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.