274 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



REASONS FOR FAILURE 



On the whole, in spite of occasional remarkable successes, 

 it can be said that this attempt of the American farmer to regain 

 his economic independence by taking upon himself the business 

 of the middleman, the capitalist, the manufacturer, and the 

 banker, through cooperative organization, was a failure. Neces- 

 sarily many of the causes for this failure have been suggested 

 in the foregoing sketch but it will be well to summarize them 

 here. 



Perhaps the most fundamental cause was the incompatibility 

 between the cooperative method of business and rural life and 

 conditions as they existed in America. Cooperation implies 

 a working together, a reliance on one another, a patience and 

 foresight, which were wanting in the character of the independent, 

 self-reliant, aggressive, and suspicious American farmer. Living 

 on isolated farms, and lacking business experience, the Grangers 

 found themselves at a decided disadvantage when their enter- 

 prises came into competition with those run by shrewd, ex- 

 perienced men of business who had no other occupations to 

 distract their attention. Too often, moreover, there was a 

 lamentable lack of foresight. The very ones who had been 

 loudest in denunciation of monopoly prices and foremost in 

 the establishment of cooperative enterprises would allow them- 

 selves to be led astray by the temporary low prices of competi- 

 tors and thus help to bring about the destruction of the institution 

 which had caused the low prices. They were unwilling to forego 

 immediate and temporary gain for ultimate advantage. 



Another important factor in the failure was the unsuitability 

 of many of the undertakings to the cooperative system. That 

 was especially true of the manufacturing enterprises, for it 

 should be noted that these were not true examples of productive 

 cooperation as the phrase is understood in England. There 

 the workmen are the cooperators and furnish the capital for the 

 enterprises, but in these schemes the cooperators were either 

 the consumers of the finished product or the producers of the 

 raw material. The Patrons could buy patents and get their 



