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Chapter 1
Importance, Excitement, Satisfaction of Grange Membership

Being a Grange member sets that man, that woman, that boy, that girl apart!

The Grange is a vital, tremendous organization with many satisfying elements. The Grange member not only becomes interested but actively engaged as he realizes the double objectives of participation:
1. Benefiting through the many personal and family advantages of membership.
2. Serving his neighbors, community, state, and nation by personal and group activities-worthwhile and important.
Not only do the benefits of membership make life more complete and pleasurable for members, but Grange service and legislative accomplishments help millions of people outside the membership.

Family Unity a Major Grange Objective

Unique in its family and. fraternal structure among organizations anywhere in the world, the Grange is based on the solid foundation of the American farm and rural family from which it derives its strength, its progressive character, and its tolerance born out of a high moral tone without religious bias.

Members are largely property-owning people of a dependable and stable citizenship. They are eager to not only enjoy, and continue to enjoy, the benefits of that citizenship but want to take their places in an active America as knowledgeable, worthy citizens. They seek a satisfying and satisfactory family life, with growing, upright children who also become stable, top-grade citizens. They want to feel that their abilities are being used, and their influence means something not only in their local Grange but in the development of policies for state, national, and worldwide accomplishments of substantial worth.

As a community family fraternity, the Grange combines its practical features with a beautiful ritual which depicts the finest features arid traditions of the American family and country life. The Grange cooperates with the church, the school and every other American institution whose aims for progress and the enrichment of life are similar.

It has been said that no other secular association in America, of people who voluntarily group themselves together, has within it so much of religion with so little sectarianism; no other with so much patriotism with so little partisanship. The American flag must be on display at every Grange meeting. The open Bible is on the altar in full view of all members.

The Grange is one of the very few places where the whole family-all ages-may attend together for sociability, education, and to meet other families on a common level of understanding.

The Grange provides regular meetings for business and discussion as well as literary programs for sociability and education. An active member acquires many fine fraternal friends.

Grange Accomplishments Helped Preserve America

While the Grange is non-partisan, it does take part in community life. It does not support any particular candidate for public office but maintains a lively interest and activity in local, state, and national legislation. Its accomplishments in this field throughout the first century of its life have been astounding with far-reaching effects. The record shows that, without doubt, the Grange has helped to preserve the American way of life we enjoy today.

The far-sighted pioneers who started the Grange 100 years ago were truly remarkable in their conception of the organization. Consider that it has served well the needs of farmers, rural and suburban communities, and the nation as a whole in all of these 100 years, and that now in the "Jet" Age it continues to fit right into the needs of rural and rur-urban people and can perform its mission today with little or no change in its procedures.

Now, some 6000 Subordinate Granges with a membership growing fast toward the one million mark continue to follow out the basic tenets of our nation. It can be rightly said that the Grange was authorized in the Bill of Rights when the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was created. This gave reference to "freedom of speech" and the right of people "peaceably to assemble."

' At that early date in our history, the founders of our nation recognized that groups of people would need to unite, through meetings and discussions, through decisions and actions, in ways that they could perfect or reconcile positions among themselves, then present viewpoints and recommendations to the proper authorities, at the same time as they were learning to solve, through united action, local problems and needs.

The Grange is an exemplification of this idea in that it provides the organizational basis for people, and offers individual members who are united as to over-all purpose and philosophy the opportunity to influence the course of action in their communities, the county, the state, and the nation, or even in the world itself, through creating and supporting the policies of the National Grange.

In the Grange Hall dedication ceremony is this statement:

"Within the walls of this Grange home will be taught the noblest ideals of civilization. Here will be given the individual opportunity that trains men and women for larger usefulness and civic service; here new emphasis will be placed upon the home, its influence extended and its ties strengthened; here also will be taught loyalty to country and to God and the never-ceasing duty each human being owes to his fellows."

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