The source of this uncorrected OCR text may be viewed in the DjVu format at: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/HD2951xC776/co32 or http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/ugafax/HD2951xC776/co32 \ COOPERATION ORGAN OF THE Consumers Cooperative Movement in the U. S. A. VOLUME XVIII January—December 1932 Published by the Cooperative League of U. S. A. 167 West 12th Street, New York City INDEX Aaltonen, Frank ............................•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• *37, About Foods and Markets ........................................-..-•-••••••••• Africa, Cooperation in ..........................••.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Agricultural Credit .....................•....-....-••--•••••-•••-•-••••••••••••••• Agricultural Machinery Testing Committee .......................-.....•••••••••••• Aims of the Cooperative Movement .....................-.-••••••-• • • • • • - • • • • • - • • • • Alanne, V. S. ............................................ 20, 30, 95, 113, 124, 131, Albrecht, A. E. ................................-..-•-.•-••-••••••••••••••••••-•• Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments ......................-.•••••••••••••••-•• 41, Amalgamated Credit Union ..............••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Amalgamated Dwellings .................-.-----••••••••••••••••••-•••••••••••••• Argentina, Cooperation in ...................•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Austria, Cooperation in .....................••>••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• l-> Avey, R. D. ......................................••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• PAGE 37, 209 ... 179 ... 32 ... 237 ... 127 . .. 42 173 179 204 205 205 235 , 32 197 B Back-to-the~Land Movement Barringer, Cedric ......... Barter Instead of Money ... Battle Hymn of Cooperation Bergengren, R. F. 203, Bloomington Cooperative Society ........................••••••••••••••••••••••••• Board of Directors, C. L. U. S. A. .....................-.........-.-.-••-•••••••••• Bond, New Ruling on League ...........................•-.•••••••••••••••••••••• Bookkeeping ................................-.-••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Brands, Why You Should Buy Cooperative ............................-..••••••••• Borsodi, Ralph ........................................•••••••••••••••••••••••••• Boyazoglu, A. ]. .......................•.-••-••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Brayne, F. L. .....................................•.••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Brazil, Cooperation in ............................•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••-• Britain's Consumers Keep Shop ........................--.-..-•••••••••-••••••••• Brosius, Fritz ....................................••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Brotherhood of the Commonwealth ...........................-......-••••••••••••• Budget of The League ..............................•.-•••••••••••••••••••••••••• Builder, The Cooperative ......................................--•••••••••••• 47, 144 78 29 91 208 231 213 213 176 181 226 237 194 153 58 145 205 212 230 Calendars ............................................................. »• I44- Calhoun, A. W. ...................................----•--.••••••-•-•••••-•••• 58 •• "• Camp Germinal .................................•••.•••••••••• Canada, Cooperation in ............................••••••••••••• Canadian Cooperative Union, Congress of ....................••••••••••••••••••••• C-A-P Oil Association of Kettle River, Minn. .........................--..•••••••••• Capitalism ...................................•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Capitalism Tries Suicide ........................-•-••••••••••••-•••• • • • • • • • • • •••• Central Cooperative Wholesale .....................-.-.-•-.--•-• 90, 114, 152, 167, Central States Cooperative League Congress ...................... - - - - • - - - - - - - - • - - - Chain Stores ..................................--•••-•••• 82- 8S- 13°- 15/ • 19/ • i61> Chase, Stuart .................................•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Church Endorsement of Cooperation .......................-••.-•••••••.•••-•••••• Cloquet Cooperative Society ....................••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Clusa Service, Inc. ...............................•-.-•••••••••••••-••-•-•••• 31- Cohen, E. M. ............................•.-••••••••••••••••••-•••••••••••••••• Coleman, McAlister ...,.....................-.••••••••••-••••••••• • • • • • • • _• • • ••i' College, Cooperative .........................-..-.••••••••••••••• 104- 156- 202- Colleges are Teaching about Cooperation, What ................................... Colonies ........................-•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Commercial Revolution in England ..................................-.•••••••••• 2 Competition ....................--...••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 173 98 163 163 151 127 177 74 201 130 237 237 34 230 206 118 26 232 54 153 26 197 '..I INDEX PAGR Congress, 8th Biennial of C. L. U. S. A. .......................... 150, 161. 182, 201, 224 Consumers' Cooperative Housing Association ....................................... 204 Consumers' Cooperative Services ............................................... 47, 205 Consumers' Research ............................................. 67, 90, 102, 127, 175 Contest, Spirit of Cooperation ................................................ 187, 216 Cooley. L. P. ................................................................... 118 Cooley, Oscar .................................... 9, 29, 44, 51, 64, 84, 145, 171, 181, 198 Cooperation versus the State ...................................................... 33 Cooperative Italiana ............................................................. 53 Cooperative Bakerv of Brownsville & East New York ............................ 149, 205 Cooperative Fire Insurance Comoanies of Sullivan and Adjoining Counties ........ 107, 204 Cooperative I.cacme of the U. S. A. .......................................... 44, 201 Cooperative Month ................................................. 11, 164, 187, 231 Cooperative Trading Association. Brooklyn ........................................ 205 Cooperative Trading Company, Waukegan ......................................... 204 Correspondence School ....................................................... 10, 220 Craig, A. G. ................................................................... 18 Creameries ..................................................................... 68 Credit Pool ........................................... 121, 129, 158, 182, 186, 211, 212 Credit Trading, A Cause of Depression ..................................... ... 57 Credit Unions ................................................ 68, 167, 185, 208, 223 Crystal Cooperative Cleaners ..................................................... 70 Czecho-Slovakia, Cooperation in ............................................... 32, 194 D Deal, C. E. ................. ............ ..................................... 151 Definitions of Cooperation ....................................................... 81 Denmark, Cooperation in ................................................... 110, 189 Depression and Cooperation, The ................................. 8, 57, 64, 83, 144, 145 Dewey, John ................................................................... 46 Dues Basis ................................................................. 185, 212 E Eastern Cooperative Wholesale .................................................. 206 Economic Advance of British Cooperation ............. ........................... 118 Economic Philosophy ....................................... .. . . 45 Edberg, G. .......................................... .......................... 210 Education, Cooperative .......................................................... 209 Electricity, Cooperative .......................................................... 25 England, A Commercial Revolution in .............................................. 2 England, Cooperation in ..... 9, 12, 14, 26, 30, 50, 57, 71, 73, 92, 112, 132, 134, 153, 192, 235 Ettinger, Manford ............................................................... 97 Fairchild, H. P. ................................................................. 58 Falk, Hannah ................................................................... 38 Fallacy of Profits ............................................................... 58 Farber, Simon .................................................................. 214 Farm Bureau Cooperative Assocs. ................................. 61, 85, 124, 127, 206 Farmers .................................................. 43, 103, 167, 207, 223, 226 Farmer-Labor Party ............................................................. 223 Farmers Strike in Iowa ...................................................... 163, 196 Farmers Union, Barnes Co., N. D. ................................................ 109 Farmers Union Grain Co., Omaha ................................................. 89 Farmers Union State Exchange, Nebr. ............................... 46, 68, 85, 89, 151 Film Producers ................................................................. 235 Folk High Schools of Denmark ................................................... 189 Finland, Cooperation in .......................................................... 113 Fire Insurance .................................................................. 48 Foster, S. .......................................................'..'..'.'.'.'.'.'.'..','.'. 132 Fourier, Francois ............................................................... 3 France, Cooperation in ......................................... . 16 73, 112 193 France, History of C. W. S. of ................................................... 198 INDEX PAGE Franklin Cooperative Creamery ........................................... 31, 68, 201 Franklin Cooperative Women's Guild .............................................. 204 Franklin Credit Union ........................................................... 68 Gardner Cooperative Club ....................................................... 53 Germany, Cooperation in .............................................. 14, 16, 24, 92 Gide, Charles .................................................................. 62 Gilbert, Joseph ................................................... . .. . 230 Goss, A. S. ...................................................... 144, 178, 203, 206 Government Aid to Business .................................... .... 94 Grandahl, K. E. ................................................................ 136 Grange Cooperative Wholesale ................................................... 205 Grange Supply Co., Pullman, Washington ......................................... 166 Gray, Ralph H. ................................................................. 157 Guilds, The Cooperative ......................................................... 191 H Halonen, Arne ................................................................. 128 Halonen, George ............................................................ 208, 212 Harvard Cooperative Society ..................................................... 183 Hedebol, F. C. N. ....................................................... 110, 157, 189 Herron, L. S. ....................................................... 76, 157, 167, 237 Hough, E. M. ............................. .................................... 198 Housing ............................................................ 41, 47, 134, 138 Hubbardston Cooperative Club . 204 Hull, I. H. ..................................'.....'..'....'...'.'.'.'..'. .Y.Y.Y.Y.Y.Y 202', 207 Hyde, Wm. A. .............................................................. 213, 238 Illegal Use of Word Cooperation ................................................. 11 India, Cooperation in ............................................... 58, 138, 194, 198 Indiana Oil Cooperatives ...................................................... 61, 84- Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Assn. .............................. 61, 85, 86, 206 Insurance ........................................ 31, 48, 57, 70, 106, .206, 213, 235, 238 Institutes .......................................................... 69, 107, 141, 170 International Cooperative Women's Guild .......................................... 233 International Exchange ........................................................... 18 Italy, Cooperation in .......................................................... 13, 235 Jacobson, Geo. J 104 K Kanabec Co. Cooperative Oil Association ........................................ 85 Kastel, Mrs. A. A. .............................................................. 198 Kazan, A. E. ............................................................... 89, 207 Keen, George .................................................................. 151 \ INDEX PAGE London Society, Cooperation's Giant .............................................. 71 Long, Cedric ................................................................. '» '" Lloyd, T. J. .................................................................... 156 M McCarthy, C. ............................---..-----------.----•••-••••••••• I58- 22/ Mail Order, Cooperative ...........•.................................-••••••••••• 175 Malay States, Cooperation in .................................................... 235 Managers: An Editorial to Cooperative ........................................... 162 Manty, Charles ................................................................ I/I Martin, Tom ................................................................... 25 Martinek, J. ............................................................... 207, 209 Memorial Fund ................................................................. 212 Men's Guilds .................................................................. 192 Mercer, T. W. ............................................................ 93, 191 Mexico, Cooperation in .......................................................... 32 Midland Cooperative Oil Co. .................................................... 30 Milk Cooperatives ........................................................... 69, 103 Milk Producers Assoc., New England ............................................. 43 Miller, C. J. ................................................................... 168 Millions for Machines ...........................................•-•••••••••••••• 65 Music Plus Cooperation ......................................................... 184 My Point of View .................... 15, 33, 54, 74, 94, 115, 134, 154, 177, 196, 217, 236 N Natural Development Association ................................................ 203 Neglected Consumer, The ....................................................... 224 Negley, H. ...................................................................... 198 Negroes Cooperative League, Young ............................................ 87, 88 Neutrality, Political ........................................................... 22, 33 New Cooperative Co., Dillonvale .............................................. 106, 151 New Deal, The ................................................................ 237 New Era Life Association ............................................. 70, 107, 128, 232 Niemela, W. ................................................................... 108 Nicotri, G. .................................................................... 151 Nordby, H. I. ................................................................... 136 Northern States Cooperative League .................... 56, 70, 95, 131, 149, 185, 204, 230 N. S. C. L. Convention ..................................................... 129, 185 Northern States Cooperative Women's Guild ................................... 131, 201 Nurmi, H. V. .............:......... ......................... 136, 158, 203, 207, 212 o Ohio Farm Bureau .......................................................... 124, 127 Oil, Cooperatives ......................... 30, 47, 61, 86, 127, 128, 149, 166, 185, 202 On Doing Something About It ................................................... 217 Our Cooperative House ........................................................ 205 Our Credit Union ............................................................... 205 Our Economic Life in the Light of Christian Ideals ................................. 238 Owen, Robert .................................................................. 3 Ozanne, J. E. ................................................................... 125 Labor and Socialism ............................................................ 75 Land Tax ..................................................................... 134 Lanto, Helen H. ............................................................. 207, 210 League for Independent Political Action .......................................... 46. Lever, E. J. ..................................................................... 66 Liebman, H. ................................................................. 77, 209 Lifting Themselves by Their Boot-Straps ......................................... 