American Agriculturist, November 24,1923 
357 
What Is Wrong With the Cooperatives? 
“Where Withal Shall We Be Led?”—The Second Article on Cooperation 
By E. R. EASTMAN 
T always make me a little peeved to hear 
someone at the beginning of a confer¬ 
ence or meeting say something like suits after the cooperative gets to operating 
this: “Now we won’t discuss personali- because they have more skill in business 
ties to-day at all. We’ll just talk about princi- dealing. 
pies.” These three types of men are the material 
At one stroke, he has eliminated the only with which we have to man our public affairs 
thing that counts in any proposition or any of farmers. Every farmer knows of examples 
business under the sun—personalities. If in his own community of each type of man 
personalities are right, principles are sure to I have suggested; and any farmers’ organi- 
be. Men make principles, and leaders make zation of any size has men of each of these 
or break cooperatives. three classes among its directors and officers. 
Almost any cooperative organization will Can we take this material, select it, put 
make at least some success working on al- it into positions of responsibility, mold it, 
most any kind of a plan, no matter hbw poor control it, and use it to lead our farmers’ 
that plan is, if—but this is one of the biggest business and affairs into a new day in agri- 
“ifs” in the world—the men you have chosen culture ? 
to lead and direct that cooperative are sincere I unhesitatingly answer “yes.” After all, 
and efficient. you know, it is pretty good material, the 
Three types of men seek leadership, or best there is—with many faults, imperfec- 
have it thrust upon them in farm affairs, tions and false places in it, to be sure, but 
First, and worst, there is the 
small calibre, incompetent fellow 
who gets himself in because the 
glory of the job appeals to his 
large self-importance and egotism, 
and because those who elect him 
do their fault-finding after he is 
elected, instead of before. To 
this kind of a leader there is also 
the appeal of a salary, greater by 
far than he has ever received be¬ 
fore. This kind of man will never 
be anything but a curse and a 
millstone to all cooperative or¬ 
ganizations. I would almost pre¬ 
fer an actual rascal, and I cer¬ 
tainly would rather have a selfish 
politician. 
Then there is the natural born 
politician who sees in cooperative 
leadership an opportunity to ex¬ 
ercise his talent to advance him¬ 
self and his selfish interests, and 
an opportunity for the exercise of 
Watch For These Articles 
T HIS is the second article of the series on the subject, “What is 
Wrong' with the Cooperatives ?” written by E. It. Eastman. In 
the first article Mr. Eastman outlined various factors that influence 
the success or mark the failure of a farmers’ cooperative. In this 
issue, Mr. Eastman deals with the type of representative of the 
farmer who sits on the board of directors of the farmers’ organization. 
It is the director who is the leader and upon whom the farmer de¬ 
pends for much of the success of his organization. In articles to 
come on the subject: “What is Wrong with the Cooperatives ?” Mr. 
Eastman will deal with other factors that control the success of 
farmers’ cooperatives, such as volume of business, selection of a busi¬ 
ness manager, salaries of employees. Whether you are directly con¬ 
nected with a cooperative, or not, we are sure you will find this series 
of great interest and value.—The Editors. 
power which is as the very breath to his 
nostrils. Strange to say, however, such men 
often make good leaders, for in selfishly 
working hard for themselves, they incidental¬ 
ly achieve results for the members. It is an 
interesting question anyway, whether or not 
most of the world’s progress along every 
line has not been largely accomplished by 
men working for their own interests. It is 
possible for men to be selfish and still to be 
honest. In fact, we are all selfish to a 
greater or less degree. 
It is also possible for a man to be a 
politician and still to be honest. But when 
such men happen also to be incompetent busi¬ 
ness men of small ability and judgment, and 
use their political talent to advance and keep 
themselves in power, then you had better 
watch out. Better change the politician 
pretty often, too: otherwise, he will dig him¬ 
self in for a long term by much red tape 
so that you cannot change him easily. 
Then there is the third type of leader— 
honest and sincere, with the real desire to 
serve you as well as himself. You will find 
this sort of man in large numbers in the 
beginning of all great movements for man¬ 
kind. He is apt to be a crusader; he is the 
sort that goes out and sacrifices his own 
monev and time day after day to advance a 
cause, whether it be cooperation or something 
else. Because he will not play politics, he 
is likely to be crowded out in the leadership 
of affairs by the real politicians as soon as 
he has made the job worth while enough to 
attract their notice. In fairness, it probably 
ought to be said that some of these good men 
ought to be crowded out for they are often 
' better crusaders and organizers than they 
are business men. As I have suggested, the 
political tvpe frequently achieves better re- 
with the good predominating, the best of 
the many fine things that the good Lord 
ever made. 
