The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 30, 1921, Page 6

B\ £ H K ¥ A Small Idea That Grew Into a Big One "How the Co-Operative Grain Marketing Plan of North Dakota Farmers : Developed Into the U. S. Grain Growers, Inc. Side by side with the Nonpartisan league, the farmers’ political organization, the Equity Co-Operative exchange, the largest co-operative grain marketing institution in the world, grew up in North Dakota. In an article in the last issue of the Leader Mr. Harmon reviewed the early days of the Equity and the fight of the grain gamblers against it. In this article he tells how the Equity developed the idea of a national co-operative grain marketing associa- tion, which is now being developed as the “United States Grain Growers, Inc.” BY RALPH HARMON . OBODY eéver wastes energy fighting something that he expects will col- lapse without fighting. When the grain interests of the Northwest saw on the western horizon the first flick- ering flames of the great farmers’ marketing movement they got out their fire-fighting apparatus without delay. They have opposed the Equity Co-Operative exchange from the day of its incorporation down to the present. When, as a re- sult of the desperate warfare waged by the Minne- apolis Chamber of Commerce, related in the previ- ous issue of the Leader, the exchange moved from Minneapolis to St. Paul in the autumn of 1914, the Minneapolis papers gave vent to their bitter hatred by a lengthy sarcastic tirade, likening the removal to a military retreat. Coupled with this were the continued statements that the Equity handled but a small volume, measured on a percentage basis, of the grain reaching the Twin Cities and Head of the Lakes markets, the boycott was continued, and damaging publicity, pamphlets, articles, etc., con- tinued to be circulated. The present suit of the federal trade commission against the chamber of commerce, brought on infor- mation of the Equity, is a result of the continued enemy tactics. It has been four years since this suit, now being heard at Washington, D. C., was started. X While its enemies have been fighting it, by fair means and foul, the Equity exchange has been keep- ing straight ahead with two purposes—to make its own operations a success and to educate the farmers of the Northwest so that a greater degree of co- operation could be undertaken successfully. MESSAGE OF CO-OPERATION CARRIED TO GRAIN MEN OF MANY STATES - Its speakers have made familiar to audiences in many states the necessity and the progress in de- . velopment of the farmers’ own grain and livestock marketing movement. It has delivered the farmers’ ultimatum in the den of the bulls and bears in Chicago. In 1916 President J. M. Anderson, before a large audience of co-operators in Chicago, fore- told the approach of the farmers’ marketing move- ment for the entire Northwest, predicting that with the success of the Equity other farmer organiza- tions in other states would take hold of the problem and help to solve it. And all the way from Chicago to the summit of the Rocky mountains the Equity In the last Leader we prihted pictures of the first offices of the Equity Co-Operati;'e exchanée in Moorhead, Minn., in 1912 and the starting of work on the terminal elevator at St. Paul. This is the big elevator as it looks today. It willlbe one of the principal units in the United States Grain Growers, Inc., the big national speakers, solicitors, organizers and missionaries have been laying the foundation for complete farm- er control of the marketing of grain and using every effort to rouse the farmers of the still un- awakened states to the seriousness of the situation, And now the day of farmer unity seems at hand, and the effort which was pioneered at Fargo, Min- neapolis, St. Paul and Superior-Duluth, beginning . as far back as 1907, has attracted nation- al attention. It is now engaging the ef- forts of a national board of 21 directors, representing the 20 states which produce grain for sale in the central markets, and it is doing this by recognizing the inter- vening steps, by building upon the prac- tical experience of the past, by utilizing the leadership and the mental attitude of the farmers who have already accom- plished much. There has been much publicity during the past six or seven months for- the “Committee of 17,” and during the last 30 days for the “United States Grain Grow- ers, Inc.,” and by the time this is in print it is expected there will be organizers of many old farmer organizations uniting in the drive to secure memberships and sign up contracts in this néwest of new farmer enterprises, the United States Grain Growers, Inc. But before there was any Committee of 17 the problem of grain marketing had reached the state of Iowa where, some four or five months prior to the conception of the “17” idea, the Equity Co- Operative exchange and the Iowa union of the American Society of Equity had entered upon a million-dollar Chicago terminal elevator enterprise. This occurred in March, 1920, The Farmers’ Termi- nal Elevator