196 Life as We have Known It, M. L. Davis ........................................... 37 Liljencrants, Johan .............................................-••..•.•••••••••• 234 Liukku, J. .................................................................. 203, 209 London Cooperative Society ............................................ 93, 112, 132 Palliatives, Sick of ..................................................... ........ 102 Patent Medicines, Consumer is Defenseless Against ................................ 182 Peace, The Prospect of World ................................................... 15 Peoples Year Book ............................................................... 38 Philosophy, Needed—A Better Understanding Of .................................. 5 Pioneers Calendar .......................................................... 144, 173 Plymouth Cooperator, Broadminded ............................................... 50 Poison for Profit ................................................................ 182 Politics and Cooperation ......................................................... 76 Prize Contest .................................................................. 11 Producer 6 Consumer Cooperation .................................. 43, 52, 56, 214, 232 X INDEX PAGE Produce Exchanges Should be Cooperative ......................................... 226 Production, Cooperative ....................................................... 45, 5-1 Prohibition and Profits .......................................................... 154 Propaganda, What Are the Aims of Cooperative ................................... 125 Publishing, Cooperative Book .................................................... 32 R Radio Station WEVD ...................................................... 107, 232 Regli, W. E. ....................................................... 89, 122, 158, 211 Relief, Back to the Land .......................................................... 83 Relief Money, Cooperative Workers Handle Own .................................. 47 Resolutions Passed at 8th Conqress of C. L. U. S. A. ............................... 213 Retail Distribution by Food Chains ................................................ 237 Retail vs. Wholesale ........................................................... 9 Review of International Cooperation .............................................. 18 Richardson. J. B. ................................................................ 78 Richland Co. Oil Company ....................................................... 166 Rochdale Pioneers .............................................................. 4 Rock Cooperative Company ..................................................... 204 Roumania, Cooperation in ........................................................ 153 Rush, W. W. .................................................................. 77 Russia, Cooperation in ................................................ 24, 32, 112, 153 Salerno, Joe ............................................................ 38, 208, 231 Sankari, H. O. .................................................................. 210 Schools ............................................ 31, 73, 104, 107, 141, 157, 184, 189 Schuyler. G. S. ................................................................. 88 Scotland, Cooperation in ................................................. 13, 32, 235 Seattle's Unemployed Citizen's Experiment in Cooperation ........................... 168 Secretary's Report, C. L. U. S. A. ................................................. 206 Skyscrapers & Tenements ....................................................... 161 Slums, Large-Scale Housing & Decentralization ..................................... 138 Smith, A. Eames ............................................................... 78 Social Universe, The ............................................................ 58 Socialism & Cooperation ....................................... 156, 197, 221, 227, 236 Songs, Cooperative ........................................................... 91, 98 Sports, Cooperative ................................ ............................ 235 Spencer. Herbert ................................................................ 35 State, Cooperation and the ....................................................... 78 Statistics ................................................................. 11, 71, 117 Stein, Emanuel ................................................................. 237 Store, The Cooperative ........................................................ 45 Stringham, Benjamin ............................................................ 2031 .style Builders Cooperative ................................................ 128, 152 Sunnyside Consumers' Cooperative ............................................ 205, 232 Suominen, John ................................................................. 208 Sweden, Cooperation in ................................................ 36, 194, 234 Switzerland, Cooperation in ................................................... 13, 92 Tariffs .................................................................. 57, 75, 103 Taxes ..................................................................... 124, 134 Taxes, The Remedy for High ................................................... 63 Theatre Ticket Agency .......................................................... 153 Thomas, Norman ................................................. 136, 157, 197, 227 Trade Union and Cooperation ............... ............. 127, 182, 194, 211 Travelling Shops ............................................................. 14, 78 Twigg, H. J. ................................................................... 118 Twin City Workers Cooperative ................................................. 70 Twin Lakes Cooperative Farm ................................................ 183, 214 Two Masters .................................................................. 18 Undertakers Fight Cooperation, Profiteering ....................................... 231 Unemployed and Cooperation, The .............................. 123, 142, 157, 168, 178 INDEX PAGE United Cooperative Farmers of Fitchburg .......................................... 52 United Cooperative Society of Fitchburg ...................................... 51, 204 United Cooperative Society of Maynard ......................................... 51, 204 United Cooperative Society of Quincy ................................... 53, 98, 204 Union Cooperative Workers ..................................................... 212 Union Labor .......................................................... .. 51 Union Oil Co., N. K. C. ........................................................ 128 Van Loon, H. W. ............................................................... 145 Virginia, Cooperation in ......................................................... 6 Virginia Work People's Trading Co. .............................................. 47 W Warbasse, J. P. 3, 8, 15, 33, 54, 62, 74, 94, 115, 134, 138, 154, 177, 196, 198, 209, 217, 224, 236 Ward, Gordon H. ............................................................... 5 Ward, Roswell .............................................................. 98, 129 Warinner, A. W. ..............\...................................... 131, 137, 172 Warne, C. E. .............................................................. 22, 34 Wash-Co-Egg & Poultry Association .......................................... 88, 90 Waukegan-North Chicago Cooperative Association ................................. 127 Webb, Sidney .................................................................. 35 Wells, H. G. ................................................................... 92 Whitnall, C. B. ................................................................ 158 Wholesales, Cooperative .................................................... 45, 235 Wholesale is Foundation Stone, Cooperative ....................................... 229 Whose Capital Is it? ............................................................ 29 Why Cooperation? ............................................................. 236 Why Jim Could Not Sell His Eggs ............................................... 108 Williams, Morris ............................................................... 227 Woman, The Plough ............................................................ 118 Women's Guilds ............................................. 131, 185, 191, 212, 233 Women's Cooperative Guild, Brooklyn ............................................ 205 Woodcock, L. E. ............................................................ 153, 179 Workers Cooperative Union, Lawrence, Mass. ............................ 38, 204, 231 Workers Cooperative Union, Stafford Springs ................................... 54, 206 Workers Credit Union, Fitchburg .............................................. 53, 204 Workingmen's Cooperative Co., Cleveland ......................................... 206 Workmen's Furniture Fire Insurance Co. .................................. 48, 165, 205 Wright, Edgar ................................................................. 95 Young Negroes Cooperative League ............................................ 87, 88 Young Negroes Cooperative League of Philadelphia ...................... . . 205, Youth Clubs ........................................................ 52,' 171, "l>4, 233 Youth League .............................................. 96, 123, 183, 201, 212, 216 Youth League Courses ....................................................... 141, 184 20 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 3. Story of Cooperation ..........? .10 $6.00 7. British Cooperative Movement.. .05 4.00 38. Consumers Cooperation in the United States (illus.), 1980.... .10 8.00 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe .05 4.00 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States ....................... ,06 4.00 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase) ...................... .05 4.00 TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .25 16.00 6. A Model Constitution and By- Laws for a Cooperative Society .05 2.50 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined .10 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale ......................... .10 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail.... .02 1.00 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild ........................ .10 15. How to Organize a District Coop erative League .............. .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham aJid Robinson) .............. .50 nd fertilizers. London Society is growing rapidly. Its trade total in the last half-year was £4,749,577, an increase of £62,150. This contrasts with a money decrease (but tonnage increase) in the trade of most of the British societies. O. C. 10 COOPERATION COOPERATION 11 News and Comment THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL ADVANCES One of the most highly seasonal educational activities of the coopera tive movement is that of The Cooper ative League Correspondence School. With itlhe approach of the first brisk Fall day, students who have, during the summer, almost deserted their lessons on the Principles of Con sumers' Cooperation or the technical .management or bookkeeping prob lems of the movement, again begin their studies. By the first of Decem ber old students are at work and new enrollments begin to come in. In four years, our studies have been taken by a considerable number of directors, and store managers, as well as by the interested members. The secretary of a large middle-western farmers' co operative has enrolled. The manager of a successful Ohio miners' store is a student. A theological graduate who has chosen not to preach but to de vote his life to cooperative organiza tion has taken more than one of our courses. A waiter in a Chinese res taurant in New York has signed up, wishing to take his training to assist in the development of ,the movement in China. In the Northwest, the courses have been used as a prelimi nary to the resident training schools. A group of interested managers and cleilks of a Western Canadian organi zation—(Saskatchewan—'-have as a group taken the lessons as a basis for their winter discussions. From Geor gia, from the New England states, from Montana—from every section of the country, registrations have come. The reasons given for taking the woirk are interesting and varied. One manager of an isolated Canadian so ciety, aged 49, wishes "to become a more useful coopera'tor." Another from Nova Scotia states: "I want to win promotion. I wash to read a bal ance sheet intelligently." A director of a Chinese academy presents as hi's reason a desire to teach cooperation at the academy at Chuanchow. Others suggest "to better myself for my posi tion," "to improve my knowledge of cooperation," "to become an organizer or field man" and "to become an active coioperator." At Waukegan, a number of cooper- ators have organized a class in which the excellent course on "The Organi zation and Administration of Cooper atives" is used as the basis for dis cussion. This course was written by Cedric Long who was so interested in developing a sound management for the movement that he added to his already-crowded schedule in prepar ing this course and personally cor rected the papers submitted by stu dents. One seasoned cooperator who has finished our courses writes us from Alberta: "With the extensive mechan ization of industry forecast for the coming decade, we may work to the end that a truer, deeper understand ing of the fundamentals of coopera tive philosophy may develop and that the system founded on that philo sophy may become more widely known, more thoroughly effective, and more practiced." In this period when apathy and financial difficulties have sapped the strength of many efforts toward workers' education, it is a source of satlsfacition to the cooperative move ment that its membership is contin uing in an ever-increasing way its interest in cooperative education. The present efforts are, however, not enough. More oooperators should send in their enrollment cards for the several courses offered. (See adver tisement in the back of this issue). If the cooperative movement is to ad vance, it must have an intelligent membership and trained executives in iits management. I TWICE AS MANY COOPERATORS AS TRADE UNIONISTS At the end of 1929 there were 44,- 190,525 members of trade unions throughout the world, according to figures in Current History Magazine- There is no, International trade union organization to which they belong. They are not united into a world movement. The figures of the International Cooperative Alliance show that its af filiated societies in forty-one coun tries in 1929 had 71,000,000 members. The cooperative societies not in the Alliance have fully 18,000,000 mem bers. Thus the cooperative movement is fully twice as large as the trade union movement. INCREASE IN ACTIVITIES Educational and recruiting activi ties reported from scores of societies in the N .S. C. L. district indicate that Cooperative Month was successful in the North Central States. While a few affiliated societies failed to make any special effort and same started in a belated fashion despite the call and announcements sent out by the na tional and district offices, neverthe less, concerted activities were at a higher mark during the first Cooper ative Month than ever before. Some societies, unable to arrange intended local campaigns or public affairs dur ing October, continued with their plans in November. Varied activities were sponsored by the local societies and auxiliary or ganizations, including house-to-house canvassing, public gatherings of all kinds, radio advertising, special cam paigns to distribute cooperative liter ature and secure subscribers to co operative publications, visiting days and specials at the stores, contests in securing new members, etc. In the various activities the Wo men's Cooperative Guilds and also the Cooperative Youth Leagues gave practical demonstration of their use fulness and further possibilities in building the movement. Since the Cooperative Month this year was the first sponsored by The Cooperative League throughout the country, it is fair to assume that in the N. S. C. L. district the experiences gained—including the lessons from possible blunders and shortcomings —will result in a greater amount oi continued educational and organiza tion effort and undoubtedly wiill con tribute to make the second Coopera tive Month in 1932 an even greater success. ILLEGAL USE OF WORD "CO OPERATIVE" One of New York's thousands of cheap "hash houses" was apparently inspired by the success of a nearby cafeteria of Consumers Cooperative Services. At any rate it hung out a sign "Cooperative Cafeteria." A member of the League staff who happened to see it dropped in and in quired how cooperative it was. The cashier explained that five lunch rooms belonging to the same man co operated with each other. Fortunate ly the New York Cooperative Corpo rations Law is one of the few in the country that has teeth. A letter to the appropriate State Department immediately brought a warning to the organization to discontinue using the word cooperative as they were not incorporated under the Coopera tive Corporations Law. Are there any fake cooperatives in your neighborhood? If there are and if your state law provides any penalty for the use of the word co operative by an ordinary business, it may be worth while to go after them. LEAGUE OFFERS $50 PRIZE The best painting to be submitted to the offices of The Cooperative League will win a cash prize of $50. This painting is to be used in itihe 1933 calendar, which will be distrib uted by cooperative societies. The painting must ihave genuine artistic value and must be symbolic of Cooperation. All enftries for ihhe contest should reach The League office before April 10th, 1932. 