A KNOCK ON THE DOOR
Every man is worth just as much as the things are worth about which he
is concerned.--_Marcus Aurelius_.
That big shipment to Buffalo, along with several others which were
placed in the East with the market recovering, relieved the situation
greatly. Also, the Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society's Winnipeg
office decided to stand by the farmers' co-operative marketing venture
and risked disapproval to buy some of the young company's wheat; not
only that, but the farmers' company was allowed the regular commission
of one cent per bushel on the purchase and the cheque paid in to the
bank amounted to $58,298. This friendly co-operation the farmers were
not quick to forget and they still speak of it with gratitude.
It began to look as if the struggling farmers' agency might worry
through the winter after all. The strain of the past few months had
told upon the men at the head of the young organization and especially
upon the provisional President, who felt keenly the responsibilities of
his office. Of a sensitive, high-strung temperament, E. A. Partridge
suffered reaction to such a degree that at times he became almost
despondent.
He began to talk of resigning. He felt that he had done quite a lot in
getting things under way and that the hard fight which the farmers
would have to wage before the trading company was established
permanently would be carried on more successfully by a younger man. So
frequently had his motives been questioned by suspicious farmers at
organization meetings that he thought it would be better for the
company if he occupied a less prominent place in the conduct of its
affairs. The idea seemed to be prevalent that the organizers were
enthusiastic for direct financial reasons. "Those fellows are talking
for what they are going to get out of it," was an open accusation at
times--a misconception so unjust that on several occasions Partridge
had refuted it by pledging to resign from the presidency as soon as the
company was on its feet.
"You men keep saying how much I've got out of this," he reproved in
disheartened tones. "Gentlemen, I'll admit that I've got a little
silver out of this. But it isn't in my pocket; it's in my hair!"
Partridge had no respect for a "quitter," however. He did not propose
to take it easy until the farmers' agency did get into proper running
order. Although his associates tried to dissuade him altogether from
the course he had planned, the best he would promise was to remain at
his post until the first annual meeting.
Immediately preceding the annual convention of the Manitoba Grain
Growers' Association at Brandon in February a general meeting of Grain
Growers' Grain Company shareholders was held with about two hundred
represented. Until now the company had been operating under a
provisional directorate only and it was the purpose of the meeting to
complete organization. Since opening for business the shareholders had
practically doubled in number and over 1,500,000 bushels of farmers'
grain had been handled by their own agency, its ability to dispose of
wheat at good figures being demonstrated in spite of deprivation of
trading privileges on the Exchange. Putting a conservative estimate
upon the holdings of the farmers' venture into co-operative marketing,
its paid-up capital remained intact, its organization expenses
paid--including the membership on the Grain Exchange--and there still
was left a respectable margin of profit. To this showing the
shareholders responded by electing the provisional directorate as
directors for the balance of the year, adding two[1] to their number,
while the same officers were left in charge.
In connection with the directorate it was pointed out that it might be
better to have the trading company's directorate independent of the
Association's directorate. The suggestion came from a tall young man
who had a habit of thinking before he spoke and it was but one of many
practical ideas which he had thrown out at the meeting.
"That young chap, Crerar, of Russell--makings of an able man there,
Ed," commented the re-elected Vice-president later. "Know anything
about him?"
"I know his father better than I do him," nodded the President
thoughtfully. "I met his father in the old Patron movement years ago.
I've got a great respect for his attitude of mind towards moral and
economic questions. I like that young man's views, Kennedy; he seems
to have a grasp of what this movement could accomplish--of the aims
that might be served beyond the commercial side of it. In short, he
seems to be somewhat of a student of economics and he has the
education--used to be a school-teacher, I believe."
"Remember when I went up to Russell, during their Fair in October, to
tell them what the Exchange was trying to do to us? Well, he was at
the meeting and came over to my room at the hotel afterward," remarked
Kennedy. "That's how interested he was. We had quite a talk over the
whole situation. Told me he had an arrangement to buy grain for Graves
& Reilly, besides running the Farmers' Elevator at Russell, and he
offered to ship us all the grain that wasn't consigned to his firm.
We've got quite a few carloads from him during the season."
"If there were only a few more elevator operators like him!" sighed
Partridge. "When I was up there last July, selling stock, only eight
men turned out," he recalled. "Crerar was one of them. I sold four
shares. Crerar bought one. Say, he'd be a good man to have on the
next directorate. How would it be if I wrote him a letter about it?"
But "Alex." Crerar laid that letter aside and promptly forgot it; he
did not take it seriously enough to answer it. If there was anything
he could do to help along a thing in which he believed as thoroughly as
he believed in the grain growers' movement and the farmers' agency he
was more than willing to do it; but executive offices, he felt, were
for older and more experienced men than he.
As manager of an elevator in his home town, as buyer for a grain firm
and as a farmer himself he had had opportunities for studying the
situation from many angles. From the first he had followed the
organization of the farmers with much interest and sympathy. He could
not forget his own early experiences in marketing grain when the
elevators offered him fifty-nine cents per bushel, nineteen cents under
the price at the terminal at the time. The freight rate on his No. 1
Northern wheat he knew to be only nine cents per bushel and when he was
docked a bushel and a half to a load of fifty bushels on top of it all
he had been aroused to protest.
