Its methods of organization, too, while admirably
adapted to arousing enthusiasm and to securing
new chapters quickly, did not make for stability
and permanence. The Grange deputy, as the or-
ganizer was termed, did not do enough of what the
salesman calls "follow-up work." He went into a
town, persuaded an influential farmer to go about
with him in a house-to-house canvass, talked to the
other farmers of the vicinity, stirred them up to
interest and excitement, organized a Grange, and
then left the town. If he happened to choose the
right material, the chapter became an active and
flourishing organization; if he did not choose wisely,
it might drag along in a perfunctory existence or
even lapse entirely. Then, too, the deputy's ig-
norance of local conditions sometimes led him to
open the door to the farmers' enemies. There can
be little doubt that insidious harm was worked
through the admission into the Grange of men who
were farmers only incidentally and whose "inter-
est in agriculture" was limited to making profits
from the farmer rather than from the farm. As
D. Wyatt Aiken, deputy for the Grange in the
Southern States and later member of the executive
committee of the National Grange, shrewdly com-
mented, "Everybody wanted to join the Grange

-61-