138 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Meanwhile, the chamber of commerce had been maintaining a vigilant 

 eye over the activities of the exchange and had been girding itself for 

 future action. There were some merchants who believed that the ex- 

 change, if allowed to go on unchecked, would provide the nucleus for a 

 powerful cooperative movement. The thing to do, therefore, was to de- 

 stroy it in its infancy. This task was assigned to John G. McHugh, secre- 

 tary of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, a man who had been 

 associated previously with the Winnipeg Board of Trade and had been 

 active against the Canadian cooperatives. Undoubtedly the decision to 

 turn McHugh loose against the exchange was a mistake from the point of 

 view of the chamber of commerce, for it was all that was needed to spur 

 the Equity leaders into action. 62 



The clash between the chamber and the exchange became the subject 

 of a series of legislative inquiries during the session of 1913. A Minnesota 

 house committee, sympathetic with the exchange, began its investigations 

 first; thereupon the grain trade, aroused because of the activities of the 

 house, instigated an investigation by the senate, which reputedly was 

 more favorable to the interests of the private merchants. The public, as a 

 result, was treated to the spectacle of seeing two rival groups seeking to 

 substantiate their known convictions. Neither group conducted an impar- 

 tial investigation, but each, with some accuracy, accused the other of 

 being unfair. 63 



Early in 1914, Congressman James A. Manahan, the counsel for the 

 Minnesota house committee, introduced a resolution in the national House 

 of Representatives calling for a congressional investigation of the grain 

 trade. The resolution was adopted, and a congressional committee was 

 appointed which included, besides Manahan himself, J. Campbell Can- 

 trill, former president of the Kentucky Society of Equity, and I. L. Lenroot 

 of Wisconsin, whose progressive leanings were already well known. Little, 



62. Paul Possum, Agrarian Movement in North Da\ota (Baltimore, 1925), p. 83; 

 F.T.C., Decisions, VII, 145. 



63. Minnesota Journal of the House, 1913, pp. 1748-57; House Resolution 424, 

 63 Congress, 2 session, pp. 397-401; Minnesota Journal of the Senate, 1913, pp. 231, 

 285. For a newspaper account of the senate and house committee investigations, see 

 the scrapbook of Benjamin Drake, in the private possession of Benjamin Drake of 

 Minneapolis. 



