Montana labor news., 1938-07-14
OPEN FORUM
MISSOULA NAN TELLS
or FARMERS" UNION
JUNIOR CAMP
Montana a News:

Montana Labor News.
l have just returned from attend
ing the Farmers Union junior camp
at Fort Assiniboine near Havre, and
l feel just a little like Lincoln Stef-
fens did when he returned from
Russia and said, Il have seen the
future, and it works." Because in
these unpretentious Farmers Union
camps the educational program OF
the future r being worked out,
make no mistake about it. About
loo farm youngsters and leaders of
county locals came to Fort Assini-
boine during the three-weeks term,
from June 8 to rs, from some 20
Montana counties scattered all over
the state. And they carried back a
lot of starch for their various Farm
ers' Union locals.
Labor leaders generally know that
the Farmers Union is a cooperative
organization, and that its longtime
objective is the establishment of CO.
operative democracy. Probably all
of US aren't so clear on the ways in
which the Farmers Union educates
its youngsters to carry on in this
struggle, and why that educational
program deserves the encouragement
and support of all labor organiza-
tons.
1t isn't because the most advanced
experimental techniques are being
used in the Farmers Union camp
that various prominent educators
who visited at Fort ~Assiniboine char
acterized the work "as something the
high schools should be doing but
aren't" The Farmers Union educa-
tional program is modern and eff
cient, but it was the work in social
o%rientation that brought praise from
the educators. 1t was the fact that
there the Montana farm youths were
being taught to face social and eco
nomic realities instead of being
turned aside with evasions.
What high. school could lay down
to its students the thesis that CAPT
talism has reached the end of its use
fulness, and that the task of modern
YOUTH is to hasten the end and lay
the groundwork for a cooperative
democracy? What high school could
do that, and then go right down the
line and make that thesis the re-
solving core of all its classes with
out making them stilted or stereo-
typed in any degree? That is the
difficult and important task that the
instructors at the Farmers Union
junior camp were doing while I was
there.
l was amazed to see how simple
education becomes when it goes
directly about the business of doing
a job, and when all Of its divisions
are %integrated by a single motiva-
ton. Economics is hard in high
school and in college because it goes
about its work the hard way, trying
to cover up or gloss over simple
facts. Economics was easy in the
Farmers Union camp because it
dared speak simply and truthfully
about matters that were of immedi-
ate concern to every student.
Public speaking seems compli-
Gated and full of difficult tricks
when its motivation is individual
distinction or some p%romotional tech
nique inspired by capitalist econo-
my. It was easy in the Farmers
Union camp because the students
we're taught that they were learning
to speak, not for individual distinc-
ton OF for the purpose of unloading
sugar-coated pills on the gullible,
but for the furtherance of a COM
mon cause beneficial to all.
The study of parliamentary law
and the history Of c%ooperatives and
of the labor movement came alive
similarly, because they told the stu
dents that there were ways by which
a happier life might be achieved.
All this is bound to be much toe
simple for the average bourgeois in
tellectual, who will cry "Propa-
ganda!" in a number Of subtle and
complicated ways. Propaganda, in
deed. These Farmers Union people
who dare to begin at once drawing
the teeth Of capitalism in a simple,
practical way are not afraid of the
word. They bring their message
home to the youngsters in the class
room, in songs, in recreation, in en-
tertainment programs, in the whole
atmosphere of their summer camps
They say, "Why not?"
Over and over again they empha-
size the need for farmer groups tc
work in closer harmony with in
dustrial labor organizations, The
Farmers Union is not a dogmatiC
concern. It does not believe that
its leaders have worked out the last
word in correct tactics. It does moi
believe that its consumers coopera-
tives can alone do the job of dis
placing capitalism. Above all, il
teaches its youngsters to think fol-
themselves, to see through the apollo
getics that tell us we must "do" with
capitalism for awhile longer.
It seems to me that this educa-
tional program is worthy of labor's
encouragement and support.
RICHARD LAKE.