12 COOPERATION Cooperation Abroad BUYING ABROAD In 1930 the British Cooperative Wholesale Society spent for purchases abroad approximately $170,000,000. Of this there went to the Canadian Wheat Pool, $6,215,910; New Zealand Produce Association $4,884,210; Aus tralian Overseas Farmers' Coopera tive Federation Limited $3,304,855. Is it any wonder that the coopera tive movement desires free and un- trammeled arteries of world trade? COOPERATIVE COAL CARS Besides the ownership of the best run coal mines in England, the co operative societies are advancing to ward control of coal transportation. Several societies own boats for car rying their coal. The British Cooperative Union has recently established the Cooperative Coal Trade Association. This new or ganization has made a survey of the societies -and their coal facilities and finds a total of over 5,000 coal cars owned by the cooperative societies. This is the way cooperation works. Before acquiring locomotives and rail roads, it creates the goods to be dis tributed, then it learns how to dis tribute, and then it takes the next step. PROFIT BUSINESS FEELS ITS TOES PINCHED A lecture on cooperation was to have been broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, govern ment-controlled radio system of that country, on November 5, but the plan ran against a snag—the organized opposition of private traders. The lecture was one of a current school series, and objection was raised to it on the ground that it would "tend to advertise 'the cooperative organiza tions." The B. B. C. issued a state ment saying that the lecture was being withdrawn in order that we "may reconsider the subject." CONSUMERS' SOCIETIES JOIN TO RUN DAIRIES Dairies run by federations of co operative societies seem to be on the increase in Britain. The plant of the Northwest Durham Cooperative Dai ries Federation began operations re cently. It can handle 500 gallons per hour and capacity can be raised to 1000 gallons per hour. This is the first venture of its kind in the north of England. The United Cooperative Dairies at Failsworth, in which six societies in cluding the C. W. S. are joined, is an other large venture of this kind which will soon commence operations. COOPERATIVE TANK CARS Two road-rail tanks for the trans portation of milk from farm to con sumer have been put into service by the English C. W. S. The milk is col lected from the farmers and brought to a central dairy, where it is trans ferred to the glass-lined tank, capac ity 2000 gallons. The tank is mounted on wheels, .as a trailer. It is hauled to the railroad station by a tractor and there placed on a specially designed fliait car and transported by swift train to the C. W. S. dairy in London. The milk is then siphoned out. The cooperative milk trade is being pushed rapidly in England. ONTARIO NOW HAS WHOLE SALE The farmers' distributive societies in the counties of Grey and Dufferin, Ontario, have formed a wholesale so ciety, to be known as The Ontario Co operative Wholesale Society, Ltd. By laws have been adopted and incor poration applied for. Warehousing of merchandise will not be attempted at first, while the society is small. Mem bership is open to all distributive so cieties in the province. COOPERATION 13 COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF BREAD PRICES IN SCOTLAND The largest bakery in Great Britain perhaps in Europe, is the United Co operative Baiking Society of Glasgow. Owing to its remarkable progress during the past years, the society controls the bread prices in the city. Since 1927 the number of its af filiated societies has increased from 227 to 242, sacks of flour baked per half year from 112,634 to 120,504 and sales from £662,238 to £674,760. The society produces the cheapest bread in Glasgow, the price of the 2 lb. loaf being at present 3%d compared with 5%d in 1927. In spite of the fact that the current price of flour would jus tify an increase in bread prices, the U. C. B. S. recently decided to make no change for the moment. As a re sult of this decision the private bakers were compelled to follow suit. A similar benefit has been conferred on consumers by the Tweeds'ide In dustrial Cooperative Society of Ber wickshire, which has reduced the price of the 4 lb. loaf during this year, first to 6d and then to 5d, with the result that the Society's bread trade increased during the month of Octo ber by about 12y2%. IN THE ALPS The 300 workers on the Berbellino Dam in the Italian Alps can now buy their supplies from a cooperative shop and canteen erected for their special benefit by joint action of the cooper ative society of Bergamo, the trade unions and the construction company. The shop is over a mile high (from sea level, not in price). The workers get their meals at a total coslt of one shilling per day. THAT'S A-TOOTIN' A cooperative store was recently opened in Tooting, a suburb of Lon don. "Within an Hour of the opening," we read in The Producer, "2366 cus tomers were served and 30 new mem bers enrolled." PRICE FIXING The Scottish Cooperative Whole sale Society has been experimenting with the fixing of prices at which its goods shall be resold by retail so cieties. Fixed prices on jams were in augurated last April. Jam sales of the S. C. W. S. since that time have in creased 30 per cent. One reason for the move was the 'tendency of retail societies to overcharge for S. C. W. S. products, thus placing these goods at a disadvantage in relation to compe tition. SWISS CONSIDER COMPULSORY TRADING The proposal to make it compul sory upon retail societies to buy all their goods from the national whole sale society, is being considered in Switzerland. At a conference of the Cooperative Managers Association, the proposal was approved by a vote of 30 to 12. A final decision, it is ex pected, will be made at the next An nual Congress of the Swiss Union. In support of compulsory trading, it was argued that the wholesale so ciety was strong enough to supply all the retail societies' needls. that those societies most loyal to the wholesale had made the most rapid and surest progress, and that the resultant heav ier trade of the wholesale would make possible greater efficiency. On the contrary, some claim that the fact that retail societies may buy where they please spurs the whole sale to greater efficiency—imuch as this theory savors of laissez faire eco nomics. Retail societies will undoubtedly protest against having their inde pendence infringed upon by a com pulsory trading rule. On the other hand, they may be led to adopt it for the good of the whole cooperative movement, and for the salke of keep ing their money from flowing into the pockets of private business, whence it may be used to do the co-ops real harm. 14 COOPERATION COOPERATION GIVES HOPE The German worlking people are turning to the cooperative societies for help in their present distress. Vollrath Klepzig, General Secretary of the Central Union of German Con sumers' Societies, writes: "We are enrolling new members in order to put a stop to the present dis tress. The small incomes of many millions of people call for wise spend ing, and money goes further when purchases are made at the cooper ative store. For consumers' societies were, are, and always will be, a pro tection for the wea:k against economic domination and injustice. It is signi ficant that the general impoverish ment, which Is so characteristic of the present day, has not destroyed the confidence of the consumers in the disinterested work of the con sumers' societies. We are enrolling new members in order to turn the thoughts of consumers towards an attainable goal. The worries and cares of the present time confuse the mind and darken the outlooik of the con sumer; the fear of the future weak ens his courage and poisons his en joyment of life. The mental strain of those who are forced to, be idle against their will must be relieved. This can only be accomplished by a conscious effort to dispel their daily cares by strengthening their faith in their future and their own power. The consumers' movement, which has grown up from nothing to one of the strongest economic movements in the world, Invites and deserves such faith. "We are enrolling new members in order to gain recognition for the eco nomic services rendered by con sumers' societies!. Their work in the past few years has secured immense advantages not only for the members of consumers' societies but for all consumers in, Germany. The price policy pursued by cooperative socie ties is chiefly responsible for the fact that the food prices of the private dealers have been kept within rea sonable bounds. We are enrolling new members because the economic im portance and the moral significance of the consumers' movement are worthy of greater recognition than they have hitherto received. The im portance of the consumers' movement is seen in the dimensions and eco nomic power of the consumers' so cieties. Its -moral force, however, emanates from unflinching loyalty to the ideals of self-help." Konsumgenossenschaftliche Rund schau (Hamburg) October 31, 1931. COOPERATIVE PRICES LOWEST A striking confirmation of the fact that the prices of consumers' societies are lower than those of retail dealers is furnished by the comparison be tween the prices charged by the Ger man Consumers' Societies for 24 com modities in 19 large cities and those charged for the same commodities in the same cities by private traders, which has just been published by the Central Union of German Consumers' Societies. Basing itself on the returns of the Governmental Department of Statistics which issues a monthly list of prices for 24 commodities in 19 large German cities, the Central Union has drawn up an identical list of average prices. This list reveals the fact that the average price of 22 out of the 23 commodities for which a comparison was possible is lower in the consumers' societies. The re duction in the price of the goods sold in consumers' stores varies between 1.3% for sugar and 20.0% for pota toes. Only in regard to farm butter, which 6 of the 19 consumers' societies distribute, is the comparison un favorable to the consumers' store, margarin being 'most commonly used by cooperative societies. SHOPS ON WHEELS The British cooperative movement has 1000 "traveling shops." 621 of these were built by the C. W. S. COOPERATION 15 AUSTRIAN WHOLESALE CON TRIBUTES TO UNEMPLOYED For every ten pair of shoes manu factured by the Austrian Cooperative Wholesale Society, and distributed to the Austrian cooperative consumers' societies, between September 15 and December 1, the Wholesale gave one pair of shoes free for distribution by the societies among the children of their unemployed members. The Wholesale has also renounced all profits on shoes and distributes them directly at cost with the view of im mediate help to the unemployed. SYDNEY MINES CELEBRATES The British Canadian Cooperative Society, of Sydney Mines and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, celebrated its 25th anniversary recently. This, says The Canadian Cooperator, is the largest cooperative store organization in North America. Certainly it is in the front rank. Its sales last year were $1,446,570.84, and its membership 3437. During the twenty-five years it has sold $20,335,768.19 worth of goods, and its customers have received dur ing that period $2,075,376.52 in pur chase rebates. My Point of View By J. P. Warbasse THE PROSPECT OF WORLD PEACE The cost to the great powers of car rying their military equipment is so large that even the most militaristic know that this burden is growing too heavy to bear. The countries nearest approaching prosperity, as well as security, are those with the least military burden. Denmark, abolishing her army and navy, leads the way. So obvious is the need of disarma ment that peaceful people are look ing toward the Disarmament Con ference, scheduled to be held in Gen eva, in February, as the next essen^ tial step toward the rehabilitation of the world. A Glance at History One country stands in the way of peace; that is France. The French politicians seem bent on preventing peace among the nations. As we contemplate the history of France, we wonder how that country ever beguiled the western world with the notion that she was naturally a peaceful nation. Her ruling class seem to have had war-making as one of their supreme objects, and they have succeeded in cajoling the masses to follow them into their wars. From the time the Franks con quered Gaul in 'the Fifth Century, the rulers of France have been more oc cupied in promoting great wars than any other European class. After Clovis made war on the Gauls, killed Alaric the Goth, estab lished his capitol at Paris, and em braced Christianity, the French rulers have been busy with warlike pursuits. A history of fifteen hundred years, replete with invasions of neighbor lands by French armies, does not of fer much encouragemeint of peace. Charlemagne's conquest of Savoy and Lombardy, the crusades of the Louis, the conquest of Naples and Sicily by the brutal Charles of An- jou, the religious wars of the XVI Century, the war against Holland and the Seven Years War were followed by Boneparte, the most destructive madman to whom any nation ever gave allegiance. Beginning with war against Italy, France backed Napo leon in his endeavor to invade and conquer all of Europe. For nearly twenty years this warfare went on until it was checked at Waterloo with the defeat of the French armies. For fifty years after this, French literature was filled with sneers at the German people for being a "na tion of philosophers and musicians" 16 COOPERATION afraid to fight. Then came the Fran co-Prussian war. France was the ag gressor and attacked Germany. "The greatest national crime that we have had the pain of recording... War is declared—an unjust but premeditated war" (London Times, 16 July, 1871). When the German people united and beat off France, in 1871, the Germans became a united and militarist people. For over forty years hatred between France and Germany was promoted by the armament makers and the chauvinists of both lands. Germany forged ahead as an industrial coun try, and was rapidly moving toward the front in commerce. Her militarist class, headed by a preposterous and braggart Kaiser, became both dan gerous and offensive. Germany's con quest of the markets of the world, however, was her chief offense. Then came the inevitable great war caused largely by envy and by the intrigue of French politicians who corrupted still more a corrupt ruling class in Russia. This war against Germany, planned by French diplomats, and started by France and Russia, had be hind it the concealed and sinister hand of the diplomats of England in support of its instigation. Revenge is not Peace Then caime the Treaty of Versailles, dictated by revengeful old men, the most vicious of whom was Clemen- ceau, and the most stupid of whom was Wilson. A peace was made that could only guarantee future wars, and the League of Nations was established to insure that the iniquitous guaran tees were enforced. And they have been. Hatred between the dismem bered parts of Germany and Austria and their neighbors has been kept alive by the provisions of the Ver sailles treaty. During 'the war Germany was blockaded and shut off from the rest of the world. Children starved and died. Now it seems that the rest of the world has recanted, but the French politicians remain set upon further destruction. Armed more fully than ever, with England and every neigh bor afraid of her, France's politicians stand solidly and unrepentant for mMtariism. French diplomats block the advances for peace. They insist on the new generation of people pay ing for the war that ended fourteen years ago, and paying beyond their ability to pay, for the poverty of Germany grows more desperate day by day. Friendly business intercourse be tween Germany and Austria is block ed by French politics. The tariff bar riers that keep the peoples apart, French politicians insist must remain. The French government strenuous ly opposes inquiry into the cause of the great war, proposed by Germany, knowing full well that the French guilt would be disclosed. The French politicians apparently desire the de struction of the German nation, and the reduction of the German people to chaos, poverty and death. Every other nation seems to .know that such a calamity would damage the whole world. The pious pretenltion of the French State, that It wants only security against attack, is quite like the simi lar hypocrisy of our own patriots who ignore the fact that in every one of our foreign wars the United States has been the aggressor in attack. The French Danger The wealthy French armament makers are busily promoting mili tarism in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and the Balkan countries. A meeting in Paris for the dis cussion of reduction of armaments has been broken up by a mob while the police stood by and waltched; and the next day practically the entire Parisian press applauded the mob and the police. The French politicians, in controi of the Government,, are as low a grade as our own. The press is venal and corrupt, and the public that looks to COOPERATION 17 it for information is ignorant of the international situation. So