Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-11-08

For the last half century. at least.
the farmers of the United States
have turned to collective bargain
ing as solution of many of their
problems. Some of the more i'm
portant of these activities are: live
stock improvement, community de-
velopment, legislative promotion,
manufacture of dairy products, buy
ing supplies, and the sale of farm
products.
In fact, collective bargaining has
been an applied means to many an
end. Unfortunately collective bar
gaining in the sale of farm products
has not fulfilled the highest expecta-
tons of it's adherents. If the his
tory of cooperative marketing as
sociations in the United States were
written the failures would fill many
many more pages than would the
successes These failures. however,
have not lessened the belief of the
farmer as a class, in the principles
of cooperation. They have merely
convinced him that the bringing
about of successful cooperative eff
fort is a rather difficult and complex
matter.
Two Essentials of Cooperative Mar
keting Organizations.
Although there are numerous fac
tors which contribute to the success
or rfailare of cooperative undertake
ings,' two of these factors have
proven themselves to be of primary
importance.
Management.--Ith has been found,
in the light of past experiences, that
too often boards of directors of CO.
operative concerns have not been
willing to pay the necessary salaries
in order to attract managerial ability
equal to that employed by competi-
tors. Cooperative marketing or
CARNATIONS, by no means. manage
themselves. Every association must
meet competition of some sort. In
order to meet this competition sue
cessfully, it's activities must be SUI
peryised by managers as highly ef-
ficient as are the managers OF the
concerns competing against 1t. Many
associations follow the policy that
ony way to cut down marketing ex-
penses is to eliminate the high sal
aried employees. This practice often
proves costly one, in that cheap
concerns may be cheap in more ways
than one-by rendering ap unsatls-
factory service.
A marked improvement among CO.
operative marketing concerns mas
been noticeable during the past few
years in respect to their attitude to-
ward managerial ability. AT present
one is able to find as highly PAID
managers at the head of cooperative
undertakings, as are found among
many private companies following
the same line of business. 1t IS
to be hoped that this policy will con-
tinue to spread among co-operators'
Volume of Business.-A majority
of associations follow the capital
stock plan of organization. In foi-
lowing this plan capital stock is gen.
orally made the primary considera-
ton in determining whether or not
an organization should be erected.
The general procedure is to bend
all efforts in the sale of stock until
sufficient funds are secured to begin
operation. Then the association Is
declared to be a going concern.
BY this method capital is given the
prime consideration Experience has
shown, however, that capital al
though necessary in most cases, is
only of secondary Importance to the
success of the enterprise. The item
that is far more essential is patron
are-volume of business. For in
stance, if a cooperative creamery is
to be successful undertaking II
must have butterfat. No matter how
much capital a creamery may COM
mand, if it handles no butterfat II
will be a failure as a creamery But
If it receives sufficient amount OF
butterfat to run at full capacity
there is little doubt that 1t can com
mand the credit with which to bor-
row the required capital, even though