Herman W. Danforth, First lAA President, Dies 



Association's Early Leader 

 Saw Organization Which He 

 Helped To Organize Grow 

 From A Membership of 4,000 

 to 167,000. His Death Re- 

 calls Beginnings of Farm 

 Bureau in Illinois. 



HERMAN W. DANFORTH, first 

 president of the Illinois Agricul- 

 tural Association, died Oct. 8 

 after a short illness in Danforth. 

 the Iroquois county community 

 founded by his family. He was 77 at 

 the time of his death. 



Mr. Danforth, in addition to serving 

 as the first president of the lAA in 

 1916, had a great deal to do with or- 

 ganizing the state Farm Bureau. At 

 first the lAA was not a direct member- 

 ship organization as it is today, but a 

 federation of county Farm Bureaus. It 

 was Mr. Danforth, who was then presi- 

 dent of the Tazewell County Farm 

 Bureau, and E. T. Robbins, Tazewell 

 farm adviser, who promoted the setting 

 up of a federation of the county Farm 

 Bureaus in Illinois. 



Mr. Danforth served as temporary 

 chairman when 20 of the 22 organized 

 counties met at a preliminary session 

 on Jan. 26, 1916 in the Old Agricultural 

 Building, University of Illinois, to form 

 a state federation of Farm Bureaus. 



At this preliminary meeting Mr. Dan- 

 forth was named to a committee of five 

 to work out a plan for organization. The 

 committee decided that the name of the 

 new organization was to be the Illinois 

 Agricultural Association. Its object 

 was to be "the improvement of agricul- 

 ture." Its membership was to consist of 

 several agricultural associations and 

 membership fees for each county were 

 to be $100 a year. 



It was on March 15, 1916, when dele- 

 gates from 17 counties met in Ottawa, 

 La Salle county, to put the finishing 

 touches on the new federation and elect 

 Mr. Danforth as the first lAA president. 

 On June 19, 1916, the lAA held a spe- 

 cial meeting in Urbana to launch its 

 infant legislative program. Over the 

 signature of President Danforth, a letter 

 was sent to "influential senators" at 

 Washington urging passage of a grain 

 grading bill then being considered. In 

 his letter, Mr. Danforth told the senators 

 that "the Illinois Agricultural Associa- 

 tion is a federation of county Farm 

 Bureaus in the state of Illinois having a 

 total membership of about 4,000 of the 



Herman W. Danforth, 

 the llllnoh Agrltul- 

 t u r a I Association's 

 Brtf president who 

 died recently. It 

 shown as he regis- 

 tered for tile lAA an- 

 nual meeting last No- 

 vember at the Hotel 

 Sherman In Ciiicago. 

 Registering him Is 

 Orate Powell of the 

 lAA. 



most up-to-date and progressive farmers 

 throughout central Illinois." Mr. Dan- 

 forth lived to see that membership grow 

 to 167,000. 



After completing a year as president 

 of the lAA, Mr. Danforth was named 

 the first president of the Federal Land 

 Bank of St. Louis, and John W. Kirkton, 

 Livingston county, was named to suc- 

 ceed the retiring lAA president. Mr. 

 Danforth served as Land Bank president 

 for iive and one-half years, resigning in 

 1922 to join the Real Estate Mortgage 

 Truit Company of St. Louis as vice 

 president. This organization was later 

 absorbed by the Franklin American 

 Trust Company and Mr. Danforth con- 

 tinued with the company until his re- 

 tirement in 1936 when he returned to 

 Danforth. Mr. Danforth was elected to 

 a two-year term on the lAA board in 

 1936 to represent the 18th district which 

 comprises Kankakee, Iroquois, Vermil- 

 ion, Edgar, Clark and Cumberland 

 counties. 



Mr. Danforth first entered cooperative 

 and farm organization endeavors in 

 1907 when he took over the operation 

 of his father's farms. He helped or- 

 ganize the farmers' elevator at Dan- 

 forth, served as its president and later 

 was elected president of the National 

 Farmers Grain Dealers Association. In 

 the latter position he was called upon 

 many times to defend the farmers' 

 rights. Mr. Danforth used to recall in 

 interviews that in the early days "he 

 went to the mat with the Board of 

 Trade," in representing the producer. 

 He also appeared many times before 

 the Interstate Commerce Commission as 

 a witness to protest proposed increases 

 in freight rates on grain. 



In 1913 Mr. Danforth helped to or- 

 ganize the Tazewell County Farm Bu- 

 reau, was its first president, and served 

 in that capacity for seven years. It is 

 interesting to note that the name Farm 



Bureau was first used in the United 

 States when Tazewell county farmers 

 set up their organization on June 1, 

 1913. Eventually the other counties 

 that had organized under the names of 

 soil and crop improvement associations, 

 better farming associations, etc., changed 

 their names to county Farm Bureaus. 

 Tazewell was the eighth county Farm 

 Bureau to be organized in Illinois. 



Mr. Danforth's family can rightly be 

 called early settlers of the state. Mr. 

 Danforth's grandfather, Asa, came to 

 Washington in Tazewell county in 1852. 

 The grandfather saw an advertisement 

 offering swampland in Iroquois county, 

 bought 27,000 acres under contract, put 

 in ditches and drained it. The com- 

 munity of Danforth was established in 

 Iroquois county and Mr. Danforth was 

 born there in 1872. Mr. Danforth's 

 father and family left Danforth in 1884 

 and went to Washington in Tazewell 

 county. Mr. Danforth was graduated 

 from high school in Washington and 

 attended the University of Illinois. He 

 later transferred to the University of 

 Michigan where he was graduated from 

 the school of law in 1899. He was a 

 member of the track team at Michigan 

 and attended the Olympics meet at Paris 

 in 1900. Following graduation, Mr. 

 Danforth practiced law in Peoria for 

 eight years and then returned to manage 

 the home farm because of his father's 

 illness. He took short courses at the 

 University of Illinois to increase his 

 knowledge of farming and continued to 

 operate the farms until 1917 when he 

 went to St. Louis with the Federal Land 

 Bank. 



Mr. Danforth leaves his widow, two 

 daughters and one son. Funeral serv- 

 ices were held Oct. 10 in the Danforth 

 Community Hall. Among the repre- 

 sentatives from the Illinois Agricultural 

 Association at the services were Paul E. 

 Mathias, secretary, and Floyd E. Morris, 

 vice president. i 



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L A. A. RECORD 