strong is French militarism that it now seems that the long antici pated conference at Geneva for the discussion of reduction of armaments may not take place. However, there is still hope that other nations will meet. All but the representatives of France will prob ably be ready to make concessions to peace. And they must, or their military burdens will destroy them. The hope of .peace lies not in the moral sentiment in these countries so much as in the pressing need of economy. Their battleships are break ing their backs. It is possible that they may take the way of peace to save themselves. Militarism! is too ex pensive. The replacing of the War Depart ment in every country with a Depart ment of Peace, the elimination of war profits, the .establishment of inter national police, the economic boycott, the sympathetic union of the non belligerent countries, and mutual ar ticles of peace should ultimately im press the French politicians with the disadvantages- of continuing their war promoting attitude and should prove the folly of militarism. Hope Springs Eternal Fortunately there is in France a well developed movement for peace. Groups of respected people, who un derstand this world situation, are working for better international un derstanding. The press and the poli ticians of France do not deceive all of the population. Highly significant, as an agency of peace, is the French Cooperative Movement. Its leaders are men with broad international sympathies. They are opposed to War and have repeat edly gone on record in favor of inter national peace. They rise above the chauvinism of the militaristic rabble who are inspired by the business in terests that thrive on war prepara tions. The cooperators stand apart as a solid phalanx advancing toward in ternational harmony and under standing. If the French government were wise enough to take the cooperative leaders into its councils, France might be saved from the isolation that threatens. The influence of French cooperators on the politicians could only be for good. The French Cooperative Movement is a potent part of the International Cooperative Alliance, the only inter national union of peoples that is moving on toward world peace in a practical and fundamental way. And thus the world may look with hope toward French cooperation as an in fluence for peace at a time when such an influence is most needed. But neither cooperators nor paci fists can bring peace while politicians, as the agents of profit business, rule the affairs of nations. Conscientious objection to war cannot be effective unless it is associated with active ob jection to economic hostilities. Mental disarmament is also needed. Conscientious objection to patriot ism is essential. It is as essential as conscientious objection to war. Chauvinism in every nation .must be scrapped along with the cannon and battleships. Mental disarmament must go hand in hand with military disarmament. Little hope of peace can exist with the business of the world based on capitalist economics and profit-get ting. AH talk of peace ultimately coimes to naught. Still we should be interested in the palliatives of disarmament because we do not want the disorder which further collapse of capitalism would bring. The cooperative societies need on ly time and patience to go on with their great work of reorganizing the economic system of the world. Anid it can be done without asking the peo ple to suffer more. 18 COOPERATION Books TWO MASTERS, By Ardhifoald Gordon Craig, 193,1. Published by the Author, 100 Clinton Ave., Jersey City; N. J. Clotih, 75 cents1; paper, 50 cents, postpaid. This book discusses the teachings of Jesus as a contribution to sociology. It is for ,the religious. But in the documentation of religion is much wisdom which is applicable to the af fairs of life. When it is said, "Where thy treasure is there will thy heart be also," the weakness of human na ture is proclaimed. People want pro perty. They want things. And in the getting of things they are prone to lose sight of the better life and the finer values. This book shows the con flict between these two principles. It calls them God and Mammon. It is an illuminating discussion of relig ious principles wisely interpreted in the light of modern social conditions. THREE LANGUAGES AND CO OPERATION The Review of International Co operation, the official organ of the International Cooperative Alliance, is published monthly in three different language editions—German, English and French. The circulation is as fol lows: German edition, 2,445; English edition, 1,044; French edition, 765. The circulation is mostly in Europe and especially among leaders, writers, and executives of the cooperative movement. These figures, however, are a fair average of the relative prevalence and importance of the three languages in the European countries. DO YOU WANT TO MAKE FRIENDS ABROAD? About two years ago, the Ediiftor of the "Genossenschaftsfamttie," the Cologne Gepag journal, created the "International Exchange" which serves as a link between German and foreign coeperators, who desire to correspond or to exchange postage stamps and picture post cards. The experiences, which have been made in Germany with this new institution are very gratifying. Many German cooperators, of various ages, have made friends in other countries. Thousands are exchanging stamps and thus enriching their collections. Others are bent on coMectfing picture post cards with views of other coun tries and on sending in return views of German towns, famous buildings and beauty spots. To establish contact, send your ad dress and age to the Editor of Co operation, 167 West 12th St., New York City. All true cooperators patronize THE NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION (Established 1897) A strictly cooperative life insurance institution. Member of the Northern States Cooperative League. All standard forms of life insurance contracts written. Funeral Benefit and Disability insurance for only $1.00 a month! WE CAN INSURE YOU BY MAIL without medical examination! For full particulars clip this coupon and mail it to: NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION, Grand Rapids, Mich. Name: . Address: COOPERATION 19 COOPERATIVE DEMOCRACY Second Edition completely revised by JAMES PETER WARBASSE President of The Cooperative League of the United States of America Member of. the Central Committee of the International Cooperative Alliance A Discussion of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement in Its Relation to the Political State, to the Profit System, to Labor, to Agriculture and to the Arts and Sciences The Maomillan Co., New York, Publishers Order from The Cooperative League, 167 West 12th St., New York, TJ. S. A. Price, $1.50. The Cooperative Union, Holyoake House, Han over St., Manchester, England. Price 6 sh. German Edition: Verlagsgeseilschaft deutscher Konsumvereine, Strohhause 3S, Hamburg, Germany. Price, 6 marks. FIRE INSURANCE ON YOUR FURNITURE SAFE—ECONOMICAL—COOPERATIVE WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY 227 East 84th St., New York, N. Y. Member of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A. Under supervision of N. Y. State Insurance Department. STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence Courses prepared and conducted by experienced cooperators are now ready 1. Elementary English 2. Commercial Arithmetic 3. Bookkeeping for Cooperators 4. Advanced Course in Bookkeeping 5. Principles and Theory of Cooperation 6. Organization and Administration of Cooperatives For full particulars write THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street New York City The Cooperative Builder An official organ of CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE An interesting and lively cooperative journal published semi-monthly at Superior, Wis. Subscribe now! Subscription rate $1.00 per year. CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE Superior, Wis. The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, ovraed by anil con ducted under the auspices of The Co operative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPERATION for one year to Name____________________-.____ 01.00 a year Address- 40 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 .10 ?6.00 .05 4.00 3. Story of Cooperation .. 7. British Cooperative Movement.. 88. Consumers Cooperation in the United States (illus.), 1930.... .10 8.00 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe .05 4.00 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States ....................... .06 4.00 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase) ...................... .05 4.00 TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .25 15.00 6. A Model Constitution and By- Laws for a Cooperative Society .05 2.50 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined .10 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale ......................... .10 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail.... .02 1.00 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild ........................ .10 15. How to Organize a District Coop erative League .............. .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson) .............. .50 4S. Cooperative Housing ............ .10 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apartment House ............ .10 MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law ........ .10 46. Producers' Cooperative Industries .10 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Co-op Movement .10 12. Credit Union and Cooperative Store ........................ .05 1.75 13. The Place of Cooperation Among Other Movements ............ .25 34. Cooperative Movement (Yiddish) .02 1.25 36. "When the Whistle Blew" (Story. by Bruce Calvert) .......... 06 42. Cooperative Homes for Europe's Homeless .................... .10 55. A Better World to Live In .... .05 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Differs from Ordinary Business .02 .85 62. Buttons (League emblem), " % inch diameter ............... .05 2.00 63. Sign or Transparency of League Emblem. Green and gold, 8 in. diameter .................... .26 15.06 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250 63. To Mothers ................... .02 1.00 70. Farmers' Cooperation, A Way Out: An address by L. S. Herron. . .06 4.00 71. International Cooperation: An ad dress by H. J. May ......... .10 72. "Little Lessons in Cooperation" 35 73. Propaganda Posters .......... .10 74. The Burden of Credit ......... .02 1.00 76. What is the Cooperative Store.. .02 1.00 76. What is Consumers' Cooperation .05 4.00 77. The Most Necessary Thing in Life ......................... .02 1.00 78. Are You Sure You Are Getting Your Money's Worth ........ .02 1.00 79. There Are Two Sides to Every Counter ...................... .02 1.00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.60 per 600: ?4.00 per 1,000.) (20) Why Loyalty Is Necessary; (21) Cost and Crime of Credit; (25) Resolutions Adopted by A. F. of L.; (26) Factory Workers Cooperate!; (28) Do You Know About Cooperation in Europe?; (40) Have You a Committee on Education and Recreation?; (45) Schools and Stores. MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred). Subscription, per year (foreign, $1.26).... $1.00 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.) ........ Per Year, ?1.50 BOOKS The following books are recommended as con taining the best discussion of the model i Coopera tive Movement. They may be ordered through The League, postpaid as follows: Bergengren, R. F.: Credit Union, A Cooper ative Banking Book .................. $1.50 Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement in Russia ............................... ?2.50 Brightwill, L. R.: Animal "Co-op" Book— For Children ........................ .15 Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers ............... 2.10 Fianagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 ........................ 2.10 Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies, American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth 2.00 Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Cooperative Committees ............. 2.50 Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound .... .70 Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers ............ 1.10 Indian Cooperation, Children's story ...... .15 Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ....................... 3.10 Kayden, E. M., and Antsiferov, A. N.: Cooperative Movement in Russia During the War ............................. 4.26 Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold ........ .86 Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Prac tices of Cooperative Marketing ........ 3.30 Nicholson, Isa: Our Story ................ .25 Odhe, Thorsten: Finland, A Nation of Co- operators ............................. 1.50 Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals and Problems ............................. 1.35 Owen, Robert: Autobiography ............ .50 Poisson, E.: The Cooperative Republic.... 1.85 Potter, B.: Cooperative Movement in Great Britain ............................... 1.10 Redfern, Percy: The Story of the C. W. S. 2.25 Redfern. Percy: The Consumers' Place in Society, 1920 .......................... 1.00 Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Recon struction in Ireland, 1918 ............ 1.00 Smith-Gordon and O'Birien: Cooperation in Denmark ............................. 1.10 Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920 .................... 1.60 Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) ......................... 1.00 Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, (1927) ............................... 1.50 Warbasse, J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927 .75 Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ...................... 3.50 Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Coopera tive Movement, 1921 .................. 6.60 Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917 .................................. 1.60 Woolf, Leonard: Cooperation and the Fu ture of Industry ..................... 1.65 Cooperation, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1931 inclusive, each ....................... 1.26 Report of the American Cooperative Con gresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, each 1.00 Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper.. .60 The People's Year Book, 1932, Cloth, $1.35; paper bound .......................... .85 Year Book of The Cooperative League, 1932, Cloth, ?1.50: paper bound ............ 1.06 Raivaaja Publishing Co., Fitchburg, Mass. If A magazine to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, where by the people, in voluntary associa tion, produce and distribute for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE OF THE U. S. A. 167 West 12th Street, New York City Entered as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. T., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. VOL. XVIII, No. 2 FEBRUARY, 1932 10 CENTS THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT AND POLITICS By Colston E. Warne AN ANSWER By Dr. J. P. Warbasse COOPERATIVE ELECTRICITY By Tom Martin A COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND By MacAlister Coleman 22 COOPERATION The Cooperative Movement and Politics By Colston E. Warne, I. A persistent fallacy has too long dominated cooperative thinking in the United States. It is the feeling that the cooperative movement should maintain an attitude of aloof ness toward politics. This feeling has been based upon the following arguments: (1) That political activities in which the co operative might engage would divert interest from cooperation and thus lessen its business success; (2) that political interests would cause con troversy in the ranks of cooperators, splitting them between democratic, republican, progressive, socialist, and communist cooperators. Unity would be lacking; (3) that political activity would cause retaliation by the domi nant, reactionary political parties in the form of higher taxation for co operatives and adverse legislation owpoint of the contributions of Socialism to Coopera tion may be found in COOPERATION for February, March and April, 1931. Editor.) Book Reviews LIFE AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT, By Cooperative Working Women, Edited by Margaret Llewelyn Davies, 1931, Hogarth Press, London, England. Price 5 Shillings. In her warm and sympathetic introduction to tlhis book, Virginia Woolf tells us that "sometime in itihe eighties, the Women's Guild crept modestly and tentatively into existence. For a time it occupied an inch or two of space in the Cooperative News, which called itself The Women's Conner. It was there .tihat Mrs. Aeland asked, 'Why should we not hold our Cooperative mothers meet ings, when we may bring our work and sit together, one of us reading some Cooperative work aloud, wlhiclh may afterwards be dis cussed?' And on April 18toh, 1883, she an nounced ttiat the Women'6 Guild now num bered seven members." Today the Guild has nearly 1400 branches and 67,000 members, and Miss Davies tolls us "it has given .the unity and force which enable women to become a power in the movemenit and to slhare in its administration, Outside the Cooperative movement, Guilds- women ihave effectively voiced the neglected COOPERATION needs of married working-women. They sup ported vigorously title establishment of School Cttinios. They brought forward a National Scheme for tihe care of Matemiitiy. The Guild has aillsio made a notable contribution to breaking dawn class amid sex disabilities in public life. Stainting from buying bread and bultter on revolutionary principles, the Guildswomen reached an international out look. This has led to .the creation of an In ternational Women's Guild, in wihich 27 countries are now taking part. The Inter national GuUid has steadfastly stood for Peace, and has laid before the League of Nations the strong demand of its members for Disarmament." lit is easy .to understand how sudh a growth has come about, after one has read the memories of their lives, written by Guilds- women, and presented by Miss Davies in this book. Here we find an intellectual and phy sical vitality, a valianlt spirit, that no drud gery, no lack of opportunity, could overcome. Here is Mrs. Laytton wlho tells, in memories of severity years, of her childhood in Bethnal Green, where sihe grew flowers in her mother's windo>w, spending her halfpence in buying plants. "It was the pride of my life when people admired them and began grow ing flowers too, and then our street did be gin to look gay."