The National Farmers Union: Cohesion in an Opinion-Interest Group

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400375
• Author: John A. Crampton
• Date: 01 September 1961
• Published date: 01 September 1961
• Subject Matter: Articles

78

thorough

and

complete

that

it

could

not

be

assailed

as

gossip

and

hearsay.

Only

because

of

the

support

of

state

agencies

was

this

possible.

Thus

effective

political

leadership

enabled

those

concerned

with

the

status

of

the

politically

impotent

migrant

laborer

to

prevail

over

the

well-entrenched

op-

position

of

the

organized

farm

interests.

THE

NATIONAL

FARMERS

UNION:

COHESION

IN

AN

OPINION-INTEREST

GROUP

JOHN

A.

CRAMPTON

Lewis

and

Clark

College

As

both

a

farm

interest

group

and

a

&dquo;liberal&dquo;

opinion

group

the

National

Farmers

Union

faces

special

difficulties

in

maintaining

organizational

cohesion

and

ideological

consensus.

Ideology

provides

a

second

ground

for

conflict

within

the

organization

in

addition

to

that

provided

by

farm

issues

themselves.

Interest

may

collide

with

ideology:

conflict

may

arise

over

the

interpretation

of

ideology

itself.

As

a

liberal

farm

opinion

group

the

NFU

has

a

unique

prob-

lem.

Farmers

tend

to

be

conservative

and

highly

individualistic.

Too,

the

NFU

is

well

organized

in

some

traditionally

Republican

states.

The

NFU

attempts

to

resolve

these

problems

by

cultivating

a

pose

of

political

neutrality,

by

strongly

indoctrinating

its

members

in

the

Union’s

ideology,

by

appealing

to

the

&dquo;enlightened

self-interest&dquo;

of

the

membership

to

gain

backing

for

ideological

ends,

by

lobbying

both

parties,

and

by

centering

its

lobbying

effort

on

farm

vis-a-vis

general-interest

issues.

Juridical

federalism

and

sociological

federalism

remain

issues

for

the

NFU

despite

the

nationalizing

steps

taken

under

the

presidency

of

Patton.

Any

strong

state

can

ultimately

maintain

itself

against

the

national

organization

while

the

latter

depends

heavily

for

financial

support

and

for

political

influ-

ence

on

the

support

of

a

bloc

of

strong

NFU

states.

The

most

effective

step

taken

to

minimize

the

effect

of

federalism

was

to

broaden

the

NFU’s

board

of

directors

to

include

all

state

presidents

and

to

engage

them

in

its

business

twice

a

year

(four

times

for

some)

at

the

national

headquarters

in

Denver.

The

problem

of

fluctuating

membership

and

unstable

financial

resources

is

also

an

old

one.

Farmers

as

a

group

are

uniquely

hard

to

organize,

other

than

temporarily

under

the

press

of

ephemeral

grievance.

The

NFU’s

federal-

ism

compounds

the

difficulty:

organizing

is

left

to

the

state

unions

primarily;

the

state

unions

collect

the

dues.

To

meet

this

difficulty,

the

NFU

has

steadily

increased

its

dues

and

has

started

new

income-producing

business

services.

States

with

strong

NFU

cooperatives

instituted

the

dues

checkoff

and

5

per

cent

&dquo;educational

fund&dquo;

contributions

by

those

cooperatives

agreeing

to

the

plan.

The

business

arm

itself

poses

an

issue

in

cohesion.

Will

the

NFU’s

busi-

nesses

(insurances,

debentures),

founded

to

earn

money

for

the

national

or-