248 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



grain-marketing association in the United States. In 1930 its officers 

 announced the distribution of $35,000 in patronage dividends the first 

 time in the agricultural Northwest, they said, that a grain cooperative 

 had paid patronage dividends. 70 



Various factors account for the success of the Farmers' Union Terminal 

 Marketing Association. The years 1926-29 were ones of relatively good 

 times for the grain growers of the Northwest, and business was plentiful. 

 Also, the association profited greatly from the favorable reputation of the 

 national president of the Farmers' Union, C. E. Huff, who was a popular 

 figure in the Northwest and a warm supporter of the Federal Farm 

 Board after its organization. Later, indeed, he became president of the 

 Farmers' National Grain Corporation, established by the F.F.B. Under 

 the circumstances, it is not surprising that the association could claim 

 to be the largest cooperative grain-marketing organization affiliated with 

 the Federal Farm Board. In 1931 it announced its intentions of sponsoring 

 legislation in Minnesota providing for the issuance of negotiable receipts 

 for grain stored on farms similar to that enacted in 1929 by North Dakota 

 and Montana, and eventually of campaigning for the same type of legisla- 

 tion in South Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. 71 



It is possibly worth mentioning, also, that the scope of activities permitted 

 to the terminal association was unusually broad and, as its critics pointed 

 out, "utterly lacking in humility." It was organized for the purposes 



(1) Of engaging in the business of buying, selling, marketing, manufacturing, 

 handling and dealing in any and all products produced or consumed in the 

 general business and occupation of agriculture in the broadest acceptation 

 of the term; 



(2) Of engaging in any activity in connection with the marketing, manufactur- 

 ing, selling, harvesting, drying, processing, grading, storing, handling or 

 utilization of grain and grain products received from its members, or the 

 by-products of the same; 



(3) Of engaging in any activity in connection with the purchasing, hiring, or 

 use by members of supplies, machinery, equipment, and other articles of 

 commerce; 



(4) Of entering into marketing contracts with its members for the purchase 



70. Incorporation Articles, By-Laws, Sketch, Personnel and Financial Status of 

 Farmers' Union Terminal Association (St. Paul, [1930]), p. 3 [booklet]. 



71. Ibid., pp. 14-15. 



