134 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



probably the first cooperative marketing organization in Minnesota. There 

 is reason to believe that during the Equity period more cooperative stores, 

 creameries, and elevators existed among the Scandinavians of the North- 

 west than among the native Americans. Among the Scandinavians progres- 

 sive views in politics were also strong. 53 



Significantly, Equity sentiment had penetrated into the Edmonton, 

 Alberta, area as early as 1905, but had made slight headway there because 

 the Canadian farmers were reluctant to affiliate with a strictly American 

 organization. The grain growers of western Canada, however, with griev- 

 ances similar to those suffered south of the border, had appealed to their 

 government for aid and had obtained substantial assistance in the estab- 

 lishment of cooperative elevators. All this was watched with the greatest 

 interest by the American farmers, who made it a point to compare the 

 prices obtained by the Canadian cooperatives at Winnipeg with the prices 

 paid for grain in Minneapolis. Whenever higher prices prevailed in 

 Winnipeg, the natural assumption was that the attitude of the Canadian 

 government made the difference, and Equity enthusiasts placed the blame 

 for the lower prices paid on the Minneapolis market on the Minneapolis 

 Chamber of Commerce. 54 Whether the facts warranted such an assump- 

 tion is beside the point. The Equity farmers believed it to be true. 



The immediate forerunner of the Equity Cooperative Exchange was the 

 short-lived Minnesota Farmers' Exchange, the spring wheat counterpart 

 of an abortive national movement for reform on the terminal markets. 

 The Minnesota exchange, established in 1902, was incorporated for 

 $500,000, but speedily found that it could not hope to dispose of any 

 grain it might obtain without a seat on the Minneapolis Chamber of 

 Commerce. But all efforts by the exchange to purchase a seat on the cham- 

 ber proved futile. Chamber representatives claimed that membership was 

 denied the exchange on grounds of insolvency, a charge which the ex- 

 change leaders heatedly denied. And so the Minnesota Farmers' Exchange 

 accomplished nothing, except to build up farmer sentiment against the 



53. Larson, The Wheat Market, p. 104; Edward A. Ross, The Old World in the 

 New (New York, 1914), p. 91. 



54. Louis A. Wood, A History of Farmer Movements in Canada (Toronto, 1924), 

 pp. 199-201; Harald S. Patton, Grain Growers' Cooperation in Western Canada 

 (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), pp. 114-17; Hearings on Grain Exchanges (63 Con- 

 gress, 2 session, House Resolution 424, Washington, 1915), pp. 180-91. 



