8o COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



Another besetting sin of cooperative societies is their re- 

 fusal to pay a salary sufficient to attract a manager with 

 high grade ability. This pitfall the citrus associations have 

 also escaped. Salaries of $2,000 to $3,500 are the rule, 

 and for this sum competent men can be secured. 



A successful manager must be possessed of an unusual 

 number of rare qualities. In the first place, he must inspire 

 enough confidence to hold his membership. Withdrawal 

 being a simple matter, an association can easily be wrecked 

 if the members become dissatisfied with what they believe 

 to be either inefficiency or arbitrariness. Just there lies the 

 manager's difficulty: what may appear autocratic use of 

 power to some may be called efficiency by others. If he 

 adopts the policy of letting the members do pretty much as 

 they please, there are sure to be some who call the plan not 

 freedom but slovenliness. How can a manager suit both 

 those who believe a member should be allowed to deliver 

 fruit when he himself desires and to any amoimt, and those 

 who believe that the good of the individual member is best 

 served by considering the good of the association as a 

 whole, and that the manager should decide when a member 

 should deliver his fruit ? 



To an outside observer it seems that a scientific orderly 

 distribution of fruit cannot take place unless the manager 

 controls the time and the quantity of picking. Probably 

 most managers feel the same way, but they must not apply 

 their belief to such an extent that members holding a dif- 

 ferent view are antagonized. The manager must be broad 

 minded and fair minded. He must be able to take sugges- 

 tions from members and from other packing houses and 

 then go ahead as his judgment directs. Above all there 

 must be no suspicion of favoritism, for the fear of discrimi- 

 nation is not far beneath the surface in any of the mem- 

 bers, and an association permeated by rumors and back- 



