150 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



well as the consumer, may benefit by more efficient methods. This is 

 a job that no farmer can do individually, but we are just beginning to 

 learn that we can do it by organization. Not only through cooperative 

 marketing can organization help us to a better return for our invest- 

 ment, but through organization and in that way alone, can we bring 

 our case to the attention of the general public. Through organiza- 

 tion farmers can meet around the council table or in legislative hall 

 on equal basis with capital and labor, and thresh out such questions 

 as taxation, transportation, and finance, that are vitally connected with 

 the matter of income. 



Now these cooperative organizations in order to be successful 

 must have the right kind of leaders. These leaders must have a 

 technical knowledge of agriculture. They must have a knowledge 

 of the principles and methods of cooperation as they have been worked 

 out through experience in this and other countries. And they must 

 be instilled with the idea of giving service to their communities. 1 

 believe the University should give attention to the special training 

 of men to be leaders in these cooperative organizations. The state- 

 ment may seem far-fetched, but I believe it is true, that one of the 

 greatest contributions the University can make to the development 

 of the country home is the training of the men to be leaders of 

 farmers' cooperative movements. 



In closing let me repeat that we can hope for better country 

 homes only when the business of farming becomes more profitable. 

 The farmer has it in his own power to bring this about, first by his 

 individual effort to produce more efficiently, and secondly by his 

 organized effort to market more efficiently and use his influence 

 toward a fair solution of our state and national problems. I have 

 said that these farmers' organizations must have wise and well-trained 

 leaders. Their success will depend ultimately, however, upon personal 

 interest and activity of the individual farmer. If, through lack of 

 interest, he allows his organization to be controlled by a few men 

 with selfish personal ambitions, or allows it to degenerate into a 

 paternalistic scheme supported by government funds, it will fail. In 

 my humble opinion nothing in recent years, if indeed in our whole 

 history, has dignified agriculture as an occupation so much as the 

 growth and work of our farm bureau organizations. And this is true 

 because the organizations were built by the farmers themselves. 

 Therein lies the hope that we shall eventually solve our problems as 

 they come to us, including the problem of the country home. 



