COOPERATIVES, 1920-32 303 



Stabilization Corporation was set up to buy wheat from the cooperatives, 

 withhold it, and thus lend support to the market. 39 By June 30, 1930, the 

 net holdings (deducting some sales mostly for export) were about 

 65,000,000 bushels. According to report, the Grain Stabilization Corpora- 

 tion and the cooperatives affiliated with it held control of a quantity 

 of wheat equal to about "one-half of the visible supply of wheat." By July 

 i, 1931, the holdings of wheat totaled 257,000,000 bushels. 40 



When the New Deal took office, the activities of the Federal Farm 

 Board were curtailed, and the next year wheat-stabilization operations 

 ceased. Meanwhile, a policy was begun to dispose of the local elevators 

 of the Farmers' National, and in 1935 the federal government took them 

 over as security for the advances that had gone unpaid. The operations of 

 the corporation ceased in I938. 41 



Somewhat more successful than the large-scale grain-marketing agen- 

 cies were the cooperative livestock firms on the terminal markets. The first 

 of the more recent attempts was made by the Equity Cooperative Ex- 

 change in 1916 in South St. Paul. In 1918 the exchange opened a second 

 firm in the Chicago market. Unlike the Farmers' Union houses, neither 

 of these two firms got of? to a good beginning. Both got into difficulties 

 from the start because of faulty management. Gains and losses from live- 

 stock-marketing operations were pooled with those from grain marketing. 

 Naturally, this caused resentment among the livestock growers, who saw 

 their profits go toward the support of less profitable enterprises. Besides 

 this poor policy, there were corruption and dissension in management, 

 dissatisfaction among shippers, and opposition from the private livestock 

 interests, all of which helped to keep these agencies in an exhausted con- 

 dition. The position of the South St. Paul firm became more untenable 

 with the coming in 1921 of the highly efficient rival firm, the Central 

 Cooperative Commission Association. 42 



Meanwhile, the Farmers' Union had begun to establish a creditable 

 series of agencies on several terminal markets. The Nebraska Farmers' 



39. Malott and Martin, The Agricultural Industries, p. 262. 



40. Food Research Institute, Stanford University, Wheat Studies, XII (March, 

 1936), p. 252. 



41. Malott and Martin, The Agricultural Industries, p. 262. 



42. Edwin G. Nourse and Joseph G. Knapp, The Co-Operative Marketing of 

 Livestock (Washington, 1931), pp. 106-9. 



