The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 11, 1918, Page 14

Farmers First to Recognize Women Founders of the Grange Admitted Their Social and Economic Equality With Men and Stimulated the Woman’s Movement OW many people know that ) che fight to give women a fair chance got its first general recognition through a farmers’ organization? But it did. Not a political chance, but just a fair chance to get credit for being over half the popula- tion and to share in prosperity and general advancement, Women it is well known, share the lives of their hus- bands. The millionaire’s wife drives around in a glossy limousine with cut flowers nodding good morning from vages inside the doors, and the farm- ers wife rides on the sulky plow, or maybe she walks. When a famous French painter (who had got tired of painting beautiful women in Paris) turned his thoughts to more sober topics and began to por- tray the hard life of the common peo- ple, he found his best subjects women —farm women—peasants - they call them there. His name was Millet and one of hjs most famous paintings is *I'he Gleaners.” Who were these glean- ers? None other than three peasapt women, an-aged grandmother, so stiff she could no longer stoop down to pick up the few spears of rye dropped by thelandlord’sharvesters; herdaughter, stiff with years of toil, but still able to stoop; and her granddaughter, the third generation in this chain of hard- ship, reaching eagerly among the stubble for the scattered heads that _meant bread to them. GIDDY IDEA OF WOMEN'S HARDSHIPS American writers, especially florid writers on the grandeurs that the school histories recount, are never tired of telling how the American women have braved every hardship to go to the frontier with their husbands and help subdue a rugged continent. Wom- en did these things all right, but the glib and gladsome way some of these writers tell of it, leads to the suspicion that their minds are a blank to the realities they chatter about. . ‘Whittier wrote a poem, one stanza of which is well known. It runs thus: “Lives of great men all remind us ‘We can make-our. lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.” That is all right for “great men,” but if Whittier were writing a poem to portray the condition of women, he would have said something like this: “Lives of women should remind us Of a job that’s never done, And that death is apt to find us Just about where we begun.” The women of colonial days, which seem remote and romantic now to think about, lived a life of about the same kind that seems far from ro- mantic now to the women who have part in it. It is' more -picturesque to read or write about frontier women driving ox teams or shooting Indians than it is to be one of the modern farm women pitching bundles, or try- ing to adjust her home to the exactions - of profiteers. That is the way the farmers of 1866 looked at it. They saw their mothers and wives doing the everyday hard work on:the farms, helping to earn the 40 cents that was paid for a bushel of wheat, and sitting up nights to make iy clothes for the family from wool they spun into yarn and wove into cloth. Women not only were rocking the cradle in which the babies crooned contentedly—a picture the writers love te conjure up—but they were swing- ing the cradles that preceded the har- vesters and threshing machines out in the fields. No wonder it was a farmers’ organi- zation that first proposed women should be given a place in solving such problems. Some farmers’ critics love to tell how hard the farmers work their wives—and it must be admitted that someone does work them pretty hard— but it was farmers who first formed an organization to take women into partnership in community life. That organization was the National Grange. WOMEN ADMITTED TO COMMUNITY LIFE . Thirty or 40 years ago more was said about the grange than is said now. That was because it was new and it was doing great things that people hardly expected from the organized farmers. It is doing great things yet but people expect that from farmers nowadays. The Grange was originated by a Nortswestern farmer on the very edge of the frontier, Oliver H. Kelley, of Itasca, Minn. His home was at Itasca and between times, when he was not out organizing the Grange he was at Awake and Ready to Fight League Keeps Farmers from Falling Asleep at the Switch and Having Pockets Picked, says Mrs. Shores This letter, written by Mrs. Wilbur Shores of Pelican Rapids, Minn,, in the recent Leader con- test, shows how the League fills a long felt want in the homes, a want inarticulate but keen, which finds its first expression through “the League. The letter was writ- . ten in reply to the question, ‘“What does the Nonpartisan ‘league mean to you?” Pelican Rapids, Minn. DITOR Woman’s Page: The Nonpartisan league means so many things to me and mine that it is hard to tell it all. It means first that we are learning the truth about our politicians, and how we have been kept blind- so long. It means that we are encouraged in bringing up our boys and girls to be farmerg as we have hopes of better times for them. 4 It will mean that we will get better pay for the crops we all work so hard to get, and in getting better pay, we will be able to have more of the neces- sities and after