AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION 283 



terests not to make any vigorous efforts to repeal the guarantee section 

 of the Transportation Act of I920. 62 



The Equity listed a variety of reasons for opposing it: the Chicago 

 Board of Trade gave $r,ooo to each of the first hundred county farm 

 bureaus that were organized (hence all benefiting from such sources 

 were held suspect); the Farm Bureau endorsed the Esch-Cummins Law; 

 it received money, the Equity alleged, from packers who opposed "any 

 real packer control"; it baited labor; it endorsed the ship-subsidy bill; it 

 failed to endorse a progressive federal inheritance tax to pay off the war 

 debt; it "favored better credit facilities to farmers when it knows that 

 what farmers need is not merely more credit, . . . but a fair price to enable 

 him to get out of debt" ; it was trying to crush other farm organizations ; 

 and county agents told farmers that they had to be members of the Farm 

 Bureau in order to get help from the United States Department of 

 Agriculture. 63 



One individual attacked the Bureau because he thought it was wrong 

 to have "a separate organization for almost every farm leader of ability 

 and opinion." The Bureau was a hybrid organization, "being neither a 

 true farmers' association nor a government agency." County farm bureaus 

 were subsidized by federal funds, county funds, and membership fees 

 while the state and national organizations were supported entirely by 

 the membership. This made for a "controlled farmer opinion." The 

 boards of directors of the county farm bureaus were governed by the 

 extension service of the Department of Agriculture. This limited their 

 powers and was unfair and discriminatory to farmers who supported the 

 county organizations. It was unfair for farm organizations to receive 

 funds from the federal government. Union labor, for instance, had never 

 benefited from such sources and it was not right for farm organizations 

 to do so. 64 



Charles S. Barrett, the president of the national Farmers' Union and 

 chairman of the National Board of Farm Organizations, early labeled 

 the Farm Bureau as being a "new and powerful assistant government 



62. Christian Science Monitor, December 22, 1921. 



63. Equity News (Madison, Wis.), July 15, 1923, p. 14. 



64. R. J. Leth, "What's Wrong with the Farm Bureau?" Wallaces' Farmer, 

 XLVII (July 21, 1922), p. 858. 



