164 



COOPERATION 



Some Causes of Failure. The strawberry growers and orange 

 growers have shown us some of the correct principles and practices 

 of cooperation. Other experiments have shown us the wrong 

 principles and practices. The death-rate of cooperative enter- 

 prises in America is entirely too high. First in the list of failures 

 come the cooperative stores. Most of these institutions have been 

 failures. Successes have been too few to point out the road to 

 success. The farmers' cooperative elevator, on the other hand, 

 seems to have run the gamut of failure, near failure, fair success 

 and success. The causes of failure in the farmers' elevators that 



FIG. 26.- 



-Country elevator owned by the United Grain Growers. This company operates 

 350 elevators like this. 



have gone down may be reduced to four general weaknesses: (1) 

 Poor management, including lack of accounting and auditing; (2) 

 Competition; (3) Emigration of original stockholders; (4) Dis- 

 loyalty of stockholders. But these failures of the past have become 

 stepping stones to success for the present and future. The cooper- 

 ative packing house is now on trial in the United States. A con- 

 spicuous failure in this field occurred at La Crosse, Wisconsin. 

 But here promotion fees were too high for any corporation to 

 stand. Many bogus " cooperative " enterprises have come to 

 disgrace and failure, thus casting a shadow on efforts at genuine 

 cooperation. Thus, the so-called Northwest Trading Company, 

 operating in the State of Washington chiefly, and masquerading 

 as a farmers' concern to " eliminate the middlemen," fell into the 



