Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-04-17
Remarkably Successful Combina-
ton Of Farmers.
IT PROTECTS AND HELPS MEMBERS
The Rockwell Cooperative Company
Buys and Sells the Grain and
Live Stock of Its Members
IAN Odd FEATURE

a thorn in the flesh of grain buyers
has just rounded out it's eleventh year
OF existence, and the past year has
been more marvelously successful than
any former year.
Eleven years ago at Rockwell, twelve
miles south of this city, in the richest
part of this county, the Penthouse
brothers were coming money buying
grain and stock and selling everything
the farmer needed. They became rich
so fast and the farmers became so dis
satisfied that they formed co-opera-
tive association for the purpose of
building an elevator, marketing their
own grain and disposing of their own
hogs. Four men were the brains and
energy of the movement, N. Densmore,
who was the first president, and who
retained that office for the first half
dozen years; Thomas McManus, the
Patrick Henry of the associations; Will
liam Barragy and C. S. Hance. Hance
had grievance. He claimed the Felt
house brethren had promised him, as
manager of one of their stores, an in
terest in the business when he should
save enought to invest, but when that
time arrived they turned him down on
the theory that they had taken all the
risk. and that Hance had not spoken
soon enough. The other men wanted
q better marked for their grain. By
agitation they interested ninety-fve
farmers in four townships about Rock
we'll to take stock in shares of ST. each,
and no man could own more than three
shares. With this capital an elevator
was builn and the business begun.
There was one provision in the con-
stitution that has been the mainstay
of the financial management and the
bulwark against destruction by ruin
Gus competition. The members were
always paid one-fourth of cent more
than the seller outside the society, and
the association projected itself from
the allurements of higher prices paid
by competing elevators by compelling
its members to pay one-fourth of a
cent commission in case the grain was
sold to a competitor. The manager
was instructed to give the highest
price possible, based on Chicago quo
tations, and if the competitor offered a
higher price he advised the members
to sell to them and bring one-fourth
of a cent commission to the treasury.
the founders had figured to nicely
that this quarter Of cent would pay
all of the expenses of the manager il
not a bushel of grain came into
their elevator, and thus they would
have always buyer who would either
give the best prices the market would
warrant or compel their competitor to
pay the farmer more than the market
price to the detriment of the COMPETE
tor, the profit of the association and
welfare of the farmer. The result has
been that the Rockwell elevators have
paid always Hac to 1Ac higher than
any other elevators in the county, and
have been source of positive chills
and fever to the other elevator compa-
mics.
The cohesion of the society is the
marvel of the country. 1t was predic-
ted that the men who composed it.,
because of diametrical religious beliefs.
political affiliations and radical pre-
JUDGES, would NOT hold together more
than year. But all these members
have put all these and their petty am
billions aside and united unswearving-
ly on the platform of the best prices on
grain and hogs, and Protestant, Catho-
lie, republican, democrats, Irish, Scand-
inavian, German or American can not
swerve them from the original idea.
Twice have powerful corporations
endeavored to destroy them, but, in
stead of dismaying them, it has anger
ed them, and they have gone step
farther into the cooperative idea and
sell to their members coal, salt, flour
and other supplies which defy COM
petition Of the local merchants.
The experiment has been fortunate
in the important essentials since it's
inception. It was founded on the the
DRY that the farmers were enslayed to
the former grain buyers, and that this
was their emancipation. The fight
for supremacy and for the life of the
minds of the members, and each year
the history is released, and the as
ISOLATION renews its vows as sacredly
as if at the altar of its country or
chursh. Every year the question is
asked if they want to go back TO the
fleshpots of low prices, and the exhor-
tation is then made that the only plan
to escape this bondage is TO stick to-
gether and when a member sells else.
where to faithfully pay his nc
commission to the society. Example
has been made of few by eNpelling
them for dishonesty refusing to com
ply and as this means social and bus
mess ostracism, the cases of treachery
have been rare and the violaters have
found it convenient to move TO other
localities. The association has been
fortunate in the selection of the off.
GERS. They have been both shrewd and
honest, and have insistently refused
to listen to overtures from other con.
Germs. Just recently the Kansas City
Grain company, which is now endeay.
oring to meet the association prices
offered to form combination to allow
the farmers to fix The price of grain
daily at Rockwell aud they would
make the same price at their various
elevators. The officers thought they
detected an attempt to secure the for.
fixture of their charter by combining
with other concerns, and politely re.
fused the overture.
One of the things which would have
most easily wrecked the concern-dis-
honest management-has been happily
averted. There have been only two
managers in its history, and while they
could have in various ways