4 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



a decline in its business and substantial financial losses. Eventually the 

 company had to cease operations. 57 



Later efforts were more successful. Indeed, by the time the first World 

 War broke out, the task of forming a cooperative of any kind had become 

 far less difficult than in the formative years. This was due in considerable 

 part to the provisions of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and to the laws of 

 the various states for the legal protection of cooperatives. The years 1915 

 to 1921 saw the formation of more farmers' cooperative associations than 

 any like period either before or since. By 1921, according to one estimate, 

 the number of such associations in the United States had reached a total 

 of 12,000. Terminal livestock companies caught on in the new era along 

 with the rest. 



The Equity Cooperative Exchange established a terminal agency on 

 the South St. Paul market in 1916, and two years later it began operations 

 in Chicago. In 1917 the Nebraska Farmers' Union organized commission 

 firms on the Omaha and the South St. Joseph markets; the following 

 years Farmers' Union terminal agencies appeared in Sioux City, Iowa, 

 and Kansas City, Missouri. Over the period 1917 to 1925, some twenty-five 

 terminal agencies were established on a successful basis throughout the 

 nation. 58 



One significant development that reflected the mounting interest in 

 cooperatives was the government-sponsored credit system suited to the 

 needs of agriculture. 59 Despite sharp differences over the actual credit 

 needs of the farmers, there was a strong feeling that the existing credit 

 institutions discriminated against them; that the farmers were in reality 

 without organized credit; that they were obliged to pay interest rates that 

 were far too high. 60 The Country Life Commission recognized this sit- 



57. Ibid., p. 8. 58. Ibid., pp. 46-53, 101. 



59. William I. Myers, Cooperative Farm Mortgage Credit, igi6-ig^6, Farm Credit 

 Administration, Cooperative Division, Circular A8 (Washington, 1936), pp. 5-6. 



60. Jesse E. Pope, "Agricultural Credit in the United States," Quarterly Journal 

 of Economics, XXVIII (August, 1914), pp. 727-28. In critical vein, Pope wrote: 

 ". . . there is an utter lack of adequate information as to the actual credit needs of 

 the farmer and of the extent to which existing agencies are supplying them. . . . 

 Credit agencies in great variety have come into being in the United States to meet 

 the demands of an undeveloped, unstandardized agriculture. The evils of this lack 

 of credit organization have been greatly exaggerated, but the time has probably 

 come for more organization. . . ." Ibid., p. 745. 



