AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 265 



the American Farm Bureau Federation was organized, the state farm 

 bureau movement received even greater stimulus. 28 



Also important as a factor in contributing to the rise of the American 

 Farm Bureau Federation was the mounting strength of the cooperative 

 movement. Many cooperative grain elevators and livestock groups of a 

 local character had made their appearance over the period from 1895 to 

 1920. In Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa local cooperative grain- and live- 

 stock-marketing associations had originated through the efforts of the 

 Equity and numerous independent groups. The Equity Cooperative Ex- 

 change had gone to the extent of building a chain of eighty local elevators 

 to feed its terminal marketing agency in South St. Paul, and later opened 

 livestock-marketing firms there and in Chicago. In Nebraska and Kansas 

 the Farmers' Union had laid the foundations for some of the most exten- 

 sive marketing associations in existence. In Missouri, the Missouri Farm- 

 ers' Association, under the leadership of William Hirth, was building a 

 formidable array of firms, with a total membership put at 34,242. Through- 

 out the western Middle West the Farmers' National Grain Dealers As- 

 sociation was striving to federate the service and educational activities of 

 local grain cooperatives. The state farm bureaus also sought to coordinate 

 the local agencies. 29 



In their first meeting the farm bureaus of the Middle West made known 

 their intentions to use the newly formed federation as a means for solving 

 the marketing problems of the farmers on a national cooperative-market- 

 ing basis. But they encountered opposition to this aim. Representatives 

 from southern, eastern, and western states favored an educational program 

 rather than one "designed specifically to bring about improved business 

 and economic conditions." On the convention floor the advocates of a 



28. Burritt, The County Agent and the Farm Bureau, pp. 233-35. 



29. Henry H. Bakken and Marvin A. Schaars, The Economics of Cooperative 

 Marketing (New York, 1937), p. 67; Edwin G. Nourse and Joseph G. Knapp, The 

 Co-Operative Marketing of Livestock (Washington, 1931), pp. 12-17; H. B. Price, 

 ed., The Marketing of Farm Products (Minneapolis, 1927), p. 100; Stuart Blythe, 

 "Is Kansas the Greatest Cooperative State?" Country Gentleman, LXXXV (Septem- 

 ber u, 1920), pp. 13, 48; Maurice H. Weseen, "The Co-operative Movement in 

 Nebraska," Journal of Political Economy, XXVIII (June, 1920), pp. 477-98; Mis- 

 souri Farmer (Columbia), XII (September 15, 1920), p. 20; Cooperative Marketing 

 (70 Congress, i session, Senate Document 95, serial 8859, Washington, 1928), pp. 

 60-61; Kile, The Farm Bureau Movement, p. 115. 



