the people. The minister should be interested in agriculture, not only
_interested_ in agriculture, but should really know something about it
as well as other questions which concern the community. The minister of
the future will be required to take a course in agriculture along with
his theological work. He must, like the teacher, be specially trained
for his rural work. The field and opportunity of the rural minister is
as broad as humanity itself. The minister should help the teacher in her
work. He should help organize granges and farmers’ clubs and be an active
member. He should help with their short courses and farmers’ institutes.
He should help with the county Y. M. C. A. work and the Boy Scouts’ work.
Think of the service a minister can render a rural community, by
organizing and directing the amusements and sports of the neighborhood.
If he could not direct them in person he could help the boys select a
capable, wholesome leader. He could develop or work out in time a plan
by which, during a part of the year at least, the boys would be given
one-half day every two weeks for baseball and other sports.
As it now is the country boys have no intelligent leadership. While the
pastor is preaching a sermon to a small audience in the church the boys
have joined the little clique and are taking their first lessons in card
playing, smoking, etc.
The pastor must be a leader or he will accomplish but little. One of
the things he should do is to clean up around the church, mow the weeds,
repair the fence, set out shade trees and put some pictures on the walls
of the church. The pastor should live in the community and become a part
of it in every way.
What we need is a rural society that belongs distinctly to the country.
Its schools, its churches, its clubs and its amusements must be so
directed and organized as to meet the real needs of the people who live
in the country.
Many illustrations can be given of the splendid work now being done in
various localities and sections of the United States. I wish I might tell
you of the work which some of our ministers and their country churches
are doing. Men like Rev. M. B. McNutt of Plainfield, Ill., Rev. Clair S.
Adams of Bement, Ill., Rev. C. S. Lyles of Logan, Iowa, and many others.
It is remarkable what some of our county superintendents like Miss Jessie
Field of Page County, Iowa, have done and are doing through the schools
for better agriculture, better homes and better citizenship. There are
the rural high schools such as the one at Albert Lea, Minn. How I wish I
could tell you of the county Y. M. C. A. work which Mr. Fred Hansen of
Iowa is doing with the boys; how he has organized them into clubs and is
directing not only their religious work, but also their amusements and
sports, and even has them studying corn, stock and other agricultural
subjects.
The Country Life Commission has done a great work, but the movement has
only begun. We must have more state “Country Life Commissions.” There
must be national and state aid so that the commissions can bring to
the people the knowledge of what has been accomplished in the various
localities throughout the country.
President WALLACE—Be patient a moment, and please come to order. We have
two splendid speeches to be delivered this morning and I am very sorry
to announce that Mr. Barrett of the Farmers’ Union, who intended to be
here, cannot be here on account of sickness in his family. We will hear
a gentleman for five minutes who is about to leave for Europe and must
speak now or not at all.
Recording Secretary GIPE—I would like to announce that Mr. R. A. Long
will speak as the representative of the wholesale lumber dealers and
yellow pine manufacturers.
Mr. LONG—I understand that Mr. Wallace said that I expected to leave
for Europe. I am not going to Europe and have no thought of going to
Europe. Permit me to suggest this: it is rather an imposition upon you
and embarrassing to me to be called on so short a notice to speak in
the midst of men who have carefully prepared papers, and yet I want to
suggest to you some thoughts that occurred to me, that were put into my
mind by the last speaker. We are having many important problems before
us at this time. The problems before this Congress are certainly most
important and have to do with the people of today and of the future.
We are to have in this city within a few weeks another convention not
pertaining to the conservation of the soil or water, or the forest, but
to a conservation that has to do with men, and I am wondering whether
or not this audience is going to place more stress upon the problems
that are involved in this Congress, or the problems that are involved in
the one to be held a few weeks hence. That problem has to do with men
and religion, and in my judgment no problem on the face of the earth
will have more to do with the conservation of all the problems of life,
this man and religion forward movement, and I trust that the men and
women—(applause) I only have five minutes, don’t disturb me—and I trust
that the men and women involved in these problems will see to it that
these teams which commence the first of October and continue throughout
the winter until May of next year are supported with their means and
with their presence. The gentleman who just took his seat stated that
he would like to preach a sermon on what the preacher ought to do with
reference to the child life. I would like to have each of you assembled
here this morning ask yourself the question, and answer it if you please,
what are you doing in your own home. What are you doing, what is the
example that you are setting your children? Sunday morning I imagine the
large majority of you, instead of going to the Sunday School and setting
an example to your children in order that they may follow out the life
this gentlemen speaks of that you ought to live, are remaining at home
and reading your newspapers. Bear in mind, my dear friends, fathers and
mothers, the school teacher or preacher cannot do that which you ought to
do for yourselves. And I want to speak this word on behalf the preachers
of our land: when they stand up in the pulpit, when they beseech us to do
the things we ought to do, and then we fail to rally to their support,
ought we to censure them? Ought we rather not engage with him arm in arm
in this great conflict, that has to do with the elevation of mankind,
rather than stand aloof and say we want to preach to the preachers? I
want you to ask yourselves that question, whether or not you stand arm
in arm with your preachers, and carry on that conflict that has to do
with the uplift of mankind all over the world. How much time have I got?
