[3] He participated in World War I and was largely unsatisfied with his poverty law practice prior to meeting Edward Filene, a successful Massachusetts businessman and champion of credit unions.

Filene found in Roy Bergengren the key organizer he needed to spearhead the credit union movement in the United States.

The real job of a credit union is to prove, in modest measure, the practicality of the brotherhood of man.Laws were passed and the Extension Bureau began to realize its goals.

Filene prevailed in this debate, maintaining that a national law should be based on a sound understanding of the diverse circumstances of people across America—from shrimp fishermen in Louisiana, to factory workers in Massachusetts or farmers in the mid-West.

[6] Second, as the Great Depression set in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation under President Hoover sought to stimulate the economy with soft loans targeted to banks, railways and large companies.

"[7] With the work of the Bureau essentially completed, a national meeting of credit union leaders was called at Estes Park, Colorado.

[8] Bergengren was forced to resign from CUNA in 1945 after a bitter internal struggle, and subsequently moved to Vermont, where he directed that state's League until his death.

[9] He was especially interested in international credit unions and, one year before his death, Bergengren convinced CUNA directors to establish a world extension department.