226 



AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



roads; and support for labor unions "to the end that their rights and 

 liberties, with our own, shall be preserved." 13 



Next in importance to the Kansas branch of the Union during these 

 early years was the Nebraska organization, whose membership had a 

 greater tendency to be permanent than that of most other states. The 

 first Nebraska local was organized in Antelope County on May 29, 1911, 

 by O. F. Dornblaser of Texas, a protagonist extraordinary of the theory 

 that the cost of production should determine agricultural prices. The 

 Nebraska organization grew steadily in Antelope, Knox, and Pierce 

 counties and, with a total of 245 locals and 5,000 members, formed the 

 Nebraska division of the Union at Fremont in 1913. By 1915, the member- 

 ship reported was 11,000, and four years later, 37,286. The number of 

 locals by 1928 had reached 1,524, but of these only about 1,000 were active. 

 The troublous late twenties and thirties, as might be expected, witnessed 

 heavy fluctuations in Union membership. 14 



The first publication of the Nebraska Union, the monthly Bulletin, 

 appeared in February, 1914, with a circulation of 5,000, and the Nebraska 

 Union Farmer came out in April of that same year, with C. H. Gustafson 

 as editor. One of its earliest recommendations was that the federal gov- 

 ernment devote more time and money to the farmers' problem of dis- 

 tribution, particularly by encouraging cooperative buying and selling. By 

 November, 1915, the paper claimed a reading list of 22,ooo. 15 



There was nothing especially novel in the state legislative demands of 

 the Nebraska Union. Perhaps the resolutions adopted in its 1915 conven- 

 tion were representative of the attitude of its membership. The convention 

 urged the calling of a state constitutional convention, the legalization of 

 the Torrens system of land registration, the formulation of a suitable 

 rural-credits system, lower freight rates, nonpartisan primary elections, 



13. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 2-5, 1910. 



14. Nebraska Union Farmer (Omaha), January 10, 1917; O. F. Dornblaser, The 

 Only Way (Columbus Junction, Iowa, 1934), p. 7; Farmers' Educational and Co- 

 operative Union of Nebraska, The Farmers' Union (Omaha, 1928?), pp. 1-3; 

 Nebraska Union Farmer, February, 1915; ibid., January 27, 1926; F.E.C.U. 

 Nebraska, The Farmers' Union, pp. 2-3. See also Secretary's Annual Report, 1930, 

 Farmers' Educational and Cooperative State Union of Nebraska (also reports for 

 1934 and 1938). 



15. Nebraska Union Farmer, November 24, 1915; F.E.C.U. Nebraska, Bulletin, 

 No. i, February, 1914. 



