250 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



to prepare dairy rations, calf meal, pig meal, poultry feeds, and minerals, 

 which enabled the exchange to sell these feeds at wholesale prices, and 

 in 1929 the exchange began the merchandising of seed. 73 



Union bulk-oil stations were first organized in the Northwest either in 

 the fall of 1928 or in the spring of 1929. The first two bulk-oil associations 

 were erected in Minot and Williston, North Dakota. To promote the 

 interests of these oil companies, the Farmers' Union Petroleum Associa- 

 tion of North Dakota was formed, and similar associations for Minnesota, 

 Wisconsin, and Montana followed rapidly. In 1930 there were twenty-nine 

 such Union stations in North Dakota and ten in Montana. 74 



The oil business had reached such dimensions by the summer of 1930 

 that it was considered advisable to set up a new Farmers' Union Central 

 Exchange, Inc., under the cooperative laws of Minnesota and to disband 

 the old Farmers' Union Exchange. Fortified with an advance of $75,000 

 from the Farmers' Union Terminal Association, a new exchange began 

 to operate, with the business of no less than fifty local oil cooperatives. 

 By the end of 1934, the sale of lubricating oils had been extended to more 

 than two hundred affiliated cooperatives and the business operations of 

 the exchange approached the million-dollar mark. By 1935, the Central 

 Exchange had built its own compounding plant for lubricating oils. 75 



The business organizations set up by the Northwest Committee were 

 subjected all the while to severe criticism by the Nebraska Union. The 

 Farmers' Union Exchange was described as being non-farmer-controlled 

 because not one of its three incorporators was a farmer. There was a 

 provision in its articles of incorporation which stipulated that the cor- 

 poration could begin business with ten shares of stock without nominal 

 or par value. This, the Nebraska Union Farmer said, was a favorite trick 

 of the "trusts," whose aim was to cover up their tracks and hide their 

 profits. Also, it was argued that too much arbitrary power was vested in 

 the board of directors and nothing was said in the articles of incorporation 

 about the annual meetings of stockholders. Nor for that matter was any- 

 thing said about the "one man, one vote" principle, the limiting of stock 

 dividends, or the disbursal of patronage dividends. "This document does 



73. Northwest Division, The F.E.C.U. America, pp. 24-29. 



74. Ibid. 



75. Set-Up, History, Growth and Development, Farmers' Union Central Ex- 

 change, Inc. (South St. Paul, Minn., 1936), pp. 4-5 [pamphlet]. 



