A fading chapter of credit union history is the challenges presented in getting CUs organized and chartered, especially from the 1920s through the 1940s. Representatives of a fledgling CUNA and later field representatives from state leagues took to the rails and their own cars like traveling salesman or itinerant preachers spreading the word about credit unions.
Charles Eikel, a CU organizer who was run out of more than one town by the sheriff, and who would later go on to become the first president of CUNA Mutual Group, once shared this recollection of an exchange during a visit to a cracker factory in New Orleans in the 1930s where the factory owner turned him away as a "union organizer."
Eikel: What have you got against unions? Aren't you a citizen of the United States, the 48 states in the union?
Owner: That's different.
Eikel: It is? What about the union of marriage. You got anything against that?
Owner: Of course not.
Eikel: When you die, do you think you'll got to heaven?
Owner: I hope so.
Eikel: Doesn't your religion tell you that you'll be in a union with God?
Owner: That's different.
Eikel: Let me ask you one more question, sir, Have you ever worn long underwear?
Owner: It's none of your business, but yes, I have. So what?
Eikel: Long underwear is called a union suit.
Owner: That's different, and you know it.
Eikel: The credit union is different, too. You don't even know what it's about. Why don't you at least give me the chance to tell you about it?