awhile some of the luxuries. A It will mean that we need not stand back helpless and see Big Biz taking our money that is needed to buy food and clothes for our babies, g It means picnics in summer which we go for miles to attend, in that way geeing country and meeting people that we would never have seen or met otherwise, also listening to fine speak- ers that keep the farmers from going to sleep at the switch, It means that the city people are be- ginning to realize that the farmers and their families are human beings with a mind after all instead of just hay- seeds, When we meet 2 Nonpartisan league member in. a crowd, even though strangers to each other at first, we are soon acquainted as we have go much in common. It keeps us all stirred up and working to convince any doubters of how good a thing it is and slowly but surely we are learning that we must read and think more to have lots of arguments ready. - { . We aren’t ready any more to believe all the lies that the big dailies tell, We < ¢ : : | . PAGE FOURTEEN are developing our thinking power. Let Big Biz beware, as we have had a long rest and are fresh now for the struggle. We have great hopes mow of con- ditions on the farm and amongst the poor people of the city improving right along. That is something to live for. Life isn’t quite the hopeless struggle for existence now as it was as we have something to look forward to. We know that when this thing gets to going, conditions all over our coun- try will be so much better. When we get the moneygrabber buried so deep that he can never get out, when we get the state-owned industries and all the other improvements planned, what a country this will be! When we get these things all over this county of ours it will mean that at last our glorious flag flies over a free people, and then, and not till then, will life be what it was meant to be. MRS. WILBUR SHORES. P. 8.—The Leader it read from cover’ to cover here and is enjoyed by both of us, only we get rather warm under the collar sometimes and feel like starting right out afighting, after read- ing some of the things it tells about. Mrs. W. 8. ~ The three children of Mrs, Wilbur Shores, writer of 4 the accompanying prize:winning letter, s : home on the farm working. Perhaps his wife and his mother helped him. At any rate, it was the men of the Grange who first said to women: “Come, let us reason TOGETHER.” Of course, there were many voices ' speaking for the women before this. John Adams’ wife is said to have urged him to provide for protection of women in the constitution which he helped to frame. During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a famous magazine edited by a brilliant woman in the interest of women. But these were only indications of things to come. The first fruit was the Grange with its hundreds of thousands - of members in practically all states. For years it was the only nationwide organization in which the problems of women were recognized. - It stood for the companionship of farmers with their wives, and pointed the way to partnership of all the women in the affairs of the country. It brought the rural populations “out of their shells” - and developed them by social contact, for bigger things. Women not only prepared and served the suppers at the weekly and monthly “lyceums” but played the organs and discussed with ° their husbands the problems they were jointly trying to solve out on the lonely farms. 3 Whatever influence organized or in- dividual women have today in city con- sumers’ leagues, n community life, in big movements, farm women can point with pride to the fact that this is largely -due to that pioneer notion of some farmers of 40 years ago, who first recognized that women were fully as important a part of the nation as men and gave them a ghare in human destiny as well as human hardships. POTATOES GOOD IN CAKE They are often used in this way to keep the cake from drying out quickly. Mash the potatoes and beat up with milk until very light. You can use your usual cake recipe, substituting one cup of mashed potatoes for one-half cup of milk and one-half cup of flour. Potatoes, left over or fresh, may also be combined with cheese or nuts or meat or other material, often to make the main dish of a meal To make po- tato sausage take: 1 cup mashed po- tatoes, 1 cup ground nuts, fish or meat, 1 egg, well beaten, 11/, teaspoons salt, 13 ‘teaspoon pepper, salt pork, bacon or other fat. Mix the mashed potatoes and season- ings with the ground nuts, fish or meat. Add beaten egg. Form into little cakes or sausages; roll in flour and place in greased pan with a small piece of fat or salt pork on each sausage. Bake in a fairly hot oven until brown. For scalloped potatoes and cheese arrange a layer of sliced raw or boiled potatoes in greased baking dish and sprinkle with grated cheese and a little flour. Repeat until dish is nearly full, Pour milk over tle whole, about one- half cup to every three potatoes. Skim ‘milk is good. Bake in a'moderate oven until done. The length of time required depends upon whether the potatoes are raw or boiled and whether the baking dish used 18 deep or shallow. potatoes baked in a shallow dish will take only 20 minutes. Raw potatoes 4n a deep dish may take as much as 114 el hours, & Boiled . I L gea ”