Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 117 



world has known. It will be known when history is written as 

 the period of the great growth of cities throughout the entire 

 civilized world. 



The conditions under which we are now living, however, are 

 wholly different from those under which any similar uprising 

 among the farmers has occurred. Now we find on the one hand 

 the consumer complaining of the high cost of living and the farmer 

 on the other hand showing a poor balance, due to the new value 

 set upon his land and the increased cost of what he has to buy. 

 The farmer cannot be satisfied in his demand for a better return 

 on his investment by raising the price of food to the consumer, as 

 has been done on all previous occasions. On the other hand, 

 the burdens of the consumer cannot be lightened by requiring the 

 farmer to take less for what he sells. In a word, a demand has 

 arisen for cooperation for the purpose of increasing the return.s 

 from the farm and of lowering the price of food to the consumer, 

 both at the same time. It can best be accomplished by establish- 

 ing direct business relations between the producer and the con- 

 sumer and eliminating all waste in getting the products from the 

 farmer to the consumer. Obviously, both the producer and the 

 consumer should participate in the benefit of this readjustment, 

 and neither should expect a monopoly of the advantages and 

 profits. 



A beginning can be made at once, but its final consummation 

 will and should require many years, perhaps a generation, and will 

 call for the exercise of the utmost patience, forbearance and 

 charity. The immediate and entire elimination of the middleman 

 would be disastrous. All unnecessary middlemen finally must be 

 turned into the productive industries, but not more rapidly than 

 the industries can employ them to advantage. 



CO-OPERATORS MUST EMPLOY BUSINESS METHODS. 



Any form of co-operation to be successful must employ the 

 methods that have been found most successful in other business. 

 The co-operators must be willing to employ as capable men as 

 managers as are employed by those with whom they must compete. 

 Moreover, in competing with corporations it will be necessary to 

 employ the methods of conducting business employed by corpora- 

 tions. For example, if the farmers start a co-operative grain ele- 

 vator at some grain center they are likely soon to find themselves 

 unable to compete with the corporation that owns the elevator there 



