With all this in view the directors of the Grain Growers' Grain Company made a heavy investment in Home Bank stock and were appointed sole brokers to sell a large block of the bank's stock to Western farmers, working men and merchants. On the sale of this they were to receive a commission which would, they expected, be enough to cover the expense of placing the stock. As the business expanded the Company would be assured of an extended line of credit as it was needed.
And the business certainly was expanding. Although the prospects for the new crop were not as bright as they had been the year before, a substantial increase in the amount of grain they would handle—owing to the increase in the number of shareholders—was anticipated by the management. They were not prepared, however, for the heavy volume that poured in upon them when the crop began to move; it was double that of their first season and the office staff was hard pressed to keep pace with the rising work. There now seemed no reason to believe that the success of the farmers' venture was any longer in doubt so far as the commercial side of it was concerned.
But the President and directors had in mind a much broader objective. It was not enough that the farmer should receive a few more cents per bushel for his grain.
"We must bear clearly in mind," warned T. A. Crerar, "that there are still those interests who would delight in nothing more than in our failure and destruction. A great many improvements require yet to be made in our system of handling grain. The struggle for the bringing about of those reforms is not by any means accomplished. As a great class of farmers, composing the most important factor in the progress and development of our country, we must learn the lesson that we must organize and work together to secure those legislative and economic reforms necessary to well-being. In the day of our prosperity we must not forget that there are yet many wrongs to be righted and that true happiness and success in life cannot be measured by the wealth we acquire. In the mad, debasing struggle for material riches and pleasure, which is so characteristic of our age, we often neglect and let go to decay the finer and higher side of our nature and lose thereby that power of sympathy with our fellows which finds expression in lending them a helping hand and in helping in every good work which tends to increase human happiness and lessen human misery. In keeping this in view we keep in mind that high ideal which will make our organization not alone a material success but also a factor in changing those conditions which now tend to stifle the best that is in humanity."
An important step towards the upholding of these ideals was now taken by the directors. The President and the Vice-President happened to be in a little printshop one day, looking over the proof of a pamphlet which the Company was about to issue, when the former picked up a little school journal which was just off the press for the Teachers' Association.
"Why can't we get out a little journal like that?" he wondered. "It would be a great help to our whole movement."
About this time the Company was approached by a Winnipeg farm paper which devoted a page to the doings of the grain growers.
"If you'll help us to get subscriptions amongst the farmers," said the publisher, "we'll devote more space still to the doings of the grain growers."
"But why should we build up another man's paper for him?" argued the
President. "Why can't we get out a journal for ourselves?"
The idea grew more insistent the longer it was entertained, and although at first E. A. Partridge, who was on the directorate, was opposed to such a venture, he finally agreed that it would be of untold assistance to the farmers if they had a paper of their own to voice their ideals. The logical editor for the new undertaking was E. A. Partridge, of course, and accordingly he began to gather material for the first issue of a paper, to be called the Grain Growers' Guide.