The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1920-08-12

senate uSeQ.
THE ORANGE IN BUSINESS
(6y }. Clyde Marquis.)
The National Grange believes it has
discovered the dead line between CO.
operation and private business, the
limit beyond which public agitation be-
comes politics, and that in the develop
ment of social life among farmers lies
the strongest bond to hold an organi-
cation together to a common purpose.
Fifty years In the harsh school of
experience have brought the leaders
CT this farm fraternity to the united
conclusion that there are certain linn
its beyond which an organization yen-
lures at great hazards. Several times
the threatened dissolution of the
Grange has brought the leaders to a
halt before facts that forced them to
consider anew the fundamental pur-
pose of the organization.
The Patrons of Husbandry was or
ganized to create fraternal bond a.
mong real farmers for social, econo-
mic and educational benefit In ac-
complishing the first of its objects 1t
has been largely successful, il we con-
slider the individual Oranges in their
local circles. AS an influence to Sc
cure the improvement of economic and
educational conditions it has also
long record of achievement, but when
the organization attempted to go into
business and politics 1t met many dis
asters and disappointments.
Every business enterprise that the
Grange has attempted has ended in
! failure" is the blunt way T. C. Atke-
son puts it. He does not mean that
the Grange has not succeeded In some
forms of cooperative business such as
the Grange exchange for buying and
selling farm products and supplies or
cooperative farm insurance He re-
fers to other purely business projects
such as manufacturing, merchandis-
ing, flour milling, creamery, and the
like.
| He defies the difference between
cooperation and pure business some
what in this way: When a group of
farmers furnish the money to engage
in business, like manufacturing and
distribution, that demands skilled
management and hire that skill in the
person OF manager, they take great
risks without protection other than the
skill OF the manager. When, on the
other hand. they join together in buy
ing or selling merely to make up a
large order upon which they may se-
cure wholesale rates and place this
loAoOi III biu6iC LHey take NO
FISK OF management. The saving is
secured because of the wholesale
price.
I Cooperative Ventures
The Grange sbegan to talk coopera.
ton in 1871 and the subject was agita.
ted for several years. The Rochdale
system was adopted and succeeded al
first, but soon there came a rapid sue
cession of failures.
More pretentious ventures were then
tried. In West Virginia the Grange
started factory to build reapers and
binders; 1t built wooden mills and also
! started the ill-fated Wool House" al
Steubenfield, Ohio, which later failed
and brought loss and disaster to its
promoters. By 1880 nearly all these
ventures had passed out.
The outcome was that the Grange
business policy was cut down to such
ventures as involve only the pooline
: OF local interests. These are repre-
sented in the Grange mutual fire in
surance companies and the Grange
/ exchanges. which lump farmers orders
for fertilizers and machinery and deal
directly with manufacturers by Who'll
isale. -.
For instance, the State Grange oi
Ohio handled 100000 pounds OF
binder twine last year 1t bought al
most the entire output of a mill, bul
|. IL does not propose to buy and operate
the mill. 1t is content merely to poo
a large order and get the Wholesale
price without ineurring the risks OF
operating the factory.
The cooperative venture, when sue
cessfui, often went over into a cor
poration or met with such strong com
petition from private concerns that n
was forced to sell out to them. Their
are quite a few examples of enter
prises which started under the Grange
and then turned into private concerns
Probably the most notable of these wa,
developed from a Grange store by
Montgomery Ward into the first oj
the great mail order houses of Chi
cago- He was a member of the Grange
, IN Its early days in Illinois, but saw
: the future of his business as a private
{ enterprise and built on his begipnips
, as Grange storekeeper The sum oi
orange experience has been that there
, is a very definite limit beyond which
cooperation does not often suoceed
, inls limit is determined by the skill
Iul management that can be hired by
/, the orange in competition with pri
yate corporations. 1t all hinges or
> the TACT that the hired manager witt
, large number of bosses will not dc
what the private corporation can and
will do to win. The National Grange
burned its fingers and backed up or
lts business adventures, and has moi
launched any aggressive camnaicn fr