A protest from young Crerar was no mild and bashful affair, either. It
was big-fisted with vigor. But when, with characteristic spirit, he
had pointed out the injustice of the price offered and the dockage
taken--the elevator man, quite calmly, had told him to go to the devil!
"There's no use going to the other elevators, for you're all alike,"
said young Crerar hotly.
"Then take your damned grain home again!" grinned the elevator operator
insolently.
So the young farmer was compelled to sell his first wheat for what he
could get. He was prepared to pay three cents per bushel on the
spread, that being a reasonable charge; but although plenty of cars
were available at the time, the spread cost him ten cents, a direct
loss of seven cents per bushel. Besides this he was forced to see
between twenty-five and thirty bushels out of every thousand
appropriated for dockage, no matter how clean the wheat might be. That
was in 1902.
It was hard to forget that kind of treatment. And when, later on,
young Crerar accepted an offer of $75 per month to manage a Farmers'
Elevator at Russell he bore his own experience in mind and extended
every possible consideration to the farmers who came to him. The
elevator company, as a company, did not buy grain; but as
representative of Graves & Reilly, a Winnipeg firm, he bought odd lots
and for this service received an extra fifty dollars per month.
Financially, it was better than teaching school. He had made ten
dollars the first summer he taught school and to earn it he had walked
three miles and a half each morning after milking the cows at home,
arriving at the school soaking wet with dew from wading in the long
prairie grass. And even at that, the trustees had wanted a "cheaper"
teacher! A woman, they thought, might do it cheaper.
The young schoolmaster objected so earnestly, however, that the
argument was dropped. He needed this money to assist in a plan for
attending the Collegiate at Portage la Prairie. He taught the school
so well that after studying Latin at Manitoba College in 1899, the
trustees were glad to get him back the following year at a salary of
$35 per month.
But milking cows at home night and morning and teaching school in
between was not an exciting life at best for a young fellow ambitious
to go farming. So at last he acquired a quarter-section of Hudson Bay
Company land near Russell and took to "baching it" in a little frame
shack.
In the fall some lumber was required for buildings and it so happened
that along came an old chap with a proposition to put in a portable
sawmill on a timber limit up in the Riding Mountains nearby. The old
man meant business alright; he had the engine within ten miles of its
destination before he was overtaken and the whole machine seized for
debt. It looked as if the thousands of logs which the residents of the
district had taken out for the expected mill had been piled up to no
purpose. Crerar, however, succeeded in making a deal for the engine
and, with a couple of partners, began sawing up logs. The little
sawmill proved so useful that he ran it for four winters. When finally
it was burned down no attempt was made to rebuild. Its owner was
entering wider fields of activity.
After meeting Partridge and Kennedy his interest in the affairs of the
farmers' little trading concern was quickened. He was much impressed
with the fact that here were men so devoted to an idea--so profound in
their belief that it was the right idea--that its advancement was their
first and only thought at all times. Alex. Crerar liked that. If a
thing were worth attempting at all, it was worth every concentration of
effort. What these men were trying to accomplish appealed to him as a
big thing, a bigger thing than most of the farmers yet realized, and it
deserved all the help he could give it. The little agency was in the
thick of a fight against tremendous odds and that, too, had its appeal;
for to a natural born fighter the odds meant merely a bigger fight, a
bigger triumph.
Accordingly, the young man lost no opportunity to boost things along.
He was able to consign many carloads of grain in a season. If an idea
occurred to him that he thought might be of service he sat down and
wrote a letter, offering the suggestion on the chance that it might
prove useful to the Executive. He did everything he could to build up
the Company's business in the Russell district and when he returned
home from the shareholders' organization meeting he kept right on
sending in business, offering helpful suggestions and saying a good
word when possible.
As the weeks went by and it became more apparent that they would wind
up their first year's business satisfactorily, E. A. Partridge decided
definitely that he would not accept another term as President. There
were several good men available to succeed him; but he could not get it
out of his head that the one man for the tasks ahead was the young
fellow up at Russell. When he went there in June to speak at a Grain
Growers' picnic he drew Crerar aside for an hour's chat, found out why
he had not answered the letter suggesting that he play a more active
part, and liked him all the better for his modesty.
Without saying anything of what he had in mind he returned to Winnipeg
and sent the Vice-President to Russell to size up the situation
quietly. When Kennedy got back he agreed with the President's choice
of a successor.
The Company was holding its first annual meeting on July 16th and care
was taken that the unsuspecting Crerar was on hand. The Vice-president
button-holed him, explaining that he was wanted on the Board of
Directors and in spite of his protest the President himself nominated
him and he was elected promptly.
But when at the directors' meeting that night the President told the
Board that he had been looking around for a young man to take charge
and that T. A. Crerar was the man--when everybody present nodded
approval, the man from Russell was speechless. If they had asked him
to pack his grip and leave at once for Japan to interview the Mikado,
he could not have been more completely surprised.
"Why, gentlemen" he objected, "I don't know anything about managing
this company! I could not undertake it."
"What is the next order of business?" asked E. A. Partridge.
The shareholders were almost as much surprised as the newcomer himself
when the name of the new president was announced. Many of them had
never heard of T. A. Crerar. Had the young president-elect been able
to see what lay ahead of him--
But, fortunately or unfortunately, that is one thing which is denied to
every human being.
[1] See Appendix--Par. 7.