THE FARMERS' UNION 



THE Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union, or as it was more 

 commonly called, the Farmers' Union, was a contemporary of the 

 Equity and the Nonpartisan League. Founded in Raines County, Texas, 

 in 1902, it was during its earlier years active only in the South, but when 

 it had passed its peak in that region, it sought survival by expansion into 

 such states as Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Nebraska, where other farmer 

 organizations had so far failed to attract many supporters. It also flirted, 

 unavailingly, with Equity, hoping for a merger of the two organizations. 

 The greatest successes of the Union were achieved after the Equity and 

 the Nonpartisan League had spent their force, when the Union penetrated 

 effectively into Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, and a num- 

 ber of other states. Under its auspices many cooperative grain elevators, 

 livestock-shipping associations, and consumer stores were organized. It 

 appealed most to the type of farmer who failed to respond to the more 

 conservative programs of the Farm Bureau, another contemporary, and 

 the Grange. Its own program was more radical and aggressive than that 

 of any other farm order of the time, with the possible exception of the 

 Nonpartisan League. 



The founder of the Farmers' Union, Isaac Newton Gresham, like the 

 founder of the Equity, was a newspaperman. "Newt" Gresham was born 

 in Florence, Alabama, on February 20, 1858, and got his start in agricul- 

 tural reform as an organizer for the Farmers' Alliance in Alabama and 

 neighboring states. Later, as a Populist, and then as a Bryan Democrat, 



