How to Study the Effects of Direct Action Movements on Farm Organizations

T HE usual way of approaching this question has been by use of the historical method. Enough of the history of farm organizations has been written to indicate that the farmer movements have been the greatest builders and the greatest destroyers of farm organizations in the United States. Not all farmer movements in the past have used direct action technique but the possibility or the threat of it has been present to a degree in all farmer movements and these movements have seriously affected farm organizations whether or not direct action materialized.2 In fact, history indicates that relationships established between the movements and farm organizations may have been an important factor in encouraging or discouraging the use of direct action. The policies of different farm organizations in relation to direct action movements in the United States and the effects of the movements on different farm organizations are summarized briefly here as a background for the study of the effects of movements on farm organizations in Iowa since i9z9. The Patrons of Husbandry, popularly known as the Grange, conceived by its founders as a farmers' fraternal organization with a social and educational program, was overwhelmed in its beginning by the farmers' movement in the midwest following the Civil War. Because of its radical cooperative program and its nonpartisan participation in political campaigns little direct action materialized on the part of farmers. With the culmination of its radical program the Patrons of Husbandry declined precipitously in membership and influence and has never since been strong in those areas which furnished the strength of its radical development. Though captured and almost destroyed by the movement element the Grange escaped by moving eastward where it has built up a conservative organization which has never again been associated with or greatly influenced by direct action movements. The Grange has recognized other opportunities to adopt a more liberal policy toward direct action movements and a more radical program. At the forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the National Grange, held at Atlantic City in November, I9IO, the report of a committee on the Good of the Order contained a reference to the need for a more liberal program. Yet, year after year the Grange refused to be moved, continued the more conservative program envisioned by its founders, and remained the farm organization most able and willing to tolerate and cooperate with other agencies, both radical and conservative. The Farmers Alliance was a national farm organization which built its strength up in the first place by the consolidation 1 This paper, with the kind permission of the author, has been greatly condensed from the original longer discussion as presented before the rural sociology section of the American Sociological Society, Chicago, June 2-9, I933. Consequently, much of the interesting illustrative material and details of methodology and procedure have necessarily been omitted.The Editors. 2 The term "direct action" is used in this paper to mean actual or threatened violence to person or property.