5 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



deal to the long procession of farm organizations that flourished in this 

 region the Grangers, the Farmers' Alliance, the American Society of 

 Equity, the Farmers' Union, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and 

 numerous independent groups. The pioneer work was performed by the 

 nineteenth-century orders, but their twentieth-century successors built 

 upon the old foundations and exploited the same old farmer grievances. 

 Mounting discontent over commission charges, dockage, grading, poor 

 service, short weights, lack of competition among dealers, low prices, and 

 the generally high marketing costs made the task of persuading the farm- 

 ers that their salvation lay in the establishment of their own marketing 

 machinery easy. From such a system they might hope to obtain a greater 

 share of the consumer's dollar, a need particularly felt by all farmers who 

 lived long distances from their markets and by small operators who were 

 obliged to purchase and sell uneconomically in less than carload lots. 3 

 Immigrants such as the Norwegians, Swiss, and Danes of Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, and the Dakotas many of whom were familiar with co- 

 operatives in the Old World often, but not necessarily always, responded 

 favorably to propaganda for group action. 4 



While it is true that cooperatives had made their greatest progress in the 

 western Middle West, the forces that had stimulated their growth were 

 by no means solely confined to this region. Perhaps too great importance 

 is attached, however, to the oft-cited example of the English consumers 



3. The literature of this subject is extensive. See particularly E. G. Nourse, "Fifty 

 Years of Farmers' Elevators in Iowa," Iowa State Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 Bulletin 211 (Ames, Iowa, 1923), pp. 236-51; E. G. Nourse and C. W. Hammans, 

 "Cooperative Livestock Shipping in Iowa in 1920," ibid., Bulletin 200 (1920) pp. 

 403-4; "Cooperation in Kansas," Nineteenth Biennial Report of the Kansas State 

 Board of Agriculture (Topeka, 1915), pp. 154-81, 199-224; Henry H. Bakken and 

 Marvin A. Schaars, The Economics of Cooperative Marketing (New York, 1937), 

 pp. 2, 47-62 (especially pp. 49-51); P. R. Possum, Agrarian Movements in North 

 Dakota (Baltimore, 1925), pp. 51-83; Theodore Macklin, "Cooperation Applied to 

 Marketing by Kansas Farmers," Kansas State Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 Bulletin 224 (Manhattan, Kans., 1920), pp. 7-8, 47-61; Herman Steen, Cooperative 

 Marketing (New York, 1923), pp. 4-7; DeWitt C. Wing, "Trends in National Farm 

 Organizations," U. S. Dept. Agri. Yearbook, Farmers in a Changing World (Wash- 

 ington, 1940), p. 964; Joseph G. Knapp and J. H. Lister, Cooperative Purchasing 

 of Farm Supplies, Farm Credit Administration, Cooperative Division, Bulletin i 

 (Washington, 1935). 



4. Edward A. Ross, The Old World in the New (New York, 1914), p. 91. 



