Editing Farmers' movement (section)

==Influence==
The Farmers' movement was much misunderstood, abused and ridiculed by the societal forces it challenged. However, it accomplished a vast amount of good. The movement—and especially the Grange, for on most important points the latter movements only followed where it had led—contributed the initial impulse and prepared the way for the establishment of traveling and local rural libraries, reading courses, lyceums, farmers institutes (a steadily increasing influence) and [[rural delivery service|rural free mail delivery]] (inaugurated experimentally in 1896 and adopted as part of the permanent postal system of the country in 1902); for agricultural exhibits and an improved agricultural press; for encouragement to and increased profit from the work of agricultural colleges, the establishment (1885) and great services of the United States Department of Agriculture, -- in short, for an extraordinary lessening of rural isolation and the betterment  of the farmers opportunities; for the irrigation of the semi-arid West, adopted as a national policy in [[Newlands Reclamation Act|1902]], the [[Pure Food and Drug Act|pure-food laws]] of 1906, the [[Interstate Commerce Act of 1887|interstate-commerce law of 1887]], the railway-rate laws of [[Elkins Act|1903]] and [[Hepburn Act|1906]], even the great [[Department of Commerce and Labor|Bureau of Commerce-and-Labor law]] of 1903, and the [[Anti-trust]] laws of 1903 and later. The Alliance and [[Populist Party (United States)|Populist]] movements were bottomed on the idea of "ethical gains through legislation."{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=182}}

In its local manifestations the whole movement was often marked by eccentric ideas, narrow prejudices and weaknesses in economic reasoning. It is not to be forgotten that owing to the movement of the frontier the United States has always been "at once a developed country and a primitive one. The same political questions have been put to a society advanced in some regions and undeveloped in others. ... On specific political questions each economic area has reflected its peculiar interests" (Prof. F.J. Turner). That this idea must not, however, be over-emphasized, is admirably enforced by observing the great mass of farmer radicalism that has, since about 1896, become an accepted [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] and [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] principle over the whole country. The Farmers movement was the beginning of widespread, effective protest against "the menace of privilege" in the United States.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=182}}