RELATION TO COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES 95 



in the North and West alone the county agents assisted in 

 forming 1,701 cooperative associations during 1921. The 

 combined membership of these associations was 227,424 

 farmers and they did a business of over forty million dol- 

 lars. During this year county agents also report having 

 assisted 123,035 farmers in buying and selling through 

 other channels to the extent of more than ten million 

 dollars additional. 



On the other hand, those middlemen and dealers who 

 handle the supplies or buy the products which farmers 

 with the help of the county agent have now organized 

 themselves to buy and to sell feel that their business has 

 been interfered with by a publicly employed agent. This 

 group, which probably constitutes less than five per cent of 

 the population, is well organized and has been most in- 

 sistent in its objections, claiming that public agents are 

 interfering with private business. The position of this 

 group is stated in an editorial appearing in "Who is Who 

 in the Grain Trade" in the issue of November 20, 1921: 



"The county agents were not created to help farmers to market 

 their grain. Had this been the understanding, when the Smith- 

 Lever Bill was under debate in Congress, the measure would 

 never have been passed. If the farmers can be helped as busi- 

 ness men, by paid agents of the government, why not the shoe- 

 makers, the wholesale and retail grocers, the dentists, the manu- 

 facturers or jobbers of any kind, or even the much-despised grain 

 dealers? How can the Federal Government give aid to one 

 branch of industry and withhold it from another ?" 



This statement indicates a fundamental misconception 

 of the purpose of the county agent movement. What this 

 group of citizens forget is that farmers have not only a 

 perfect right, but an obligation as well, to seek to estab- 

 lish the most efficient methods of handling their products. 