I cannot take the time to talk about the other problems which I had in
mind, connected with the timber interests of this country. But I want
to say this to you, that the forests of this country ought to be taken
care of better than they are. The reason why the forests are not being
conserved better than they are is because of the extremely low price of
lumber compelling us who manufacture lumber to leave twenty per cent of
the trees in the woods because we cannot get price enough out of it to
pay for the labor to produce it, and the transportation, to say nothing
about the logs. And so long as we have intense legislation, leading
almost to persecution against the interests, even getting together and
talking over the problems pertaining to their industry, so long will the
price of lumber be so low as to prevent us from bringing in at least
twenty per cent of these trees, thereby prolonging our forests to an
almost indefinite period.
President WALLACE—We will now have an address by the Hon. W. A. Beard of
Sacramento, California. I have asked him to prepare an address on the
subject of “Coöperation,” one of the most important subjects that can
secure our attention. He will speak a half hour and no more.
Mr. BEARD—Coöperation, as your chairman has said, is a very hard term.
It is so hard that I have found it difficult to determine the particular
phase of the subject which should be presented for your consideration.
I believe I was expected to talk on coöperation among farmers, but upon
careful consideration I was impressed with the fact that coöperation
among farmers is fundamentally the same thing as among persons engaged in
any other pursuit.
It has seemed to me that what should come out of this Congress is not
an exhortation, addressed either to farmers or to any other class of
citizens, but a careful and complete statement of the facts—a review of
the progress made in coöperative development and a discussion of the
principles underlying successful coöperation. I shall speak, therefore,
of this movement.
I refer, of course, to coöperation in business. By this term, I mean the
growth of coöperative societies in which individuals are associated for
mutual benefits and mutual profit. The ideal society is one in which
the benefits and profits are distributed equitably among the members in
proportion to their respective interests.
Coöperation is little understood by the great majority of our citizens;
the full measure of its possibilities is comprehended by comparatively
few. Because there have been many and conspicuous failures, and because
abuses have marked the administration of some so-called coöperative
societies, the average citizen is disposed to regard coöperation as an
impractical dream, and in consequence, the really excellent progress is
being made in the face of distrust that should be removed.
A knowledge of the facts will dispel this impression. Coöperation is
a demonstrated success. The movement is a world movement. Coöperative
societies are doing business successfully in every civilized country on
earth. In this country they are doing business in almost every state.
Everywhere the coöperative society, properly conducted, contributes to
the material welfare of its members; in most places it is an important
factor in social and moral advancement.
The modern coöperative movement commenced less than a century ago and
began to assume importance about 1840. The earliest beginnings of
coöperative business enterprises as we know them were the establishment
of a little store at Rochdale, England, in 1844, and the founding
of a coöperative credit society in Germany in 1849. The pioneer in
agricultural coöperation was the rural credit society of Germany, the
first of which was organized in 1862.
I mention these dates because they were the starting points from which
has grown, in the comparatively brief period of sixty-five years, a vast
web of coöperative enterprises encircling the earth.
SMALL BEGINNINGS LEAD TO LARGE SUCCESSES.
Each of the movements began in the smallest way. The German credit
societies, both rural and urban, were founded for the purpose of
providing credit to men who had no security to offer beyond their
collective honesty, industry and business ability. The purpose was
to help the very poor, and the success attained is attested by the
comparative prosperity of German artisans and farmers, and by the present
vast extent of the coöperative banking system. The Rochdale society
was organized by ten poor weavers with a cash capital of twenty-eight
pounds sterling, and from it has grown the great system of coöperative
distribution of Great Britain.
THE COÖPERATIVE BANKS OF EUROPE.
The coöperative credit society, or bank, is the most common form of
coöperation on the continent of Europe. Following the success of the
system in Germany, it has been introduced, in varying forms and with
varying degrees of success, in nearly all of the countries of continental
Europe, rural banks usually preponderating in numbers and in importance.
There are coöperative rural banks in Italy, France, Russia, Switzerland,
Belgium, Holland, Austria and the Balkan states, also in Ireland, India
and Japan. They have been introduced into Canada, and one such bank has
recently been established in the United States.
Mr. Henry W. Wolff, in “People’s Banks,” says, “The year 1849 saw opened
two vastly different roads to wealth—the California gold fields and the
principles of coöperative banking.”
