiana is primar- ily noted for the awakening of class consciousness. There had been some, but not serious, attempts earl- ier to organize some of the trades and professions. The typesetters, publishers, physicians and others had organized but principally along fraternal and professional rather than along protective lines. The movements of the seventies were largely protective or defensive. The railroads began to pool their in- terest and preserve their freight rates. At best,
23 Indianapolis Journal, Oct. 31, 1873.
24 This was a national issue. For the national issues, see Burton, Life of Sherman; Woodburn, Life of Thaddeus Stevens; Noyes, Forty Years of Finance; Harper's Weekly; and Rhodes, History of the United States.
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