Yes, the cooperatives in the main are bound 
to succeed, if they are well led. They will 
be well led if the plain farmer gives proper 
attention to the job of selecting and manag¬ 
ing his own leaders and organization di¬ 
rectors. 
How is he going about it? 
First: There must he simple and direct 
elections in every cooperative, in every local 
and every central. Let there be no confus¬ 
ing, indirect election methods; let there be 
no entangling red tape. One of the few in¬ 
excusable and foolish mistakes made by the 
wise fathers of our country was the provision 
for an electoral college which elects our presi¬ 
dent. We do not vote for a president in this 
country; we vote for an elector who votes 
for a president. What nonsense! Keep it 
out of the cooperatives. Vote yourself di¬ 
rectly for the men who are to represent you. 
Second: Nominate your own men. The 
politicians have ahvays known that the elec¬ 
tions are quite apt to take care of themselves. 
It is the nominations that count. This is es¬ 
pecially so when there is only one ticket of 
officers up, as is the case in the cooperative 
elections. 
Third: Insist on short terms. There is a 
growing tendency in cooperative work to 
elect directors for more than one year. There 
is a good argument for this because it takes 
about a year for a new director to learn the 
details of the business so that his judgment 
on policies and business affairs is good. But 
unfortunately, it works both ways and if he 
is the type of man who never will make good 
as a director, then the farmers are obliged 
to carry him and his inefficiencies for a long 
time. The value of permanency can be had 
equally well if you send the same man back 
each year. But I believe that he should be 
made to return to the members for their very 
frequent approval, or disapproval. 
Fourth: Hold representative mass meet¬ 
ings. These may be brought together at 
least once a year and special ones for the 
purpose of deciding very important ques¬ 
tions of policy can be called. Such meetings 
give a delegate from each local first-hand 
personal information in regard to what a 
cooperative is doing, increases the interest 
and enthusiasm for the work, and in a way 
serves as a referendum in acting on im¬ 
portant questions, thus relieving the officers 
and directors of too much responsibility. 
Fifth: Pay your directors and officers 
reasonable salaries. What is a reasonable 
salary? There are two ways of looking at 
it. If a man who has lived to middle age in 
a farm community and never 
earned over two dollars a day 
for himself, there may be some 
question as to his ability to ever 
really earn much more than 
that for anybody else. However, 
farming is a business of ||w 
profits, or none at all, so maybe 
a two-dollar man would have 
earned ten dollars had his lot 
been cast in another trade or pro¬ 
fession. Certainly cooperative 
leaders must cope with highly 
trained and highly paid men 
among the dealers. The type of 
man to do this successfully must 
be paid fairly well, although it 
would probably be difficult ever 
to meet the salaries paid by the 
dealers because many of their 
salaries are higher than the ser¬ 
vice they render justifies. Co¬ 
operative salaries certainly must 
be reasonable. After all, the pur¬ 
pose of cooperation is to increase the farm¬ 
ers’ profits. To do this, overhead expenses 
must be kept at a minimum and salaries is 
one of the large items of overhead. 
It should be said, however, that farmers 
cannot expect their neighbor, particularly in 
these times of short help, to neglect his busi¬ 
ness and thereby lose a lot of money, and 
live away from his family without properly 
compensating him for the service. The big 
job is to get competent .men for leaders. 
Those men cannot be secured without mak¬ 
ing it worth their while to neglect their own 
business. I shall have more to say on this 
salary question when 1 discuss the coopera¬ 
tives’ “hired men,” the employees, in a later 
article. 
Sixth: Never under any circumstances al¬ 
low a member to be both a director and a 
salaried employee of the organization at the 
same time. This statement should not apply 
of course to the regularly elected officers 
when executing the duties for which they 
were elected, and an exception should be 
made for the director who puts in a few days 
occasionally on a per diem basis, in doing or¬ 
ganization work or looking after the farm¬ 
ers’ interests in his own district. No man, 
no matter how sincere and honest he may be, 
can represent his district, his local or his 
members on any board of directors if his 
judgment or viewpoint is biased by being a 
employee of that organization at the same 
time. 
Let me illustrate. Suppose a cooperative 
had twelve directors, and the president and 
executive committee had the power, as they 
often do, of hiring and firing employees; 
suppose that three of the employees are also 
directors. Now suppose there is a divided 
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