FUTURE OF THE FARM BUREAU MOVEMENT 253 



yielded to this pressure some to their sorrow and this 

 feeling has had a considerable influence in shaping up the 

 policies and the work of the American Federation itself. 



The advocates of this policy forget that it is undesirable 

 if not altogether impossible to mix educational and com- 

 mercial functions and that the farm bureaus have other 

 and equally important things to accomplish for the suc- 

 cessful organization and functioning of agriculture. They 

 do not seem to realize that speed of action may not mean 

 quick results and that permanent achievement is usually 

 the result of education. They also ignore the history and 

 the experience of other farmers' organizations, notably of 

 the Grange. 1 



Sound judgment as well as business experience indicate 

 that commercial transactions require a business organiza- 

 tion on a local unit and a commodity basis, adapted to this 

 specific purpose, and that this organization must neces- 

 sarily be so constructed that it is not adapted to do other 

 things equally well. The real question then is, shall this 

 representative organization, builded primarily for edu- 

 cational purposes, be diverted into a single channel and 

 away from its main purpose, and built over to meet one of 

 the problems in the agricultural field, pressing though it 

 may be? Is it not wiser to use it as an educational means 

 to encourage and to foster specific local unit and com- 

 modity agencies adapted to the service and which are so 

 constructed that they can meet the problem? 



To follow this latter course will be to leave the farm 

 bureau machinery free to continue its educational activi- 

 ties on economic as well as production problems, to complete 

 its program of helping to create and to set up the essential 

 local marketing units based on commodities, to help to 



* See "The Grange Master and the Grange Lecturer," by Jennie 

 Buell, Chapter I, page 7. 



