AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



that were governed, more or less, by world conditions could be brought 

 together by the U.S.G.G. ? Were the officers who were to head the com- 

 pany worthy of the fat salaries that they were to receive ? Also, could not 

 an organization employing such policies, in view of the lack of enabling 

 legislation at the time, be found guilty of violating the federal antitrust 

 laws? 23 



Unfortunately, the history of the U.S.G.G. was one of complete, in fact 

 scandalous, failure; still, the main outlines of its career are worth tracing. 

 Controversies over policy, poor management, intrigue, and opposition 

 rounded out its course and emphasized the very practices that farmers' 

 marketing associations had to avoid if they were to succeed. 



Differences over policy broke out from the start. Nearly all the mem- 

 bers of the board of directors had been members of the Committee of 

 Seventeen and the ratification conference, and their differences found 

 their way into the management of the company. This brought it face 

 to face with differences over pooling, the principles and practices of co- 

 operation, and the means that were to be used to aid the United States 

 Grain Growers to become powerful. The conservative members, espe- 

 cially those experienced in the cooperative grain-elevator business, wanted 

 the company to grow slowly and economically, but the radicals wanted 

 the immediate construction of a superorganization that would dominate 

 the American grain market. One director went to the extent of sending 

 telegrams to numerous grain solicitors offering them jobs at salaries 

 ranging from $6,000 to $7,500 per year; when five men reported for duty, 

 it was discovered that the majority of the members of the executive com- 

 mittee had known nothing about the offers. 



Despite the fact that the United States Grain Growers was one of the 

 best-advertised companies in the country, one board member proposed an 

 even greater advertising campaign. One proposal called for the rental of a 

 building at $70,000 per year, another for the purchase of a twenty-two- 

 story office building in the heart of the Chicago Loop district "to be pre- 

 pared for rapid expansion." 



The salaries paid invited more trouble. To many it appeared extrava- 

 gant to pay the president a salary of $16,000 per year, the treasurer $15,000, 



23. Charles Kenning, Question Eoo\ Regarding Proposed Grain Marketing Plan 

 of the Committee of Seventeen as Compared with Grain Marketing System (n.p., 

 n.d.), pp. 1-2. 