—Of her .ten years1 of domes tic service "When I was ten years old, I be gan to earn my own living" and then of mamried 'life, midwifery and Cooperation. Here is Mrs. Burrows who left -school on the day that she was eight years old and began to -work in the fields with forty other chil dren of wfhom she was the eldest; they iwere followed by an old man with a whip in his hand whiicih he did not forget to use. Here is Mrs. Wrigley who had to gather coal and cinders to make a fire from a pilt bank two miles away. One but wishes for space enough to quote from tlhe story of each woman who has contributed to this book, for, tihough eadh has, from child'hood, had to struggle unceasingly, each .managed somehow to find time between attending to her job, and to the care of her children, to read, to attend meetings, to halve "full-dress" debates, even when the hat factory in which shie worked was a tow room iwith damp streaming down the walls. One is glad to see tihe faces of these women, as the photographs in the book en able one to do; rthese photographs, along witih the introductory letter of Virginia Wbolf, wiho recalls a Guild meeting which she attended as an outsider and who gives the impressions made upon her at that meeting by the Guild members and later in reading their memories, and the brief inftro- duction by Mangairet Darvies who gives a clear summary of tlhe cooperative moviement and tihe history of tihe Guild, make complete the story these memories tell, and make this bock one of significance not only to those interested in the cooperative movement, but to anyone wlho would deepen his feeling and enrich his knowledge of tihe lives of working women. Hannah Falk THE PEOPLE'S YEAR BOOK, 1932. The Cooperative Wholesale Society, Manchester, England. (Olotti, $1.35; paper, .85). This is the 15th annual publication of British cooperative statistics, together with reports of the International Cooperative Al liance, of the cooperative moviement in 54 other countries, and of the cooperative press of tihe world. One section is given to a dis cussion of the standard of living in several countries including the United States. The book is rich in discussions and facts con cerning present daiy economic conditions. Like all British pufojicaltions, its interest re volves around the State and the anitics of the politicians. The lugubrious Story of the British cooperaitors' last plunge in the murky pool of politics is briefly told. But there are few signs that the lesson has been learned. THANKS FROM LAWRENCE Editor, Cooperation: Lacking satisfactory words 'at this moment with which to express our gratitude for your loyal support to our appeal, we ask you to accept our humble and sincere appreciation for all that you did to alleviate the suffering of the few we could reach. We say few as the numbers looked out and disori.min!afted agajinisit run into the many thousands. We feel sure the ones who have come with in our reach are just as appreciative of the support, so that we feel it our duty to send along tiheir thanks too, With good wishes to the workers who made the contributions possible. Contributions, as a result of the appeal, that were sent to Joseph Salerno or to the Workers Cooperative Union, Mass., amounted to $101,15. Received 10 bbls. of flour from Working Men's Coop. Bakery, Lynn, Mass. The money ihas been- spent in furnishing bread to families, and in instances where there are infants, milk has been supplied. Workers Cooperative Union of Lawrence, Joseph R. Salerno, Manager. INDEX The index for COOPERATION, Vol. XVII, 1931, will be sent free to subscribers upon request. COOPERATION 39 All true cooperators patronize THE NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION (Established 1897) A strictly cooperative life insurance institution. Member of the Northern States Cooperative League. All standard forms of life insurance contracts written. Funeral Benefit and Disability insurance for only $1.00 a month! WE CAN INSURE YOU BY MAIL without medical examination! For full particulars clip this coupon and mail it to: NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION, Grand Rapids, Mich. Name: ...................................................... Address: STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME •CtMTeeipondence courses prepared and conducted by experienced cooperators are now ready. For full particulars, write THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th St. New York City FIRE INSURANCE ON YOUR FURNITURE SAFE—ECONOMICAL—COOPERATIVE WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY 227 East 84th St., New York, N. Y. Member of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A. Under supervision of N. Y. State Insurance Department. The Cooperative Builder An official organ of CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE An interesting and lively cooperative journal published semi-monthly at Superior, Wis. Subscribe now! Subscription rate $1.00 per year. CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE Superior, Wls. The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under the anspiees of The Co operative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPERATION for one year to Name———————————————————————— Address______________________________ $1.00 a year 60 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL 3. Story of Cooperation ..........$ 7. British Cooperative Movement.. 38. Consumers Cooperation In the United States (lllus.). 1930.... 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe 64. Progress of Cooperation In United States ....................... «9. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase) ...................... Per Copy Per 100 .10 .05 .10 .05 .05 .05 $6.00 4.00 8.00 4.00 4.00 TECHNICAL How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .25 15.00 A Model Constitution and By- Laws for a Cooperative Society .05 2.50 Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined .10 How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale ......................... .10 Why Cooperative Stores fall.... .02 1.00 How to Start and Run a Women's Guild ........................ .10 How to Organize a District Coop erative League .............. .10 Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson) .............. .50 Cooperative Housing ............ .10 Model Lease for Cooperative Apartment House ............ .10 MISCELLANEOUS Model Co-op State Law ........ .10 Producers' Cooperative Industries .10 Control of Industry by the People through the Co-op Movement .10 Credit Union and Cooperative Store ........................ .05 1.75 The Place of Cooperation Among Other Movements ............ .K Cooperative Movement (Yiddish) .02 1.25 "When the Whistle Blew" (Story. by Bruce Calvert) .......... 06 Cooperative Homes for Europe's Homeless .................... .10 A Better World to Live In .... .05 How a Consumers' Cooperative Differs from Ordinary Business .02 .85 Buttons (League emblem), % inch diameter ............... .05 2.00 Sign or Transparency of League Emblem. Green and gold, 8 In. diameter .................... .25 15.00 Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound In books of 100, 200, or 250 To Mothers ................... .02 1.00 Farmers' Cooperation, A Way Out: An addiress by L. S. Herron.. .05 4.00 International Cooperation: An ad dress by H. J. May ......... .10 "Little Lessons in Cooperation" 35 Propaganda Posters .......... .10 The Burden of Credit ......... .02 1.00 What Is the Cooperative Store.. .02 1.00 What Is Consumers' Cooperation .05 4.00 The Most Necessary Thing In Life ......................... .02 1.00 Are You Sure You Are Getting Your Money's Worth ........ .02 1.00 There Are Two Sides to Every Counter ...................... .02 1.00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; J2.50 per BOO; $4.00 per 1,000.) (20) Why Loyalty Is Necessary; (21) Cost and Crime of Credit; (25) Resolutions Adopted by A. F. of L.; (2«) Factory Workers Cooperate!; (23) Do You Know About Cooperation In Europe?; (40) Have You a Committee on Education and Recreation ?; (45) Schools and Stores. 27. 14. 16. 43. 61. 46. 11. 12. 18. 34. 30. 55. 57. S3. es. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 79. MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred). Subscription, per year (foreign, $1.25).... $1.00 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.) ........ Per Year, $1.50 BOOKS The following books are recommended as con taining the best discussion of the model i Coopera tive Movement. They may be ordered through The League, postpaid as follows: Bergengren, R. F.: Credit Union, A Cooper ative Banking Book .................. $1.50 Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement In Russia ............................... $2.50 Brlghtwlll, L. R.: Animal "Co-op" Book— For Children ........................ -15 Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers ............... 2.10 Flanagan J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation In Scotland, 1920 ........................ 2.10 Glde, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies, American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Cooperative Committees ............. Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound ... 2.00 2 BO .70 Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers ............ 1.10 Indian Cooperation, Children's story ...... .15 Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ....................... 8.10 Kayden, E. M., and Antslferov, A. Ft.: Cooperative Movement in Russia During the War ............................. 4.25 Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold ........ .85 Mears and Tobrlner: Principles and Prac tices of Cooperative Marketing ........ 3.30 .25 Nicholson, Isa: Our Story . Odhe, Thorsten: Finland, A Nation of Co- operators ............................. Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals and Problems ............................. Owen, Robert: Autobiography ............ Poisson, E.: The Cooperative Republic.... Potter, B.: Cooperative Movement In Great Britain ....................-..--•-•••• Redfern, Percy: The Story of the C. W. S. Redfern, Percy: The Consumers' Place In Society, 1920 .......................... 1-00 Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Recon struction In Ireland, 1918 ............ 1.00 Smith-Gordon and O'Brlen: Cooperation In Denmark ...................•••••••••- 1-10 Smith-Gordon and O'Brlen: Cooperation In Many Lands, 1920 .................... Stolinsky A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) ......................... Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, (1927") .. .. .......-.-..........."" Warbassei J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927 Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ...................... 3.50 Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Coopera tive Movement, 1921 .................. Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917 ..............-.......•••••••••••• Woolf, Leonard: Cooperation and the Fu ture • of Industry ..................... 1.65 Cooperation, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1931 inclusive, each ....................... 1.25 Report of the American Cooperative Con gresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 192«, 1928, each Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper.. The People's Year Book, 1932, Cloth, $1.35: paper bound .......................... Year Book of The Cooperative League, 193^. 1.50 1.35 .50 1.85 1.10 2.25 1.60 1.00 1.50 .75 6.00 1.60 1.00 .60 .SB .75 Raivaaja Publishing Co., Fitchburg, Mass. OPERATION gan of the Con- Movement in the sumers Cooperative United States Vol. XVIII, No. 3 MARCH, 1932 10 cents Cooperative Housing on the March m- -i ! THIS fine home for working class people, facing on Van Cort- landt Parfk, is the latest achievement of America's largest housing cooper ative, Amalgamated Housing Corpo ration, A.E. Kazan, president. Ground for this unit, which is No. 9 of the Amalgamated comimunilty, was bro ken last August and construction was completed in February. When our photo was taken the grounds had not yet been cleared, but as spring comes on sihrubbery and trees will appear about the building and throughout the spacious courts. The house contains 426 rooms and will accommodate 115 families; 103 have already moved in. The tenants 42 COOPERATION invest $425 per room, which is $75 less than was required in the first row of Amalgamated buildings. These co- operators also get electric refriger ators, all of which goes to prove that as cooperative housing expands, the cost to cooperators grows less. Half the $425 per 'room is paid in cash and half over a period of five years. The total cost of this building was about $550,000. Thus is accumulating the tangible proof in brick and mortar that city wage-earners can have model apart ments at the same rentals they have had to pay in drab .tenement houses. The Amalgamated group of buildings now contains 744 apartments, a small city. And indeed it is a much more rationaUy and socially organized city than any municipality. It is truly co operative, owned and controlled by the residents. All its many activities are motivated by the principle of "production for use, not for profit." But words are weak to describe this cooperative achievement. It has to be seen to be understood. Cocperators should make every effort to visit the Amalgamated community and to see with their own eyes the pioneering achievements that are being accom plished there. AMALGAMATED REDUCES RENTS A second reduction in rentals was announced by the Amalga mated Cooperative Apartments on February 1st. Rentals were cut on a sliding scale from 50 cents up to $4.50 a month per apartment, affecting 281 apartments in the first seven build ings. The first reduction two years ago, affected 130 apartments. The hope is to make such reductions from time to time, ttiowever small they may be, rather than accumulate large re serves over a period of years and then make large reductions. And so, since 1927, when the first unit was built, the average rental has been reduced from $11 per room per month, which is the legal maximum, to $9.65 per rooun per month. These gradual reductions, giving the residents the cash rewards of co operative ownership as they accrue, are particularly welcome during these tight money times. EASTERN STATES HOLDS HOUSING CONFERENCE A conference on housing, and on prospects for cooperative dis tribution of food products in New York City, with especial attention to milk, was held under the auspices of the Eastern States Cooperative League in New York, February 28th. The speakers at the housing session, held in the mornling, were Dr. Edith Elmer Wood, author of "Recent Trends in American Housing" and an international authority on housing; Aaron Rabinowitz, of the New York State Board of Housing; and A. E. Kazan, of the Amalgamated Housing Corporation. Mr. Kazan presented his plans for a general, cooperative housing fund to make it easier for cooperators to buy homes in coopera tive housesi At the afternoon session, Meyer Rubinson, president of the Eastern Cooperative Wholesale, described the present work of the Wholesale; S. H. Farfoer, writer for the Jewish Daily Forward, described the operations of the farm owned by the Amalgamated Housing Corporation; H. J. Rosner, research secretary of the City Affairs Committee, pictured tihe present sit uation in milk distribution in New York; Oscar Cooley spoke on cooper ative milik distribution outside of New York; and A. E. Kazan presented a far-reaching plan for city-wide re tail distribution of milk by a cooper ative in New York City. Leslie Wood cock was chairman of this session. A lively discussion followed the speak ers. COOPERATION 43 COO PERATI O N An organ to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, produce and dis tribute for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U. S. A., 167 West 12th St., New York City.