COOPERATIVES, 1920-32 299 



largely by overhead costs, high salaries, and general extravagance. 27 To 

 solve the financial problem of the organization, there was appointed an 

 advisory committee made up of Bernard M. Baruch, the New York fi- 

 nancier; Alexander Legge, president of the International Harvester Com- 

 pany; and Frank Wetmore, president of the First National Bank of 

 Chicago. 28 But even with the additional aid and advice that the company 

 received, it was unable to discharge the obligations incurred during the 

 first year. 



The marketing activities of the U.S.G.G. were short-lived. Early in No- 

 vember, 1922, it began marketing grain on the Minneapolis Chamber of 

 Commerce through the manager of the United States Grain Growers' 

 Sales Company of Minneapolis, a subsidiary organization. 29 In Chicago 

 its efforts in this respect were not so fortunate. On November 14, 1922, 

 the Chicago Board of Trade rejected the membership application of E. H. 

 Cunningham, which was to have been the first step in establishing a sales 

 agency for the U.S.G.G. The Capper-Tincher Act, which prohibited boards 

 of trade and chambers of commerce from rejecting the membership ap- 

 plications of cooperatives that dispensed patronage dividends, had been 

 temporarily suspended by an injunction which restrained the Secretary 

 of Agriculture from enforcing it. The Chicago Board of Trade, in re- 

 jecting the application, informed the applicant that the farmers would 

 be admitted when they came in "the regular way." 



In short, the United States Grain Growers was doomed. The modified 

 plan probably would have had a better chance to survive had the corn- 

 ay. Filley, Cooperation in Agriculture, pp. 154-55; Steen, Cooperative Marketing, 

 p. 221. 



28. A.F.B.F., Weekly News Letter, August 10, 1922, p. i; Minnesota Farm 

 Bureau News, March 25, 1925. 



29. A.F.B.F., Weekly News Letter, November 16, 1922, p. i; Minnesota Farm 

 Bureau News, May i, October i, 1923; Senate Document 95, 70 Congress, i session, 

 p. 69. When the U.S.G.G. failed, a number of the state farm bureaus financed the 

 United States Grain Growers' Sales Company to handle its grain on the Minneapolis 

 Chamber of Commerce. Late in 1922 the Equity Cooperative Exchange and the 

 North Dakota Wheat Growers' Association affiliated with it. This was of short dura- 

 tion because of differences in marketing policy. In 1923, or thereabouts, the United 

 States Grain Growers' Sales Company became the property of the Montana Wheat 

 Growers' Association and the Minnesota Wheat Growers' Cooperative Marketing 

 Association. 



