In agricultural coöperation, Ireland can claim to have shown the way to the United Kingdom. Ten years ago, after the Irish movement had been launched, the English rural reformers started a movement on exactly the same lines, even founding on the Irish model an English Agricultural Organisation Society. An Irishman, who had studied coöperation at home, was selected as its chief executive officer. Five years later, a Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society took the field. Both in England and in Scotland the chief difficulty to be overcome is the intense individualism of the farmers, and perhaps some lack of altruism. The large farmers did not feel the need of coöperation, and where the natural leader of the rural community will not lead, the small cultivator cannot follow. Whether the same difficulties have prevented any considerable adoption of agricultural coöperation in the United States, it is not necessary to inquire. It is certain that the underlying principles approved by every progressive rural, community in Europe have not so far exercised more than an occasional and fitful influence upon the rural economy of the American Republic.
If I have given in these pages a true explanation of the deplorable backwardness of American farmers in the matter of business combination when compared with all other American workers, those who take part in the movement which is to provide the remedy will have set themselves a task as hopeful as it is interesting. Americans as a people are addicted to associated action. I have seen the principle of coöperation developed to the highest point in the ranching industry in the days of the unfenced range. Our cattle used to roam at large, the only means of identifying them being certain registered marks made by the branding-iron and the knife. The individual owner would have had no more property in his herd than he would have had in so many fishes in the sea but for a very effective coöperative organisation. The Stock Association, with its 'round-ups' and its occasional resort to the Supreme Court of Judge Lynch, were an adequate substitute for the title deeds to the lands, and for fences horse-high, bull-strong and hog-tight. But then we were in the Arid Belt and the frontier-pioneer stage; we had no politics and no politicians. I must return, however, to the less exciting, but I suppose more important, life of the regular farmer, and consider his efforts at organisation.
Instances can be multiplied where the coöperative system has been adopted with immensely beneficial results; but in too many cases it has been abandoned. On the other hand, Granges, Institutes, Clubs, Leagues, Alliances and a multitude of miscellaneous farmers' associations have been organised for social, religious, political and economic objects. From my study of the work done by these bodies, the impression left is that almost everything that can be done better by working together than by working separately has been at some time the subject of organised effort. But these manifestations of activity have been fitful and sporadic. They were commonly marked by some or all of the same defects—mutual distrust, divided counsels, ignorance of what others were doing, want of continuity and impatience of results. Many organisations, after winning some advantages,—over the railroads for instance,—fell into abeyance or even out of existence; others lapsed under the enervating influence of a little temporary prosperity, such as a few years of better prices. The truth is, American farmers have had the will to organise, but they have missed the way.[7]
The political influence of the farming community has for this reason never been commensurate either with the numerical strength of its members or the magnitude of their share in the nation's work. It is true that the Federal Department of Agriculture, appropriations for Agricultural Colleges, some railway legislation and other boons to farmers, are to be attributed to the efforts of their organisations. Yet, as compared with the influence exercised upon National affairs by the farmers of, say, France and Denmark, the American farmer has but a small influence upon legislation and administration affecting his interests. What better proof of this could be given than the absence of a Parcels Post in the United States? The whole farming community are agreed as to the need for this boon to the dwellers of the open country, and yet they have not succeeded in winning it against the opposition of the Express Companies, because it is merely a farmers' and not a townsmen's grievance. And not only political impotence, but political inertia, result from the lack of organisation. The state of the country roads—one of the greatest disabilities under which country life in the United States still suffers—is as good an instance as I know. Congress has shown itself well disposed towards the farmer, but not always so the State governments, and the good intentions of Congress on the roads question are largely nullified owing to the failure of one-third of the States to establish highway commissions, or make other provision for expending such amounts as might be voted to them by Congress. Here, as in the cases of the transit and marketing problems, we see the need for a strong, central, permanent organisation, fitted alike to direct local or promote National action; an association capable of securing the legislative protection of the farmer's interests, and an organisation fitted to further the business side of his industry. In fact, this need is urgent, and a coöperative movement of National dimensions should be established to meet it. Had such a movement been started after the War, or even twenty years later, the American farmer would be in a far stronger position to-day, and much misdirected effort would have been saved.
I have now tried to explain the weak spot in American rural economy. It may be regarded from a more general point of view. If we were considering the life of some commercial or industrial community and trying to forecast its future development, one of the first things we should note would be its general business methods. No manufacturing concern with a defective office administration and incompetent travellers could survive, even if it had an Archimedes or an Edison in supreme control. I cannot see any reason why an agricultural community should expect to prosper while the industry by which its members live retains its present business organisation. I have urged that as things are, the farming interest is at a fatal disadvantage in the purchase of agricultural requirements, in the sale of agricultural produce, and in obtaining proper credit facilities. Whatever the cause—and I have set down those which I regard as the chief among them—American farmers have still to learn that they are subject to a law of modern business which governs all their country's industrial activities—the law that each body of workers engaged in supplying the modern market must combine, or be worsted at every turn in competition with those who do.
I do not much fear that this general principle, overlooked, perhaps, because it was too obvious to be worth enforcing, will be disputed. I hope I may gain acceptance for my further contention that the inability of American farmers to sustain an effective business organisation has been due simply to the fact that the not obvious distinction between the capitalistic and the coöperative basis of combination suitable to town and country respectively was missed. For it will then be clear why, in the working out of Mr. Roosevelt's formula, better business must precede and form the basis of better farming and better living. The conviction that in this general procedure lies the one hope of solving the problem under review accounts for the otherwise disproportionate space given to that aspect of rural life which is of the least interest to the general reader.
I shall now attempt to determine the principles which must be applied to the solution of our problem. Those who have followed the arguments up to this point will have a pretty clear idea of the general drift of my conclusions. The substitution in rural economy of the coöperative for the competitive principle, which I have so far advocated as a matter of business prudence, will be seen to have a wider import. This course will be shown to have an important bearing upon the application of the new knowledge to the oldest industry and also upon the building of a new rural civilisation we must provide for the dwellers of the open country a larger share of the intellectual and social pleasures for the want of which those most needed in the country are too often drawn to the town.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] I should expect the negroes in the Southern States to be very good subjects for agricultural organisation. I have discussed this question with the staff of the Hampton Institute in Virginia—a fine body of men, doing noble work. The Principal, the Rev. H. B. Frissell, D.D., whose judgment in this matter is probably the weightiest in the United States, and his leading assistants, both white and coloured, are of the same opinion.
[5] Where capital is, in rare instances, subscribed by persons other than farmers, it is usually invested less as a commercial speculation than as an act of friendship on the part of the investor, who in no case exercises more control than his one vote affords.