e transportation
facilities; all were heartily in sympathy with the policy of the
Government in granting to corporations land along the route of the
railways which they were to construct.

By 1878, however, the Government had actually given to the railroads
about thirty-five million acres, and was pledged to give to the Pacific
roads alone about one hundred and forty-five million acres more. Land
was now not so plentiful as it had been in 1850, when this policy had
been inaugurated, and the farmers were naturally aggrieved that the
railroads should own so much desirable land and should either hold it
for speculative purposes or demand for it prices much higher than the
Government had asked for land adjacent to it and no less valuable.
Moreover, when railroads were merged and reorganized or passed into the
hands of receivers the shares held by farmers were frequently wiped
out or were greatly decreased in value. Often railroad stock had been
"watered" to such an extent that high freight charges were necessary
in order to permit the payment of dividends. Thus the farmer might find
himself without his railroad stock, with a mortgage on his land which
he had incurred in order to buy the stock, with an increased burden
of taxation because his township had also been gullible enough to buy
stock, and with a railroad whose excessive rates allowed him but a
narrow margin of profit on his produce.

When the farmers sought political remedies for their economic ills, they
discovered that, as a class, they had little representation or influence
either in Congress or in the state legislatures. Before the Civil War
the Southern planter had represented agricultural interests in Congress
fairly well; after the War the dominance of Northern interests left
the Western farmer without his traditional ally in the South. Political
power was concentrated in the East and in the urban sections of the
West. Members of Congress were increasingly likely to be from the
manufacturing classes or from the legal profession, which sympathized
with these classes rather than with the agriculturists. Only about
seven per cent of the members of Congress were farmers; yet in 1870
forty-seven per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture. The
only remedy for the farmers was to organize themselves as a class in
order to promote their common welfare.

CHAPTER III. THE GRANGER MOVEMENT AT FLOOD TIDE

With these real or fancied grievances crying fo