Schmidt, Louis Bernard

English

The Palimpsest

The National Farmers\u27 Union

Iowa Research Online

Masthead Logo The Palimpsest
Volume 31 | Number 4 Article 5
4-1-1950
The National Farmers' Union
Louis Bernard Schmidt
Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest
Part of the United States History Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the State Historical Society of Iowa at Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for
inclusion in The Palimpsest by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact lib-ir@uiowa.edu.
Recommended Citation
Schmidt, Louis B. "The National Farmers' Union." The Palimpsest 31 (1950), 142-147.
Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol31/iss4/5
The National Farmers’ Union
The decline of the Grange and the Alliance 
left an open field in most areas for another farm 
organization to carry on the crusade for economic 
and social justice. The Farmers’ Union now en­
tered this field. Founded at Point, Texas, in 1902, 
it spread rapidly in Texas and in the neighboring 
states.
Several factors contributed to this movement in 
the South. The secret nature of the order (re­
pealed in 1917) and its low dues appealed to the 
farmers in the low income group. The nefarious 
mortgage and credit systems, inherited from the 
reconstruction period after the Civil War, and the 
sharp practices in the market aroused the poor 
farmers in angry protest to join any organization 
that would combat these evils. The farmers’ insti­
tutes, promoted at this time by the Texas Agricul­
tural College, suggested the value and need of or­
ganization. The emotional appeal of the organi­
zers was also a motivating factor.
The Union grew rapidly, and state organiza­
tions were established in a number of southern 
states. After much dissension, arising out of poor 
business management, personality conflicts, and 
the determination of the Texas Union officials to
142
control the membership in other states, a conven­
tion was held in 1905. The Farmers’ Educational 
and Cooperative Union (generally known as the 
National Farmers’ Union) was organized, a con­
stitution was adopted, and Charles A. Barrett was 
elected president, a position he held for twenty- 
two years. Membership was limited to farm own­
ers and tenants, country school teachers, minis­
ters, physicians, and country newspaper editors, 
while persons engaged in banking, law, or mer­
chandising were declared ineligible.
The trend in membership of the Farmers’ Union 
has been similar to the trend in other rural organi­
zations: a rapid increase soon after organization 
and then a precipitous decline followed by a level­
ing off and a later gradual recovery. This trend is 
reflected by the Farmers’ Union. Membership 
rose rapidly to a high peak of around 400,000 
farm families in 1914, evened off during the 
World War I period, and then underwent a sharp 
decline to a low mark of 100,000 in 1925. The 
Union maintained about the same number until 
1940 when it began a gradual upward turn to 
146,000 farm families in 1947, representing thirty- 
six states. The highest concentration of member­
ship was in North Dakota, South Dakota, Ne­
braska, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, followed by 
Minnesota, Colorado, and Montana.
The basic principles of the National Farmers’ 
Union are: (1) to attain equity and justice by
THE NATIONAL FARMERS' UNION 143
144 THE PALIMPSEST
maintaining a democratic political system and by 
building a cooperative income system; (2) to co­
operate with organized groups who genuinely 
seek to provide economic security, preserve demo­
cratic processes and principles, and provide eco­
nomic abundance for all the people; (3) to ad­
vance a system of cooperative businesses, owned 
by producers and consumers, as the only means 
to attain these ends; and (4) to assure agriculture 
an equal position with other important and essen­
tial groups.
The National Farmers’ Union is militantly ac­
tive politically in demanding legislative action to 
improve the economic and social position of the 
farmer. It proposes to bring this about primarily 
by the organization of business cooperatives 
which come under the five heads of selling, buy­
ing, manufacturing, insurance, and credit associ­
ations. The Union also maintains that the eco­
nomic structure of society must be fundamentally 
changed. Farmers must go into business and re­
tain all the profits. To this end it promotes the 
organization of cooperatives for the purchase of 
supplies; the management of plants for the pro­
