Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1907 — UNION OF FARMEES. [ARTICLE]

UNION OF FARMEES.

NEARLY "TWO MILLION MEMBERS NOW ENROLLED. Tiller* of the Soil All Over the Country Now Banded In Great Ednca- * tional and Co-operative Orffanftsation. The Farmers’ Educational 'and Cooperative Union now Claims a membership of 1,800,000, representing, approximately, one-eighth of the States. In Arkansas alone there are 80,000 members of the Farmers’ Union, and Texas claims 225,000 to 275,000. Every southern and many western States have a iarge membership. . | Not only is the organization strong in numbers, but it is developed in organization, from the State association down to the district, county and local associations, each having its charter to do business in the name of the union. Every State has a business agent, whose duties are as well defined as the duties of a State Auditor. Yet the movement is in its infancy, as to years, having been started in an out of the way place in Texas less than a decade ago. Newt Gresham, “father of the Farmers’ Union,” called the first "local” together,' a few years ago, in the town of Point, in Northeast Texas. One of the basic principles of the Farmers’ Educational and Co-opera-

tive Union is that “business is business;”. in short, that cause and effect must be taken into account and that system must underlie the plans of the farmers, the same as the plans of operators in any other business. Long before the idea of warehouses was given publicity the men behind the Farmers’ Union had evolved a scheme covering actual construction and safeguards against obstructing factors. The average Farmers’ Union man is not full of the sentiment about what the “farming class” ought to have, but he has reached the conclusion, by reasoning along business lines, that the. farmer can make things happen. For the first time in the history of lire’ cotton growers, for instance, the| have discovered that cotton is not merely a bag of fiber, valuable only after It has reached the hands of the manipulator, but that it has representative value, as well as a real value, and may' be used as collateral the same as a check or a gilt-edge promissory note. Upon this idea, largely, is based the success of the warehouse scheme. The farmer, should he be toopoor to hold his product against a low market, may house the cotton and draw money on It up to a large percentage of its value. Warehouses are scattered over the country by the hundreds. “We are able to store away for an indefinite period 2,000,000 bales of cotton If need be,” said a prominent Texan, “and new warehouses are going up every day.” The union is not only strong in the South; it is rapidly gaining in the North and West. At the nation'al convention two years ago there was hardly a delegate or a visitor from any action except the cotton-growing States. At rhe recent convention not only wrs there a delegation from the Middle West, but even from Washington ami California. The comprehensive" scope is also shown in the nature of the committees now Indorsed by the union. There are committees on cotton, grain, stock, sirup aud canning producer