___________________ _____OS€AR COOLEY, Editor_____ Entered as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., un der the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. Our Aims DO you really believe that the cooperative movement is ca pable of bringing about a complete re-creation of society?" asked a friend of mine as we were sitting over coffee the other day. "I certain ly do," was my reply. "Else I would not be in it. I am not interested in palliatives. Mouthwash is nio good for tuberculosis." "Then," said he, "why don't you of fer it to people on that basis?" This set the editor to thinking. The result was several questions!, to which the readers of COOPERATION are in vited to contribute answers: Are members of cooperative socie ties really conscious of the revolu tionary character of the change which they are working for? What is the nature of this change? Are the American people, primarily the working class, ready to respond to a program which over a period of time would completely re-create hu man society? To what extent is it practicable to present tine cooperative program as such a long-term revolution? To what extent should our propa ganda be restricted to the immediate, bTead-iand-ibutter aspects of the movement? In answering these questions let us be realistic. Let us realize that thou sands of people can 'be 'persuaded to buy a new toothpaste more easily than a (hundred can be enlisted in a long-range movement. Remember how quickly the war psychology was generated in 1917. And could be again. The people are swayed by simple emotions. We must find ways to approach them in their own terms. What are tihose ways? Consumers must meet producers half-way The farmers of Vermont, who sup ply the greater part of the milk con sumed in Boston, are netting only about two cents a quart this winter. They have long been organized in the New England Milk Producers Associa tion, but this has never got past the stage of being merely an organization to dicker with the big milk compa nies, Hood and Whiting, with the latter always holding the whip hand. Milk "strikes" have been called, and the milk has been poured on the land as fertilizer, but in vain; the com panies have always been able to hold out longest, snipping in milk from Canada and other points when neces sary. "Surplus!" the companies cry, whenever the NEMPA approaches them for a better price. There un doubtedly is a suorplus, at the .price the companies make to the consumer. How much could consumption be in creased by lowering the price? No one knows; they have no experience upon which to base an answer to that question. During these times espe cially, it would be worth trying. The entire history of the farmers' struggle in New England is impres sive evidence that an agricultural producers' cooperative can accom plish little so long as the market re mains in control of profit concerns. The hope of the future is a con sumers' cooperative, which will come out to meet the farmers half-way, as is being done in England at the pre sent time, and thus reduce the enor mous spread between milk prices to producer and to consumer caused by the present absurd competition be tween companies and their equally absurd profits. 44 COOPERATION Getting Acquainted An open letter to the readers of Cooperation Oscar Oooley Secretary of the Cooperative "League of the U. S. A. I FELLOW-Go- operators: i Please pardon a liberal use of the pronoun "I" in the following. I have recently come on the job as Secre tary of the League. «,•--- m Yo11 are naturally curious to know what kind of person I am and what action you may now expect from the Secretary's office. You have a perfect right to such informattiion, and I will try to tell you as best I can. In consumers' cooperation we have a philosophy and a technique capable of bringing about a complete regener ation of human society. That is my conviction, after considerable study and observation. And so for several months I have been certain that sooner or later I must throw in my lot, somehow, somewhere, with the , cooperative movement. I am rather ashamed, in fact, to have been out of it so long. Why have I been? Simply for lack of the beck oning hand. And I believe that ap plies to many others outside the movement. Either they know nothing about cooperation, or they see no way to help. Here I have a bone to pidk with cooperators: They are too prone to hide their light under a bushel. Millions of people in this country have never heard of consumers' coopera tion. Hundreds of thousands of po tential allies are still in the dark, wrestling with an impossible eco nomics which at this 'moment has them practically floored. Here lie both an opportunity and a respon sibility, neither of which we of the cooperative movement have accepted. It is high time we did. We are the possessors of an idea, a truly big idea, capable of bringing hope to a people wellnigh hopeless. We must carry the idea to them. How much longer are we going to sit tight and wait for something to happen? The Cooperative League of the U. S. A. must lead the way. The League is the central organization of the co operative movement. As such it should, of course, to its fullest ability lend power to the arm of every ex isting cooperative society. But more than that, it should be, as I see it, an active, aggressive, even militant or ganization for the spread of propa ganda for the cooperative idea. Haven't we faith in that idea? There have been failures, true, but do we lack proof of its success and of its basic soundness at home and abroad? Are we overawed by the numbers of the enemy? Are we waiting for this country to become even more des perately ill before we offer the reme dy? '"These are times that try men's souls," wrote Tom Payne in 1774. They certainly are, Tom, right now in 1932. The cooperative movement is a de mocratic movement, the democratic movement. Its very essence is faith in the people, in all the people. Then it should be presented to all the peo ple, just as rapidly as possible, in lan guage they Will understand. Nor does this imply any high-pressure sales manship. This Paper In my position with the League, I am editor of this paper, COOPERATION. With the help and advice of others, I hope to make it a powerful organ of the consumers' cooperative move ment. This is a national movement, the League is a national league, and COOPERATION 45- its organ should be a national organ. Which meians that its contents should be representative of news and thought throughout the movement, and it should be presented in such a style as to get the widest possible cir culation. Controversy is welcomed— ample space will be provided for "letters .to the editor." But the League, so far as I am concerned, will go slow about entering into controversy. The League stands for one thing, first, last and all ithe time—the advancement of the consumers' cooperative move ment in the United States. I ask your help in building up this publication, both in improving its contents and in boosting its circula tion. Send us the news of cooperation in your sector. What are you doing, and thinking, in your society? What are the women's guilds doing? the youth clubs? What methods of man agement, of publicity, of labor hand ling, do you find successful, unsuc cessful? Let's put things into COOPER ATION which other cooperators can use. Let's put facts, statistics, logic, a touch of humor into it. Above all, let's put life into it. Let's discuss real issues. And then let's read it and pass it on to our friends. Subscribe to it and ask them to subscribe, so that we will have increasing means to make it better and better. COOPER ATION should be one of the sharpest tools in the cooperative kit. We have other tools in the way of printed literature, but we need more, and sharper. We need pamphlets to suit every class of reader. We need more corirespondence courses, posters and booto. Where are the writers, the theorists and the technicians? Where are the masters of English who can tell the story of cooperation in one- syllable words that will stir the masses? Who will translate coopera tion into a form that will catch the imagination of youth? Who will write a novel, a play, a poem, a movie scenario about cooperation? The American people are worship pers of science. They are impatient with theory, they want facts—simple,- concrete machinery which they can see, handle and work with. Coopera tion offers them that machinery,, painstakingly developed over a hun dred years, tested and proven step by step, not perfect by any means but a scientific marvel beside of the bunch of scrap iron the capitalist world is trying to work with today. Here Are Some of the Facts Fact No. 1. The Cooperative Store. This is the economic center of the cooperative community. The people build it, the people run it, the .people come to it to secure their bread. Its object: The best possible goods at the lowest possible prices. This simple piece of machinery can be under stood by the stupidest of the species. Fact No. 2. The Cooperative Whole sale. The natural extension of the store. The store must have a source of supply. The wholesale—also built and run by the people—provides such •a source, not for one store but for many. Its object: Even better goods, at even lower prices. No waste, no- duplication. Not hard to grasp, is it? Fact No. 3. Cooperative Production. Factory, mine, plantation, usually fathered by the wholesale. Or set up by the operatives. The ultimate link with the land, source of all produc tion. Also people-owned, people-oper ated. For whose benefit? For the (benefit of the people, naturally, whose wants call it inlto existence. All this is simple machinery, evolved and' tested in the laboratories of a dozen countries. Fact No. 4. Cooperative Economic Philosophy. That all industry should be performed in the interest of the one for whom its product is intended, the consumer. Who can police this perf ormiance best, who more logically than the consumer himself? Here we get into the realm of ideas., but sure ly not an idea that takes an intel lectual genius to understand! These are facts for your American fact-worshipper. Meat to set his teeth- 46 COOPERATI ON into. Tools to take in hand. College president or mill worker, he can easily grasp these. He can, that is, if they are held out to him. That is our job. I may seem to overstress the need for .publicity. Perhaps it has been un- derstressed in the past. Perhaps co- operators have been so busy building cooperative businesses that they have not found time to ask for the cooper ation of others. Publicity should ac company business building. That is especially true of this movement, for consumers' cooperation depends on purchasing power, that is, numbers. If cooperation is to grow it musit, have a constant influx of numbers. It must have more leaders and workers, too, good brains and trained ha that, "the divi sion of labor itself is cooperation on a splendid scale." This is interesting, but the authors do not explain just what becomes of the .people whose jobs are divided among the new ma chines in industry. Next we come to "Cooperative Mar keting," and learn that, "It is .prob able that tihe marketing system needs improvement in many points." The farmers are told how to get more money from the consumers, and the Federal Farm Board, appointed .by the Great Engineer, is looked to as the farmers' hope. Then comes "Consumers' Coopera tion." This is what we are looking for. Now we shall have the light of the master mindis of economics thrown upon this subject. With eager hands we turn to pages 710 and 711. Here is the academic classification: "Voluntary cooperation takes many different forms, among which we may distinguish: (1) distributive or con sumers' cooperation, sometimes spoken of as cooperative buying; (2) cooperative borrowing or cooperative credit; (3) cooperative marketing; COOPERATION 55 and (4) producers' or pure coopera tion." "Consumers' cooperation, coopera tive borrowing, and cooperative mar keting are not of direct concern in a discussion of the agencies for the prevention of industrial disputes. Consumers' or distributive coopera tion is merely a method of retail or wholesale exchange in which the pur chasers come together to purchase what they need and thus lessen their outlays. Usually they form a stock company, subscribe for shares, em ploy a manager and clerks,—who often do not even share in the profits, —and start a business." This is all they say about con sumers cooperation. They seem to know no further than that it is mere ly a method of buying. A dollar-a- year subscription to any cooperative periodical would have saved these eminent professors from this crude ignorance of facts and principles. Some Are Learning But there are many college stud ents, despite their teachers, who are finding out that the aim and tenden cy of cooperation is to produce and distribute for use. It is a sad fact that most college 'teachers do not know that in many countries some of the largest .productive Industries are own ed and run by organized consumers, that this movement is well! etablished in over forty lands and is growing in all parts of the world. In some coun tries these consumer-owned indus tries are the largest and most suc cessful in the land. This means not only bakeries and other food fac tories, but clothing, housing neces sities, chemicals, automobiles and everything that .people need. It means houses, theaters, and hospitals. It means the control of service, such as banking, insurance, and the supply of electric power .and light, telephone service, and transportation by land and sea. It means ownership and control of raw materials such as forests for wood, for building, for box es and matches. It means coal mines, farms and plantations the world over. And above all, it means the national and international union of these consumers Into the most stable inter national organization in the world, an organization which is moving on toward the substitution of service for profit business, and toward the elimination of the causes of indus trial disorders. The ancient doctrines which are promulgated by such books .as are used in the colleges would look with favor upon the workers in the great cooperative industries owning the in dustries and running them to make profits from the millions of con sumers. But these teachers have ap parently failed to learn that the largest flour mills, for example, in Sweden, are owned by the coopera tive consumers' societies. These col lege professors evidently would not favor the idea of supplying the mil lions of consumers with food at cost, nor would they consider this to be a more significant enterprise than the ma'klng of profits for the relatively few workers who might own the mills. It is a bit discouraging to find teachers deprecating the cooperative practice of employing managers and clerks, "who often do not share in the profits," when there are no profits in tended and when these employees are better paid than in other forms of business. I do not wonder that college stu dents sometimes come to me and ask: "How is It that I have1 studied economics for four years and have never before heard of these important facts about the cooperative move ment?" We read on in Professor Ely's book, under the heading "Labor Problems": "The limited significance of the co operative movement Is indicated by the fact that the employees of tlhe British Cooperative societies have formed themselves into a trade union for the betterment of the conditions of their employment." Now the book 56 COOPERATION begins to be amusing. This is pure waggery. The one class of employers of labor in the world that encourage their em ployees to organize, and in many in stances require them to be members of trade unions, are the cooperative societies. The trade union to which British cooperative employees belong, the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, has mutual agreements with the British Cooper ative Union and a joint board for purposes of arbitration. Producers' Cooperation •Here is more academic humor: "The one variety of cooperation which really attempits to. alter or amend the wage system is producers' cooperation." Then the professors go on to relate the sad fact that success ful producers' cooperation is rarely met with. Most experiments in pro ducers' cooperation have failed, and we fear they will continue to fail." They explain why this producers' or "pure" cooperation cannot succeed in its competition with capitalistic business. The best of these "self-governing workshops," or labor-owned indus tries, accomplish one specific thing: They make successful capitalists of the workers. But this success rests upon the profit system,. It is built upon the profits they make from the needs of the other workers. They do not change the motive of industry. It is only when industry is owned by the consumers that its motive is changed from that of profit to serv ice. Why are most professors of eco nomics not enough interested in co operation to inform themselves of its simple facts? Because cooperation does not fit into the general pattern of academic economics. The statis tics, the theories, the figures, the methods of theoretical economics are based on profit business. Every pro fessor has his own theories, hobbies, and predilections. And cooperation upsets .them all. It is utterly different. It makes more or less useless the ar duous years of study and outlay these teachers have given to their educa tion. It ,1s a nuisance and an annoy ance. Only the rare economists, with elasticity of mind, are willing to tole rate it at all. Academic education fortunately has some of this latter type. It is through them that thousands of col lege students are learning something of the new economics and catching a glimpse of a different economic order even now in the making. How Northern States Co-ops Are Faring REPORTS coming to the Northern States League office indicate the reduction in sales and in net gain of our affiliated co operative societies during 1931. It is evident tthait both sales and net gain haive dropped in most cases more in 1931 than in 1930. To quote a few instances, sales of the Prentice Cooperative Supply Company of Prentice, Wis., were $52,653 for 1931 