CONSERVATISM-LIBERALISM AND THE FARM ORGANIZATIONS.

The article compares the three farm organizations in the U.S. in an effort to move toward a more objective characterization of the organization's value orientations. Rural sociologists generally regard the Farmer's Educational and Cooperative Union of America, generally known as Farmer's Union, as more liberal that the Grange, official name "The Patrons of Husbandry", or the American Farm Bureau. The author extracted policy statements from resolutions adopted by the national conventions of the three organizations during the period, December 1950-March 1952 and had them ranked by judges, without identification as to organization. The judges ranked the statements on nationalism-patriotism, achievement and success, humanitarian mores,and freedom. A count of the number of "most conservative," "least conservative," and "neutral" judgments received by each organization showed a high degree of consensus by the judges that the Farmers' Union is the least conservative. The Farm Bureau was judged more conservative than the Grange.