ir need of union. Rural
movements however have usually been short-lived.

II. Failures in Rural Cooperation.

_Lack of Political Effectiveness_

Farmers usually do their duty serving on juries and in minor civil
offices. They are usually fairly well represented in state legislatures.
But few farmers go to Congress or gain real leadership in politics. In
proportion to their numbers, the rural people have marvelously little
influence in the affairs of government. We have in this country no
Agrarian party. The farmers are divided among the different political
camps and seldom do they exert any great influence as a class in the
making of the laws. There are about seventy times as many agriculturists
as lawyers in the United States,--yet the lawyers exert vastly greater
civic influence and greatly outnumber farmers in most law-making bodies.

Yet there are about fifty million rural people in the country, largely in
farm households. The average farmer in 1910 paid taxes on 138 acres
besides other property. Why should he not have more political influence?
Why has he not demanded and secured a dominating influence in the state?
There is probably no reason except lack of cooperation, and adequate
leadership to accomplish it.

_Lack of Cooperation in Business_

Successful farming is essentially cooperative. The most successful classes
of farmers in the country, according to Professor Carver, are the
Pennsylvania Dutch, the Mormons and the Quakers. All of these cooperate in
their farming operations to a high degree, as well as in their social and
church life. They occupy their farms permanently as family homes. Their
land is not for sale, in spite of the rising values. To a large extent
they buy and sell, and work their farms together, to their great mutual
advantage.

The old-fashioned farm management however, which still generally persists,
is competitive, and therefore wasteful and unsocial. With rapid
transportation and the lengthening distance between producer and consumer,
the function of the middleman has grown and his power vastly increased.
Consequently on many products the rise in selling price is due to the
series of middlemen through whose hands the article has passed on the way
to market. Investigations at Decatur, Ill., revealed the fact that
head-lettuce sold there was raised within five miles of Chicago, shipped
into the city, repacked and shipped by freight to Decatur, a five-hour
trip; then stored in