company ‘of Sioux City, Iowa, had al- ready begun to- build a splendid new structure, which is now nearing completion, and the Farmers’ union of Nebraska had decided to add. to its live- stock marketing, the marketing of grain on the Omaha market, while some smaller terminal market enterprises of other organizations had already taken form at Kansas City and elsewhere. To this extent, then, had the idea of farmer terminal mar- keting progressed in the few years between the time the Equity Co-Operative exchange began oper- ations and its campaign of education. All these other organi- zations .. were owned by farmers, and bent upon mar- keting grain for the benefit of farmers, but of them all the co-operative agency which has now been organized as the outgrowth of the -fight of North Dakota and Minnesota farmers against the grain gamblers. RN E, PAGE SIX | ° . S A S N R DT (L Y AT S N L I e J. M. Anderson, pres- ident of the Equity Co-Operative Ex- change. Equity was the only one that was fully co-operative and fully in operation when the June conference was called in Chicago which resulted in selecting the Committee of 17 and the organization of the United States Grain Growers, Inc. Taking into consideration all the steps that had been taken before, the Committee of 17, in its final report to the ratification convention in Chicago ‘April 6-8, said: ; “We note with satisfaction and great pride the many benefits that have been brought to consumers and producers of grain by the Farmers’ co-operative ele- vator movement of our country. “This movement began originally by the organization of farmer co-operative - elevator companies to operate on the local markets. It has, however, been ex- tended to the terminal markets, and large farmer co-operative and commission com- panies have successfully handled grain on the terminal markets of the United " States. We have taken the farmer co-op- erative institutions as the basic units - upon which to construct a marketing sys- tem, and our plan contemplates the. fur- ther strengthening and development. of > these co-operative institutions.” - On the basis of this recognition of the farmer terminal and country elevator companies the ratifi- cation convention adopted in entirety the report of tLe Committee of 17 with a unanimous vote on every section but one. : After the adoption of the report the 12 districts into which the country was divided caucused, each elected the delegate or delegates to which it was entitled, the 21 directors-thus chosen, organized into working committees and departments, filed articles of incorporation, established headquarters in Chi- cago and are now perfecting plans to harness all . the farmer grain marketing organizations of the country to the one big. job of handling the 1921 spring and winter wheat crop for American millers and European consumers direct. - GRAIN GROWERS STILL HAVE A BIG, FIGHT AHEAD OF THEM Of course it is “some job.” The practical busi- ness men and farmers who comprise its board of directors know its magnitude and are in no mood of childish, boyish glee over the ninth inning of the game. It is just the first inning and the farmers are at bat. No one has reached first base yet—and the same old grain gang that has fought the Equity for a decade hopes no one ever will reach first base. Probably in their many gatherings, only occasional inklings of which drift to the press outside, they. still have hopes that something may split the farm- ers’ efforts and leave the gang in control. But it is also known that they are nervous.. Their long - fight has apparently been lost. It will be lost en- tirely if the series of zone conferences now being held succeed in welding the existing organizations into a firm support for the new corporation. How will it be financed? What effect will it have on the organizations now in the field? Will it use the boards of trade? Will it establish a big bank of its own'and ignore the present banking system? These are some of the questions now flooding per- haps every one of the 21 directors and certainly these are the questions being asked of every person who so much as presumes to speak for the new plan. The conferences now in progress will answer most of these questions to the satisfaction of all. But in the meantime it may be well to take a square look at the proposition and realize that no miracle has been or can be petformed; that it is only human beings who are going to run the United States Grain Growers, Inc.; that the United States Grain Growers will exist in a business world that is already built for hard-headed business and has no mind for fanciful notions and ill-tried experiments; that this is all realized by the board of directors and that their first problem, in point of time, is to get the backing of indivdual growers and of the successful growers’ terminal marketing organizations that al- ready exist. . : The growers are being asked to sign five-year con- - tracts to sell all their grain through the United _States Grain Growers, Inc. They will pay $10 and s P