2 9 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Criticisms of the company, nevertheless, continued to pour forth. The 

 American Co-operative Journal, conservative spokesman for the state 

 farmers' grain dealers associations, pointed out that the U.S.G.G. had 

 failed to obtain the support of the local cooperative elevators. The man- 

 agers of these elevators felt either that their activities had been unduly 

 interfered with or that they had been completely ignored. They were un- 

 willing to give up their hard-earned positions to this proposed super mar- 

 keting organization. They had taken a states' rights attitude. 



This same journal emphasized that only i per cent of the fifty thousand 

 grain growers who had signed contracts with the U.S.G.G. had elected 

 to use any of the several pooling methods. The cooperative elevators, in 

 particular, were opposed to pooling. Since the company had been purged 

 of the radicals and was in the hands of conservatives, the American Co-op- 

 erative Journal advised that progress and larger profits could be had by 

 improving the methods of cleaning, weighing, grading, and storing grain. 

 It also felt that the American Farm Bureau Federation had to give more 

 help. The Farmers' National Grain Dealers Association likewise had to 

 take a more active part, because its grain dealers were men of experience 

 who had elevators in twelve states and had been working together in 

 solving their problems since 1903. The Farmers' Union, which was doing 

 a large business in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, also had 

 to be taken into consideration. 26 



Regardless of the promises of the new board, the president, and the 

 conservative counsel, things had gone too far for the organization to suc- 

 ceed. News of the chaotic state of affairs within the company had been 

 spread far and wide. Creditors, often egged on by ousted officers, pressed 

 their claims; new members were hard to obtain and revenues dropped. 

 When the new board failed to erect the sales agency within the promised 

 time, it resigned and a new board assumed charge. The new group of 

 officers inherited a debt of almost $300,000 which had been built up 



pp. 1-2; Minnesota Farm Bureau News (Central Edition, Grand Rapids), March i, 

 1925; Steen, Cooperative Marketing, p. 221; Filley, Cooperation in Agriculture, 

 p. 155. 



26. "The United States Grain Growers, Inc.," American Co-operative Journal 

 (Chicago), XVII (April, 1922), pp. 2-3. 