The advantages of the coöperative bank lie in the fact that it is
operated in the interest of the borrowers and its sole purpose is to
provide cheap credit. The members are the managers, the borrowers and the
recipients of the profits.
It is estimated by competent authority that there are forty thousand of
these banks in existence, with a total of more than three million members
and assets worth more than a billion dollars.
In Germany more than one-half of the independent agriculturists are
members of these banks.
Altogether there are 24,000 coöperative agricultural societies in
Germany, of which about eighty per cent are federated in one great
organization, and all of which are closely associated with the rural
coöperative banks to which they owe their origin.
THE ROCHDALE SOCIETY OF ENGLAND.
The society formed at Rochdale, England, was wholly different from the
credit organizations of Germany, which it preceded. Its purpose was not
to provide credit, but to furnish the necessaries of life at low cost.
Unlike the German societies, which were started by philanthropists for
the benefit of the poor, the Rochdale society was started by the poor
themselves. The mite of capital employed at the outset was secured by
saving of two pence weekly from a starvation wage. Even this small saving
meant sacrifice to the Rochdale pioneers, but it paid, for out of it has
grown a great system that provides the British workman of today with all
he requires at wholesale and manufacturer’s prices.
LARGEST BUSINESS IN THE WORLD.
The Coöperative Wholesale Societies Limited, of London, England, is
said to be the largest business concern in the world. In 1908 it did a
business of 570 million dollars. It is the central federation of the
coöperative retail associations, one of which is in almost every village
and town in England. It is a producer, manufacturer and shipper, as well
as merchant. It owns plantations in various parts of the world; it sails
its own ships; its chain of purchasing depots encircles the globe; it
manufactures almost every article of household use and supplies the wants
of more than eight million people. It is purely coöperative, all of its
profits being distributed among the consumers in proportion to their
purchases.
We of America pride ourselves on the giant enterprises on this side
of the Atlantic. Even while we condemn the systems which have made
them possible, we marvel at the genius of the captains of industry and
finance who have built them. Yet here is a concern, said to do a business
four times greater than the Steel Trust, which is without a captain of
industry, a great financier or a merchant prince. It is a product of a
system, one of the best features of which is that it does not concentrate
great wealth in the hands of a few.
WHERE COÖPERATION IS A NATIONAL TRAIT.
Agricultural coöperation finds its most complete development in Denmark.
Almost every Danish farmer is a member of one or more coöperative
societies. Coöperation is almost a national trait. So general is the use
of coöperative methods in Denmark that some one has said when a Dane
wishes to buy or sell anything his first impulse is to form a society to
do it.
Yet coöperation is of comparatively recent growth in Denmark. There
have been coöperative stores since 1866, but it was not until 1881 that
the first coöperative dairy was established, while bacon curing and egg
societies date from 1887 and 1895, respectively.
There are more than a thousand coöperative dairies in Denmark; there are
five hundred egg societies, and numerous other coöperative producing and
selling price associations. Eighty-three per cent of the cows milked in
1909 were in coöperative dairies; 66 per cent of the bacon was cured in
coöperative factories.
The coöperative societies are thoroughly organized into federations,
and the whole business of production and sale is systematized. The
federations exercise the closest supervision over production. High
standards of excellence are required and long lists of rules are rigidly
enforced. A bad egg is occasion for a fine in a Danish egg society—and
there are no bad eggs in Denmark.
In the twenty-five years from 1881 to 1906, Danish exports increased from
$11,840,000 to $77,800,000. Behind these figures is a story of a nation’s
progress from poverty to prosperity, a progress in which coöperation has
been the principal and dominating factor.
THE COÖPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AMPLY DEMONSTRATED.
To tell, even in merest outline, of the successful coöperative movements
of Europe would require more time than is at my disposal. I have cited
these because they are the most conspicuous and far-reaching, and
because they afford three wholly separate and distinct and entirely
different demonstrations of the correctness of the coöperative
principle. Coöperation in Europe has been in most cases the resort of
dire necessity. It does not follow, however, that coöperation can be
successful only under circumstances of poverty and want. If it will raise
men from poverty to a competence, it will add to the prosperity of the
already prosperous.
RISE OF COÖPERATION IN AMERICA.
The coöperative movement in this country began to assume importance
about 1850. Prior to this time there had been many associations for the
advancement of various interests, but these were, as a rule, educational
in purpose. Real progress in business coöperation began after the
close of the Civil War, and may best be described as a series of great
movements in which the farmers were usually the principal actors. These
culminated in the Grange movement of the early seventies in which
millions of farmers, united in a great national society, undertook to
revolutionize the existing economic system by taking over to themselves
the functions of middleman, merchant, baker and manufacturer, and to form
a great agricultural trust that would dictate the price of farm products
and combat growing railroad and other monopolies.
