424 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



the most loyal. It had lent out huge sums and had acquired large quan- 

 tities of wheat without success in holding up prices. Wheat production 

 had not been curtailed; in fact, it was rising in the principal wheat- 

 growing countries. Charges of speculation and price pegging continued 

 to pour forth from all directions. One was inclined to agree with the 

 chief economist of the Board when he said that its activities amounted 

 to a "social-economic" experiment that was going to involve "large risks 

 of loss of public funds." 69 



Equally turbulent was the career of the livestock machinery set up 

 under Farm Board auspices. The organizational meeting for the livestock 

 industry was held in October, 1929, in Chicago where sixty-six delegates 

 assembled, representing chiefly the cooperative terminal sales agencies. 

 Twenty-eight companies covering twenty-two central markets were rep- 

 resented, twelve of these being members of the National Livestock Pro- 

 ducers' Association that had been sponsored early in the twenties by the 

 American Farm Bureau Federation. Members of the national Farmers' 

 Union, the national Grange, several college people, and two who did not 

 fit into any of these categories also participated. 



The Farm Board proposed the formation of the National Livestock 

 Marketing Association, provisions for which were adopted unanimously 

 after much discussion and some amendments. Charles E. Huff, the presi- 

 dent of the national Farmers' Union, resolved that the acts and decisions 

 of the meeting be taken only as recommendations and that a committee 

 be created to prepare the articles of incorporation and by-laws. Charles B. 

 Crandall, the president of the aggressive Central Co-operative Associa- 

 tion, suggested that, on the basis of the business handled, "the Producers' 

 organizations should have four representatives on the committee; the 

 Farmers' Union three; the Central, one; and the Western Cattle Mar- 

 keting Association, one." A three-man nominating committee made the 

 selections on this basis. 



A committee of nine, after prolonged debate, came forward with a 

 plan that elicited slight enthusiasm from the National Livestock Pro- 

 ducers' Association. Since the plan drawn up had made scant provision 

 for certain activities already developed by the producers' group, the as- 



69. C. P. Rowland, "The Failure of Farm Board Stabilization," Yale Review, 

 N.S., XXI (March, 1932), pp. 503-5. 



