126 



AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



By 1909 the Equity movement was on the decline in Kentucky and 

 Tennessee. Dissatisfaction had developed over the prices which the farmers 

 received; the possible benefits of production control were disputed by 

 many growers who had taken part in the farm strike of 1908; and the 

 administrative policies of Equity and its subsidiary organization had be- 

 come matters of heated controversy. Some believed that with the price rise 

 of 1908, the marketing troubles of the tobacco growers were at an end, 

 but tobacco production took an upward swing in 1909, as usual after a 

 good price year, and with it, the marketing problem reappeared. For 

 many Equity left bitter memories, and they wanted no more of it. Still, 

 the farmers had something to show for their troubles. They had cooperated 

 in building a number of warehouses; they had obtained better grading 

 methods and a tobacco factory; and they had demonstrated the potentiali- 

 ties of organized action. 34 



Meanwhile, Equity was slowly but surely rooting itself in Wisconsin 

 and the spring wheat regions of the agricultural Northwest. It was here 

 that the society gained its greatest strength; in fact, such local organiza- 

 tions as the Wisconsin Society of Equity and the autonomous Equity Co- 

 operative Exchange dwarfed the national organization into insignificance. 

 Equity began its activities in Wisconsin in 1903, expanded rapidly, and by 

 1920 could claim a paid-up membership of 40,000. At first, the Wisconsin 

 Equity sought higher prices for farm products by a voluntary curtailment 

 of the output, but later it encouraged the growth of cooperative market- 

 ing and purchasing associations and sought legislation favorable to these 

 ends. 35 



As in Kentucky and Tennessee, the Wisconsin Equity was influenced 

 by various local developments, both economic and political. It attracted 

 its first substantial support in the wheat-growing river counties of the 



34. Western Tobacco Journal, XXXVI (June 28, 1909), p. 7; (July 19, 1909), 

 pp. 1-2; (July 26, 1909), pp. 1-2; (August 2, 1909), p. 4; (July 19, 1909), pp. 1-2. 

 Also B. H. Hibbard, Marketing Agricultural Products (New York, 1921), p. 238; 

 Filley, Cooperation in Agriculture, pp. 251-52; Youngman, in Journal of Political 

 Economy, XVIII (January, 1910), p. 42. 



35. Everitt, The Third Power, fourth edition, pp. 269-70; J. G. Thomson, The 

 Rise and Decline of the Wheat Growing Industry in Wisconsin (Madison, Wis., 

 1909), pp. 82, 99. 



