224 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



sociation and the local Farmers' Relief Association under the name of 

 the Farmers' Union. That year McDonald, Dunklin, and Barry counties 

 in Missouri each claimed about 1,000 Union members, and Newton 

 County about 1,500. State-wide organization of the Missouri Farmers' 

 Union was achieved at West Plains on March 22, 1907, and in 1908 the 

 number of locals in the state was placed at 615, with a total membership 

 of i6,8 3 6. 8 



During these early years Kansas was probably the most important center 

 of Union activities. Organizational work began on a wholesale basis fol- 

 lowing the Topeka meeting of the Farmers' Cooperative Business Con- 

 gress already mentioned. Since the Union was considered the largest 

 and most powerful farm organization at the time, the congress pledged 

 its support to the extension of the Union program into the unorganized 

 western states. Promptly accepting the challenge, the executive committee 

 of the Union, in a meeting following the adjournment of the congress, 

 voted to place organizers in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and 

 other states. This action appears to have brought results. In 1907, the 

 Kansas Union had some 4,000 members and 85 locals. Equity members 

 were reported coming into the Union fold in droves. In April, 1908, 

 Kansas claimed 8,000 members. About the same time, the Farmers' Union, 

 the official organ of the Kansas branch, began publication. 9 



The rapid growth of the organization attracted the attention of Wil- 

 liam Allen White, who observed that it was encountering the same recep- 

 tion that the Alliance had received back in 1889 and 1890. The Union 

 grew most rapidly, he noted, in the fifth and sixth congressional districts, 

 where agricultural conditions were least satisfactory. "It is a queer move- 

 ment," wrote White, "and one that politicians should consider, who think 

 the Republican party in Kansas can do anything whether the people like 

 it or not. The earth has buckled up in a Kansas earthquake before and it 

 may be just possible that the signs are favorable to another upheaval." 



8. Barrett, The Farmers' Union, pp. 235-42, 250-51; Indian-Arbiter (Ada, Okla.), 

 June 7, 1906. 



9. Topeka Daily State Journal, October 24, 1906; Kansas City Journal, October 25, 

 1906; Topeka Daily State Journal, October 25, 1906; Southern Mercury United With 

 Farmers' Union Password (Dallas), February 28, 1907; The Farmers' Union, April 

 3, 17, 1908. 