THE GREATEST REVOLT IN HISTORY.
This was probably the greatest revolt of farmers in the history of the
world. It is simply astounding to read of the enterprises, colossal in
the aggregate, that were launched. Millions were invested in banks,
stores, warehouses, implement and other factories, railroads and selling
agencies, nearly all of which collapsed within a few years leaving only
experience and deficits behind. Of those that survived, the greater part
soon adopted the methods, aims and purposes of ordinary corporations.
Here and there, however, a coöperative enterprise continued to live, and
some of these are doing business to this day.
Following the Grange movement came a number of state, interstate, and
national organizations, which grew steadily more political in their
aims until they culminated in the Farmers’ Alliance and People’s Party.
The adoption of the main planks of these by then older political
organizations marked the close of an epoch in agricultural agitation
and opened the way for a more strictly economic development of the
coöperative idea.
THE FIRST GUN IN A GREAT FIGHT.
While the great movements of the twenty-year period between 1870 and 1890
did not accomplish all that was expected of them, they did accomplish
much. They were the pioneers in organized opposition to the growth of
monopoly in this country. The organization of the Grange was the firing
of the first big gun in the fight against special privilege, a fight
which will go on until equal privilege prevails.
The Grange has never ceased to be an active factor in agricultural
affairs. It has been a principal agent in the development of agricultural
education and in the improvement of agricultural practice, a strong local
force in country life, and a constant factor in the later growth of
coöperative endeavor.
PROGRESS OF PAST TWENTY YEARS.
Since the period of great organizations, the coöperative movement has
attracted less attention, but has accomplished more in the world of
business. The results are manifested principally in three classes of
coöperative enterprise, stores, marketing associations, building and loan
associations. Other forms of these societies that are making progress
include industrial plants, supply societies and insurance associations.
The coöperative credit society that has attained such proportions in
Europe is practically unknown here, but there seems to be an excellent
field for it, especially in the South.
In all branches of coöperative activity in this country there is a
lamentable lack of coördination. The stores are as a rule isolated from
each other or associated in small groups, and they lose the advantage
gained by the British societies from the concentration of their wholesale
business. The marketing associations are for the most part separate,
although there has been some movement toward federation in certain lines.
MOVING ALONG RIGHT LINES.
While federation would, in most cases, work to mutual advantage if well
managed, the fact that such federations are rare does not argue against
the associations or the movement of which they are a part. On the
contrary, it is to the advantage of the coöperative movement that it is
developing for the most part in small units, each of which must learn to
stand on its own bottom. Federation, with its great advantages, will come
when coöperation in this country is ripe for it.
According to a recent bulletin of the International Institute of
Agriculture, this country leads all others in coöperative marketing.
Coöperative dairies exist in every state where dairying is an important
industry; there are six hundred in Minnesota, three hundred in Wisconsin.
There are about sixteen hundred warehouses in the grain belt. There
are marketing associations in almost every important fruit district.
There are insurance societies in many states, coöperative associations
for handling cotton and tobacco. Coöperative irrigation has proven so
successful in the West that Uncle Sam is building irrigation systems to
be operated coöperatively and private capital is doing likewise, some of
the largest private projects selling the water system with the land with
coöperative ownership and operation by the farmers as the ultimate aim.
The largest and most comprehensive farmers’ society is the Farmers
Educational and Coöperative Union, a national organization which follows
more nearly than any other now in active existence the early idea of
development by propaganda. It has branches in twenty-five states and a
total membership of about 3,000,000 persons. It is especially strong in
the South, where it operates 2,000 cotton warehouses and 6,000 cotton
gins. In other sections it owns and operates large numbers of grain
warehouses, also fruit handling and marketing agencies, coal mines,
fertilizer factories and numerous other enterprises.
THE CALIFORNIA FRUIT GROWERS’ EXCHANGE.
We have in California what is probably the largest and most successful
coöperative association of producers engaged in marketing a single
line of production. This is the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange. It
maintains what is said to be the most efficient selling organization
in the world, having agents in all of the principal cities and many of
the smaller points of the United States, also at important centers in
Europe. It handles now about 75 per cent of the orange and lemon crop of
California and returns to its members, after deducting all expenses, more
than $20,000,000 a year. It has been in business several years and is a
demonstrated success in every particular. It has standardized the fruit
pack of the state, reducing packing and marketing costs and increased
selling values to the growers, and freed the citrus fruit growers from
the exactions of the fruit marketing companies.
The exchange is purely coöperative. It is organized under the
corporation laws of California with a capital stock of $10,000, but no
dividends are paid on this stock and no assessments levied. Money for
operating expenses is secured by levying an assessment on the growers at
the beginning of the season in proportion to the estimated crop of each.
When the crop is sold the proceeds, less the expenses actually incurred
and paid, are paid to the growers.