y. During the
next winter John Sherman, Senator from Ohio, induced Congress to take a
step in fulfillment of the guaranty which Grant had saved. On January
14, 1875, it was provided that the Treasury should resume the payment of
specie on demand on January 1, 1879.

Ultimately Congress was saved from the act of repudiation which the
Greenbackers urged upon it, but while the movement flourished it added
another to the catalogue of troubles with which men like Godkin and
Lowell were distressed. Easterners, in general, had as little
understanding of the West as they had had of the race problem in the
South. They were disposed to attribute to inherent dishonesty the
inflation movement, and to ignore the real economic grievance upon which
it was founded. The suspicions directed against the ethical standards of
the West were increased by the Granger movement, to which the panic gave
volume and importance.

Among the social phenomena of 1873-74 was the sudden emergence in the
Northwest of a semi-secret, ritualistic society, calling itself the
"Patrons of Husbandry," but popularly known as the "Grange." It was
founded locally upon the soil, in farmers' clubs, or granges, at whose
meetings the men talked politics, while their wives prepared a picnic
supper and the children played outdoors. It had had a nominal existence
since 1867, but during the panic it unexpectedly met a new need and grew
rapidly, creating 1000 or more local granges a month, until at its
maximum in 1874 it embraced perhaps 20,000 granges and 1,600,000
persons. In theory the granges were grouped by States, which latter were
consolidated in the National Grange; in fact, the movement was almost
entirely confined to the region north of the Ohio River, and even to the
district northwest of Chicago.

Such a movement as the Grange, revealing a common purpose over a wide
area and in a great number of citizens, could not but affect party
allegiance and the conduct of party leaders. Simultaneously with its
development the legislatures of the Northwest--Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Iowa--became restive under existing conditions, and assumed an attitude
which became characteristic of the Grange,--one of hostility to
railroads and their management. With the approval of the people, these
States passed, between 1871 and 1874, a series of regulative acts
respecting the railways, which were known at the start as the "Granger
Laws," and which became a permanent contribution to