4 12 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Others like Senators Bob La Follette, Jr., Frazier, Brookhart, and 

 Wheeler, normally sympathetic with the farmers, were skeptical about 

 the prospects of a national marketing agency's stemming the tide of 

 falling prices. La Follette, whose views were reflective of others, felt that 

 cooperative marketing might work after long preparations in compact 

 industries like dairying and fruit growing, but doubted that it would be 

 of much aid to wheat growers, who were scattered far and wide and who 

 lacked cohesiveness. 22 



In October the Board was faced with a serious demoralization of the 

 stock market; this was the signal for the big depression that followed. 

 Wheat prices dropped about fifteen cents a bushel over the period from 

 October 15 to 25. On a single day October 24 wheat dropped nine or 

 ten cents. On October 26 the Board, hoping to check this drop, offered to 

 make loans to cooperatives on various grades of wheat at values that were 

 "approximately the closing prices of October 25 for these grades." For a 

 while it appeared that this move was a successful one because wheat prices 

 had recovered considerably by the end of the month. 23 



One of the first positive acts of opposition to the proposed national 

 grain-marketing agency came from the spring wheat country. This ap- 

 peared in the form of a proposed $6,000,000 rival corporation, the Co- 

 operative Farmers' Northwest Grain Corporation, designed to take in 

 about 225,000 farmers in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and 

 Montana. Its sponsors said that its purpose was to merge all grain as- 

 sociations into a unified corporation, as opposed to the existing system 

 by which the wheat pools, sales agencies, and elevator associations would 

 be able to retain their identities and work independently of each other. 24 

 To many this rival move was nothing more than a duplication of the 

 Farmers' National, as well as the launching of a counteroffensive against 

 it. A. J. Olson, the president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation, 

 replied instantly that this was the creature of the commission firms, 

 working with the existing farmers' elevators for the purpose of either 

 gaining control of the Farmers' National or else wrecking it. 25 The 



22. Pioneer Press (St. Paul), October n, 1929. 



23. F.F.B., First Annual Report, pp. 27-28. 



24. St. Paul Dispatch, October 15, 1929. 



25. Ibid., October 18, 1929. 



