11* 



of government unique in all history is the federal system, combining local 

 home rule with a great central power. 



Too much "nationalism" is just as wrong as too much "states' rights". 

 There is a happy medium. 



It is not this government as one nation, nor the several states, but the 

 combination in a federal plan that has given such a distinct contribution to 

 the welfare of humanity. It is this federal plan that must be most jealously 

 guarded. A tendency, one way or the other, toward centralization or to- 

 wards decentralization, is dangerous. 



It must be expected that, from time to time, there will be strong men, 

 men who are ambitious to leave distinguished names in history, who will 

 champion a powerful, centralized government in the United States. There 

 always has been, and there always will be, a dramatic attraction in the 

 building of great empires about a central authority; the glory of power in 

 a supreme authority interests and awes even those who are governed. 



The strength of nations does not lie in the vastness of the territory 

 under one highly centralized and supreme authority. This truth has been 

 centuries in the learning. 



That government which hugs closest to the sober and mature judgment 

 of the people, and keeps in touch with the demands of changing conditions, 

 is the one which best fulfills its mission and which will live the longest. 

 The makers of government must set as their goal, not the creation of an 

 extensive centralized machinery, but a human organism, capable of reach- 

 ing out, and searching after, and meeting the demands of life. 



CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING PLANS. 



Now, as to the sale of farm products: During the past thirty years we 

 have witnessed an enormous development in the organization of labor and 

 business. We have seen some remarkable developments in the railroad in- 

 dustry, public utilities, steel industry, manufacturing industries of all kinds, 

 and amongst the laborers of the land. These facts are common knowledge. 

 The farmer has been the slowest to engage in organized activity in the sale 

 of his products. We have developed here in the Grain Belt local farmers' 

 co-operative elevators. There are over 4,000 of these elevators owned locally 

 by farmers. This co-operative grain movement probably handles a larger 

 volume of products than any other form of co-operative activity in the world. 

 But very rarely have these elevators gone beyond the country station. 



A year ago last July, Mr. Howard, of the Farm Bureau Federation, called 

 a national conference to devise an improved method of marketing grain. 

 A Committee of Seventeen was created to make an appraisal of the co-operat- 

 ive marketing methods that had been developed, with instructions to pre- 

 pare a plan that the grain producers of the country might adopt. If you 

 were appointed on such a committee, what would be the method of investi- 

 gation that you would choose? Would you go off in a corner and conceive 

 a plan, developing it out of your inner consciousness? Here was the pos- 

 sibility of an organization which, if successful, would probably do a business 

 aggregating several hundred million dollars annually. The Farmers' Grain 

 Marketing Committee of Seventeen undertook, first, to make a comprehen- 

 sive review of the methods which have been proved to be successful by co- 

 operative organizations throughout this country and Canada. They invited 

 before them such a man as Julius H. Barnes, who was the head of the U. S. 

 Grain Corporation during the War; Mr. George E. Farrand, General Counsel 

 for the California Fruit Growers Exchange; Mr. Bayne, representing the 

 Agricultural Commission of Canada; Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, the head of the 

 War Industries Board during the World War; a representative of the cotton 

 industry of the South; and Mr. Aaron Sapiro, representing certain fruit 

 organizations of California; all of these men addressed them. Mr. Gates, 

 former president of the Chicago Board of Trade, was one of their guests. 

 A corps of experts were employed to gather data. Sub-committees were ap- 

 pointed to investigate at first hand the actual accomplishments of other co- 

 operative enterprises. All of the co-operative contracts which were then in 