cessing of farm products, such as packing plants, 
flour mills, phosphate plants, pickle factories, 
creameries, and canneries; and the conduct of fire, 
livestock, and life insurance companies. Some 
350,000 farmers are now members of the Union's 
cooperative enterprises. Nearly half of them are
THE NATIONAL FARMERS’ UNION 145
located in Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, 
and Montana. They include wholesale exchanges, 
grain elevators and terminal marketing firms, live­
stock shipping associations, creameries, marketing 
agencies for poultry, wool, and cotton, oil com­
panies, truck associations, general stores, an oil 
refinery, and a hospital.
The Farmers’ Union entered Iowa in 1915 with 
the organization of the first local in Monona 
County. A state organization was effected in Des 
Moines, October 5, 1917. Milo Reno, who had 
been active in the Alliance and Populist move­
ments, joined the Iowa Farmers’ Union in 1918 
and was elected president in 1921. He held this 
office until 1933.
Under the leadership of this militant apostle of 
agrarian reform, the Union rose in membership 
and influence, advancing the cause of the farmer 
as Iowa went into the agricultural depression of 
the 1920's and early 1930’s. When agriculture 
reached the low point of the depression in 1932- 
1933, Iowa became the scene of a farmers’ revolt 
that attracted national attention. This was the 
Farmers’ Holiday Movement.
At the 1931 convention of the Iowa Farmers’ 
Union, Reno secured the passage of a resolution 
asking for a "farmers’ buying, selling, and tax- 
paying strike,’’ unless Congress enacted adequate 
agricultural legislation which should include cur­
rency inflation, increased income, inheritance and
146 THE PALIMPSEST
gift taxes, and the confiscation of great concen­
trations of wealth in wartime. The Iowa Farm 
Holiday Association was organized with the elec­
tion of Reno as president. In the summer of 1932, 
as the presidential campaign got under way, the 
Association called a strike to withhold farm pro­
duce from markets in order to enforce “cost-of- 
production plus profits” prices. Units of the As­
sociation were formed in other Middle Western 
states. “The movement lacked cohesion and 
achieved little in the way of permanent concrete 
results but it effectively dramatized the severity of 
the farm problem facing the Roosevelt adminis­
tration.”
The Iowa Farmers' Union has continued to ad­
vance the charge that present-day legislation and 
technology has tended to “exalt the dominance of 
those already on top.” The Union declares that 
it is the champion of the farm families in the lower 
income brackets for which its measures are largely 
designed. The organization of cooperatives owned 
by producers and consumers is sponsored as “the 
only means by which the potential abundance of 
the nation may be made available to all the people 
and by which true democracy may be maintained 
and safeguarded.” It has urged the adoption by 
Congress of a federal program of rural education 
supported by an annual appropriation of one bil­
lion dollars providing for a complete revision and 
integration of “all educational agencies now serv­
ing agriculture.” The preservation of the family­
sized farm, the protection of which should be a 
constant and primary aim in the formulation, 
amendment, and administration of all farm legis­
lation, is particularly emphasized.
The Farmers’ Union has represented the radi­
cal or left wing of the farmers’ movement for eco­
nomic and social justice since the turn of the cen­
tury. The strength of the organization has rested 
on its “grass roots democracy” and its militant 
leadership. It endeavors to develop a balanced 
program designed to further the economic, educa­
tional, and social advancement of the farm family. 
The weakness of the Union may be attributed to 
a tendency to oppose the programs of other or­
ganizations rather than to advance more actively 
a positive program of its own. It has at times 
overstated its case and made extreme demands for 
legislative and administrative reforms. In its vig­
orous and consistent demand for a fuller economic 
and cultural life for farm families and its support 
of the interests of the majority of the people, the
Farmers Union has performed an invaluable 
service.
THE NATIONAL FARMERS' UNION 147
Louis B. Schmidt


https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2780&amp;context=palimpsest

The National Farmers\u27 Union

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

The Palimpsest

Iowa Research Online