as against $67,364 for 1930. The .net Joss for 1931 was $255.78 as against a loss of $90.58 for 1930. Talking everything into consideration •the (Prentice Cooperative has weathered the two bad years quite well. The Union Mercantile Company of Isanti, Minn., (had combined merchandise and pro duce Bales for the year 1831 .of $44,079 as against $66,522 for 1930. However, in their case the loss for (the yeao- was smaller in 193,1 than in 1930, due to, «he efforts of the board of directors and the management to reduce expenses and increase efficiency. The sales of the People's Oooperaltive So ciety of Superior, Wis., dropped from $79,281 for 1930 to $77,997 for 19311. In this case the drop was really rvery small considering the circumstances and without question the volume of merchandise handled in 1931 was larger Itham the volume handled in 1930. The net gain in their case decreased from $3,284 for 1930 to $2,965 for 193d. The sales of the Farmers' Cooperative Mercantile Association of Kettle River, Minn., dropped from $89,691 for 1930 to $6,1,864 for 19311. Their net gain decreased COOPERATION 57 from $4,904 for 1930 to $1,987 for 1931. The Wentrworth Farmers' Cooperative As sociation is one of itihe ivery few cooperative societies which show a better financial result for 1831 than for the previous year. For the year of 19,30 Wenitiworth showed a gain of only one dollar while for 1931 the gain was $1,161.81. This 'surprising increase was chiefly due to successful trucking operations carried on by' the .organization in hauling milk for their members and patrons to Duluth and Superior. This substantial increase hi net gain is ithe more gratifying in view of the fact that the sales of (the Wentworth Coop, decreased from $27,,050 in 1930 to $22,240 in 1931. Of the cooperative store societies in Min nesota which are not yet affiliated with our League we have information from 1)wo. The sa/Ies of the State Line Farmers' Cooperative Company of Bmmons, Minn., decreased from $34,515 hi 1930 to $31,720 in 1931. Their net loss for 1931 was $1,133..30 as compared with a loss of $306.70 for the year of 1930. The League is doing auditing for this organiza tion. We have also learned about a cooperative store of which the League office knew nothing previously, tihe United Farmers' Exchange of Fulda, Minn. Their sales for the year of 1929 were $62,345, while for 1931 they were only $37,688. While in 1929 itiheir net earnings were $3,28355, they 'showed a loss for the year of 1931 amounting to $2>064.22. None of the four stores mentioned that sustained an operating loss for the last year or two is in a (precarious condition financially because they have all been wise enough to accumulate reserve funds. V. S. A. Cooperation Abroad CREDIT TRADING, A CAUSE OF DEPRESSIONS How credit trading has helped ag gravate the depression is well told by a writer in the Cooperative News, England: "The capitalist system is built up on credit. Governments have borrowed for war purposes, businesses have borrowed for development pur poses. Every enterprise is in debt to someone. This has meant failure, crisis, and panic. The cooperative movement is not built up on credit. Its buildings, its plants, its raw ma terials are paid for out of its own re sources. It does not borrow from others, it depends on itself. Therefore cooperative societies stand erect and firm, while capitalist businesses tot ter and fall. They will continue to stand firm in the midst of crisis if their members stand firm for .cooper ative principles." OLD-AGE PENSIONS FOR CO-OP EMPLOYEES English Cooperatives are recogniz ing more and more the need of old- age pension plans for employees. In 1922 there were seven societies with superannuation schemes covering some 3000 employees. Now, out of 1210 retail societies, 120 have suidh schemes, covering some 90,000 em ployees. The large societies especial ly see the need for old-age pensions. Out of eighty-three societies with more than 500 employees each, fifty have insurance schemes. Of those having over 1000 employees only six have not yet put such insurance in to operation. Of the productive and wholesale societies eighty-three per cent of the employees are covered. GROUP LIFE INSURANCE The National Cooperative Men's Guild of Great Britain provides group life insurance for its members where by they pay 26 shillings ($4.86) for £100 ($375) life insurance. COOPERATORS AND TARIFFS British cooperators are apparently backing up the "Buy British Goods" movement in that country. The Co operative Union has recently issued a poster reading "250,000 British workers earn good wages in coopera tive factories and stoops. Buy their products here and help the nation." And yet cooperators are the only group who take a positive stand against tariffs. The "Buy British" movement is an attempt to restrict international trade by means of propaganda; tariffs accomplish the same result by law. 58 COOPERATION COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE IN INDIA To protect themselves against ex ploitation by private dealers in the Punjab, the agricultural population have formed agricultural marketing societies or commission shops. These shops sell tihe products grown by the members of agricultural cooperative societies. Members bring in their pro duce at any time, and the shops, with the aid of money borrowed from the Central Cooperative Bank, pay three- fourths of the value of tihe goods on delivery and the balance when they are sold. There are now twenty-four of these cooperative commission shops, having 3,286 Individual and 1,273 societies as members. Good Reading THE SOCIAL UNIVERSE, by Arthur Wallace Calhoun. 171 pps. $1.75. The Vanguard Press, New York. STIMULATING book, by a sociologist and cooperate at heart and for merly in action. Professor GaJshoun once lectured on cooperation at Band School. This book is an economic Interpretation, not simply of history but of art, literature, reli gion, in fact every activity of man. A few quotations will show Ciailhoun's close kinship to cooperative thouglht: "Common sense has taught us that team work is the only solvent of human problems, yet our current social order, while paying lip-service to cooperation, is rooted in com petition and conflict." "Instead of resorting in a random way to hit ocr miss jHroposails for miscellaneous re form, we should .... get in on tlhe ground floor by control of the economic sytem." "Government is bound to be a tool of the dominant economic class and no amount of jockeying can change the fact." "The next -transfer of power must be from the hands of Property to the hands of La bor; not that the working-class is nicer, or nobler, or purer, or lovelier, or brighter, or sharper, but merely that it is next in order of historical succession." Speaking of psychoanalysts and -their ef forts to "ad/just" people, he says: "Better be outright craay than be calmly poised in an unsocial universe." This book appears to be directed at in effectual intellectuals, advising them to throw in 'fiheir lot, actively, wStih the consumers movement. THE FALLACY OP PROFITS — Is There Room for Them in the National Economy? An ar ticle toy Henry Pratt PairdhQd in February Harper's. A MASTERLY exposition of the inevitable breaking down of the profit system. The depression will not have been in vain so long as it causes these college professors to come out so strongly with the philosophy of cooperative economics! (Fairchild is profes sor of sociology at New York Universitjy.) For instance: "We have in this country a productive plant capable, if continuously and efficiently operated, of turning out about four times the amount of goods that we now produce. Wlhat colossal folly to imagine that we can increase our wealth and promote our pros perity by increasing this plant!" " . . . . we have been, trained for a century and a .half to think of ourselves as producers instead of consumers — one of the most re markable instances of inverted logic on a large scale that mankind has ever dis played." iProfessor Fairchild has long been a friend of the cooperative movement. Power to his able pen! BRITAIN'S CONSUMERS KEEP SHOP, by H. Napier Moore. Pamphlet published :by the Cooperative Union of Canada, Brantford, Ont. Price 10 cents. R- MOORE, editor of MaoLean's Maga- zine, while in England last year became interested in the cooperative move ment. This pamphlet, which originally ap peared as an article in MacLean's, is the result. It is a good picture of the British movement, from the pen of one who would not be expected to foe partial toward it. Having pictured the size of the movement, Mr. Moore continues : "How, in times of depression, does this colossus of trade and finance uphold itself? It has ihad its -trials. In the slump of 1921, for instance, loaded with heavy stocks of goods and with stupendous commitments and stag gered by the rapid fall of prices, the C. W. S. lost in .twelve months, besides its reserves, more than $35,000,000. Yet its •members never lost faith. At ithe beginning of 1930 losses had been made good, reserves 'had been re habilitated, and the structure restored com pletely. And in those 'trying years was paid interest on every dollar of capital, share and loan, invested in the C. W. S." COOPERATION 59 All true cooperators patronize THE NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION (Established 1897) A strictly cooperative life insurance institution. Member of the Northern States Cooperative League. All standard forms of life insurance contracts written. Funeral Benefit and Disability insurance for only $1.00 a month! WE CAN INSURE YOU BY MAIL without medical examination! For full particulars clip this coupon and mail it to: NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION, Grand Rapids, Mich. Name: . Address: STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence courses prepared and conducted by experienced cooperators are now ready. For full particulars, write THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th St. New York City FIRE INSURANCE ON YOUR FURNITURE SAFE—ECONOMICAL—COOPERATIVE WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY 227 East 84th St., New York, N. Y. Member of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A. Under supervision of N. Y. State Insurance Department. The Cooperative Builder An official organ of CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE An interesting and lively cooperative journal published semi-monthly at Superior, Wis. Subscribe now! Subscription rate $1.00 per year. CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE Superior, Wis. The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under the auspices of The Co operative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPERATION for one year to $1.00 a year Name--. Address- 100 COOPERATION STUDY CONSUMERS' COOPERATION The books and pamphlets listed below are available through The Cooperative League. Read them and pass them on to your fr'ends HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 38. Consumers Cooperation in the United States (ilius.), 1930.... .10 3.00 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase) ...................... .05 4.00 TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .25 15.00 6. Model By-Laws for a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .05 2.50 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson) .............. .50 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apartment House ............ .10 MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law ........ .10 30. "When the Whistle Blew" (Story, by Bruce Calvert) .......... 06 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Differs from Ordinary Business .02 .85 62. Buttons (League emblem), % inch diameter ............... .05 2.00 63. Sign or Transparency of League Emblem. Green and gold, 8 in. diameter .................... .25 15.00 €7. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250 68. To Mothers ................... .02 1.00 70. Farmers' Cooperation, A Way Out: An addiress by L. S. Herron. . .05 4.00 72. "Little Lessons in Cooperation" 35 74. The Burden of Credit ......... .02 1.00 75. What is the Cooperative Store.. .03 2.00 76. What is Consumers' Cooperation .05 4.00 77. The Most Necessary Thing in Life ......................... .02 1.00 78. Are You Sure You Are Getting Your Money's Worth ........ .02 1.00 79. There Are Two Sides to Every Counter ...................... .02 1.00 80. Consumers', Credit, and Produc tive Societies, BiilL .531 of the Bureau of Labour Statistics.. .25 81. Cooperative Youth Songs ...... .26 Two New Pamphlets "WHAT IS CONSUMERS' CO OPERATION?" Reprint of article in September COOPERA TION by Dr. J. P. Warbasse and "COOPERATION THE WAY OUT" Address delivered before the Midland Co operative Oil Association by L. S. Herron Both 5 cents per single copy, $4.00 per 100 Order from THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street New York City MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred). Subscription, per year (foreign, $1.25).... $1.00 REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.) ........ Per Year, $1.50 BOOKS The following books are recommended as con taining the best discussion of the model i Coopera tive Movement. They may be ordered through The League, postpaid as follows: Bergengren, R. P.: Credit Union, A Cooper ative Banking Book .................. J1.50 Bianc, Eisie T.: Cooperative Movement in Russia ...................'............ 2.50 Brightwill, L. R.: Animal "Co-op" Book— For Children ........................ .15 Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers ............... 2.10 Fianagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland. 1920 ........................ 2.10 Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies, American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth 2.00 Hail, Prof. Fred: Hani/'book for Members of Cooperative Committees ............. 250 Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers ............ 1.10 Indian Cooperation, Children's story ...... .15 Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ....................... 3.10 Kayden, E. M., and Antsiferov, A. N.: Cooperative Movement in Russia During the War ............................. 4.25 Life As We Have Kn.own It Life stories of English guildswomen, telling what the Guild has done for them.. 1.25 Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold ........ .85 Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Prac tices of Cooperative Marketing ........ 3.30 Nicholson, Isa: Our Story ................ .25 Oclhe, Thorsttn: Finland, A Nation of Co- operators ............................. 1.50 Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals and Problems ............................. 1.35 Owen, Robert: Autobiography ........... ,75 Poisson, E.: The Cooperative Republic.... 1.85 Potter, B.: Cooperative Movement in Great Britain ............................... 1.10 Redfern, Percy: The Story of the C. W. S. 2.25 Redfern, Percy: The Consumers' Place in Society, 1920 .......................... 1.00 Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Recon struction In Ireland, 1918 ............ 1.00 Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark ............................. 1.10 Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920 .................... 1.60 Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) ......................... 1.00 Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, (1927) ............................... 1.50 Warbasse, J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927 .75 Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ...................... S.50 Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Coopera tive Movement, 1921 .................. 6.00 Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917 .................................. 1.60 Woolf, Leonard: Cooperation and the Fu ture of Industry ..................... 1.65 Cooperation, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1931 inclusive, each ....................... 1.25 The People's Year Book, 1932, Cloth. 51-35; paper bound .......................... .85 Year Book of The Cooperative League, 1932. .75 Raivaaja Print—Fitchburg, Mass. COOPERATION Organ; of the Con- MAY 101932 Movement in the sumers Cooperative United States Vol. XVin, No. 5 MAY, 1932 10 cents Definitions \VHAT is this thing, Cooperation? 1. It is an idea. Ideas are the most powerful forces m the world. 2. It is a denial of the idea that now rules the world, Greed. 3. It is an ordered system for taking the conspicuous waste of the rich and putting it in the mouths of the hungry. 4. It is a demonstrated method of placing man as consumer in control of the sources of consumable goods. 5. It is a rain watering the economic desert. 6. It is a plant, indigenous in men's minds, springing up every where as a result of the oppression of industrialism. 7. It is a brand burning brightly in the minds of hundreds, smol dering in the minds of thousands, ready to kindle in the minds of millions. 8. It is the disinfectant for killing the parasites in industry. 9. It is the solution that dissolves the conflict between producers and consumers, by showing them that they are one. 82 COOPERATION COO PERATI D N An organ to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, produce and dis tribute for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U. S. A., 167 West 12th St., New York City. ~ OSCAR COOLEY, Editor Entered as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., un der the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. How Much Salary Should a Coop erative Executive Receive? QENATOR BORAH opened a subject «^ of vital interest to the coopera tive movement when 'he let loose his blast against the high salaries and commissions (paid to executives of "cooperatives"-$75,000 to E. F. Creek- more of the American Cotton Cooper ative Association and $50,000 to George Milnor of the Farmers Na tional Grain Corporation. Farm Board leaders immediately came to the de- fenise. Than their answers nothing could show up more clearly the dif ference in economic philosophy be tween purely nominal cooperatives and consumers, cooperatives. "Look at the salaries drawn by pri vate dealers in cotton and grain!" cried Mr. Stone indignantly. Yes, look at them, Mr. Stone. We have been looking at them for some time and we have also been looking at the $1,018,- 000 stipend of President George Hill of the American Tobacco Company, as well as others of his type—and we have also been looking at the millions of people whose salaries are zero and who consequently are not able to buy a cent's worth of your stored cotton and grain, or of Mr. Hill's tobacco.. Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Stone, that because Mr. Creekmore drew $75,000 last year and Mr. Milnor $50,- 000, and Luclky Strike Hill a cool mil lion and so on, Is the very reason the National Grain Corporation is not able to dispose of its wheat and the Cotton Association is not able to sell its, cotton for love or money? The highest paid, highest powered execu tives in the world can not move those commodities until tthe nation's wealth is distributed to the point that the people can buy; and when it is so distributed, executives of the most unpretentious pedigree will be able to move them. Is it our imagination, or do we sense, in the attactks on these sala ries a suggestion of indignation that such princely sums should be drawn by heads of "cooperatives?" Even our Senators seem to catch a glimmer of the fact that a cooperative is slightly different from a capitalist concern, that it is working in the interests of the people, not oi individual amassers of wealth. If so, are not these Sena tors in a more advanced stage of in tellectual development than certain of their opponents? A true coopera tive consists of the people, is run In/ the people, and its benefits are for the people. On the other hand, a cap italist concern consists of a small number of money-seeking promoters, is run by them and for their own benefit. "The public be damned!" is its philosophy, expressed or unex pressed. This difference is quite obvious in a consumers cooperative. Consumers cooperation stands for a better dis tribution of wealth. Obviously it does, for it says thumbs down on both profits and high salaries, the two things which concentrate rather than distribute wealth. It gives the "prof its" back to the consumer. It pays decent salaries but it frankly aslks management to work not for salary but for the more truly substantial re ward of satisfaction in a good job well done, and done not for a whip-crack ing overlord but for the people. Where Your Money Goes The Great and Glorious A & P made $29,792,975 net last year. Every dollar of profit made in a chain store is a dollar wrung from the pockets of the poor, who have to shop COOPERATION 83 on price, and poured into the pockets of the rich, who use it for speculation —which in turn doubles and re doubles *he throes of depression. Every dollar of "profit" made in a co operative store is a dollar returned to the poor who gave it, replenishing their purchasing power, which in turn prevents and alleviates depres sion. Another Angle Another .thought in connection with A & P 'is this: Big as the above profit is, it represents but 2.95 cents on each dollar of sales. Which means that if the A & P were a cooperative, assuming that costs of operation were 'the same as at present—which they might not be—it could not have re bated to consumers more than 2.95%. The A & P has operated on less than 3% net for the last 8 years.. It has 15,- 670 stores. The question arises: How can cooperative stores, of much smaller size and presumably lower ef ficiency, compete with a concern which operates on such a narrow .margin of net? Is it not time that this troubling question was threshed out in the pages of Cooperation? Cooperation, or Starvation? Plans by which bread-line humani ty may rehabilitate itself on the land are boiling and seething in different parts of the country. In Minnesota an ambitious scheme for establishing 200 workless families on 25,000 acres of tax-delinquent land 'is being pushed by the Direct Relief Commit tee of Minneapolis and cooperative leaders. Each family would be ex pected to pay for its plot over a pe riod of 25 years. It is said that $100,- 000 is in sight to buy equipment. The plan is to make the community as nearly self-sufficient as possible. It would include schools, manufacturing plants, stores, homes, recreational centers, medical clinics, etc., all to be run on a consumers cooperative basis. An experienced farmer would be em ployed as manager, working under a management board elected by the members oi the cooperative. A similar plan is being discussed by New Yorik cooperators, under the lead of Leland Olds. This group visualizes the decentralization of cities during the next generation and the building of genuine cooperative rural commu nities. These communities would dif fer from communistic "colonies" of the past, which have not been con spicuously successful, in that certain activities, such as those immediately surrounding the homestead and gar den, would be carried on individually, and only those involving large-scale operations, which could obviously best be done collectively, would be so done. In this latter class, for example, would come pasturage of stock, rais ing of field crops, and such marketing as is necessary, as well as recreational and cultural activities in a communi ty center, and industrial activities in craft shops or factories during the winter months. This combination of the individual and the collective it is thought would appeal to the Ameri can psychology which resists 100% collectivism. A plan is on foot for the organiza tion of a 50-family unit this year. It is believed that such a project can be financed on a loan basis for little if any more than the "dole" to these families will amount to in a corres ponding period of time. And such" a plan would bring permanent rather than merely temporary relief. These plans are arising from the conviction that is seeping into 'peo ple's minds that the "depression" is with us to stay and that fundamental changes in ways of living are neces sary to permit survival. Since large- scale, capitalist production has brought on the disease, many are coming to believe that small-scale, cooperative production, to meet the needs of the community, is the reme dy. 84 COOPERATION With the League Secretary on the Road Oscar Cooley APRIL 1, 1932: I have just re turned from one of the most in teresting experiences of my life. For three weeks I (have walked and talked with the Headers in cooperative thought and action in the very heart of "Cooperation Belt," ithe Middle- West. From southern, Ohio to the prairies of Nebraska, from the Me- satoe Range to Sault S,te. Marie, it has been my privilege to touch the poles of contact in tine minds of these men and women and to .measure the varying strengths of current which are impelling them all on toward the one ideal, the Cooperative Common wealth. It has been an absorbing and an inspiring experience. There is a ferment of thought throughout these states. Nor is. it by any means confined to tine organized consumers' movement. Much of this thought is "up in the air"; much is without direcitlion. But it is all feeding its way toward the cooperative guide- post. If you should ask these thinkers and actors precisely what they want, not all would give you the same reply, and many of the replies would be vague. But a host of pilgrims are on iJ O Indiana farmers 'breaking ground for their own cooperative oil station the road, and unless, my guess is ut terly wrong, the eventual goal of their pilgrimage will be Rochdale. "My mother wanted me to be a minister," said Henry Negley to me in Omaha. "I aim. My gospel is Coopera tion," "What 'do you think of Coopera tion?" said I to Mr. Wescott in the Soo. Back came the answer without a moment's hesitation., "Cooperation is the entire solution of the world's problems." When I got back to my desk, I read in the report of I. H. Hull, general manager of the Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association,: "The heart aches, of a suffering world, a world en slaved to the powerful forces of greed, gasping as our unbalanced economic order totters and reels; those heart aches are driving us, today to unite our forces .more closely than ever be fore to restore economic balance in industry and economic and social jus tice to, manikind. As Individuals our burdens are greater than we can bear. But we have discovered a way by uniting in one common brotherhood to bear one another's burdens. Our future progress and success will be measured by the de gree to which we are able to forget selfish, personal or group in- A terest and unite to ;: help each other." -^v?. ^ I submit that ... . 1, ,-,: things are stirring. ' •.:.. ':•%-•„*:" Tariffs "•*...- ..';--,. In the past farmers •*•" " have not been con spicuous in their op position to 'tariffs— ; " and probably are not now. But I attended a district meeting of COOPERATION 85 the Farmers Union in Nebraska at which a resolution, was brought in "That all tariffs be abolished." One man got up and objected, saying that he was willing to have tariffs on manufactured goods abolished but be hanged if he thought they should favor doing away with tariffs on wheat, eggs, etc. Others, however, in sisted that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, and the resolution was passed. Score one for the cooperative (movement, which is unequivocal in its stand for free trade. In Indiana., as in most of these states, there is a well developed farm ers' cooperative for •marketing live stock, doing excellent work. But I was interested to hear Lee Highlen and Anson Thoimas, director and field man respectively, point out the lim itations of such a producers' co-op. It seems that the manager of their Buffalo agency had a particularly nice bunch of heifers and he resolved to follow them through to the con sumer. He sold them to a packer for 6l/2 cents a pound; they cost the packer 12 cents "on the hook"; and the packer sold them to a Buffalo butcher for 10 cents, Not much prof iteering yet. But the manager went to said butcher's shop and bought some cuts, 2 pounds of sirloin and a pound .of hamburger. Cost $1.20. "There you see what is stopping us," said Mr. Highlen, "the retail butcher's margin, We cian market the stock co operatively. We can even kill, process and wholesale it, but we can't retail it. That is up to the city consumer." I agreed. It was a challenge. The farmers are fast developing their end of the machine; can we consumers say the same? The farmer has always been pro duction-minded. He has good reason to be, for who is more of a "producer" than he? But he is first of all a con sumer, like all the rest of us, and he is coming to appreciate that fact. His marketing) cooperatives are accom plishing a great deal in getting him more return for his products, but so long as he is hindered by the profit autocrats from translating that re turn into consumable goods for him self and his family, the possibilities of his marketing cooperatives are dis tinctly limited. He is coming to see •v . ...... vi'-'-ifiir: «$ _ ; rj£ Oil station at Mora, Minn., affiliated with Midland. Those baskets in foreground are patronage refund checks that, too. And as a result, many of his marketing cooperatives, from the Land O'Laikes Creameries to the Washington Cooperative Egg & Poul try Association, are going into pur chasing, and he is setting up dozens of independent purchasing coopera tives. The cooperative oil movement is spreading like the dawn. For ex ample, the Indiana Farm Bureau Co operative Association distributed in 1930, 1279 cars of gasoline and kero sene and in 1931, 1942 cars; the Neb raska Farmers Union Oil Association', 1930—1550 cars, and 1931—1738 cars; and the Midland Oil Association (Minneapolis), 1930—1062 cars, and 1931—1741 cars. Volume of oil han dled increased likewise. The reason, for this growth is not difficult to> see when we know that patronage divi dends on, petroleum products run as high as 25% of sales, There need be no limit to the development of con sumers' cooperation in these farmers' organizations, most of which have their roots in producers' cooperation. In fact, may it not be that the great development of consumers' coopera tion in thiiis country which we all have 86 COOPERATION Better Oil Through Cooperation OiZ compounding plant of Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative THE farmers of Indiana are getting better oil since they put in their own compounding plant 'at Indiana polis and they can prove it. The proof lies in increased mileage which mem bers of the staff of the Farm Bureau 'Cooperative Association have been getting from their cars since the. As sociation "began to compound its own -oil under the specifications of its own -chemist, about two years ago. Before the .plant was installed, the Association's cars, eleven in number, were running only from 30,000 to 35,- 000 miles before (having to be traded in, In 1931, using the same make of -cars but using cooperative-compound ed oil, the average mileage per car was 75,000 miles. The least mileage for any car was 70,000 and one car made 83,000. Automotive engineers have stated that 85% of all cars in the junk-yard are there because of poor lubrication. There is no question but the life of the average automobile could be in creased 25% by proper lubrication. The farmers of Indiana alone have an investment in automobiles, trucks and tractors of approximately $150,- 000,000. This equipment is depre dating at the rate of 20% a year, or about $30,000,000. If, by proper lubri cation, the lives of these motors could be extended by 25%, it would mean an annual saving to Indiana farmers of $7,500,000, or afoout one-half the total value of the Indiana wheat crop —and yet, some talk about wheat as though it constituted 'the entire solu tion of the British Empire, the heart of the British com mercial system, a stronghold of pri vate enterprise. There the forces of capitalism are most strongly en trenched, and are even less vulnerable to attack than they 'are elsewhere in John Bull's Island. Having regard to the powerful forces massed together in the Metropolis it is not surprising that the cooperative movement for a long period made no real headway in the city. A generation ago coopera tive pioneers themselves despaired of moving the six millions of people who constitute the living city. London then seemed to be as barren as a desert, a stony place that never could blossom as the rose. What has happened in the city during the pas); •few years therefore appears to be miraculous, Today there are only four big consumers' cooperative societies in the 'metropolitan 'area, but each one is a giant. Ten yeairs ago there1 were only 238,000 members of cooper ative societies in the metropolitan area. At the end of 1931, the eooper- ators numbered 815,000. During the past ten years the population of Lon don has increased by 9.5%, but in the same period the cooperative member ship has increased by 240%. The Lon don Society alone has increased its membership 'by 30,000 since the com mencement of the present year! These figures illustrate what is now happening to John Bull. He is be coming a wiser and a better fellow. That 'is what is so encouraging to English co operators. In March, the Metropolitan societies decided to show London what is now happening in its midst. They secured the use of the Royal Albert Hall, the most com modious building in Great Britain, and there held a great cooperative rally. Several thousandis of people were present; a fine concert was ar ranged; and three national leaders of the movement proclaimed the old co operative gospel from the same plat form. It was a great gathering, a striking revelation of the new John Bull. Did London hear the cooperative 'message ithen delivered? Millions of Londoners did not hear a single word. The daily newspapers, which then devoted columns to the adventures of Lindibergh'is taaiby and the prospects of the Irish Sweep, did not even an nounce that Ithe meeting had been held. Only those people who read Reynold's Illustrated News on the following day, and the Cooperative News on the following Thursday, 94 COOPERATION learned that eooperators had taken possession of the Royal Albert Hall, and were made aware that the four metropolitan cooperative societies have a combined capital of £10,000,000 and an annual turnover exceeding £20,000,000. Coopeirators turned out in their thousands to tell London what all Londoners should know, and mil lions of Londoners simply did not hear! THIS is the strange thing about the new John Bull. He is becoming a cooperator as quickly as he can, be cause he knows he is a consumer whose needs simply must be served. But he still depends for his daily pabulum of information upon the Yellow Press, the screeching sheets that publish a new lie every day, and entirely forgets that he is consuming falsehoods every time he reads the daily papers. Those papers attack ithe cooperative movement, they call upon the Government ito impose new taxa tion upon cooperative societies, they openly tell John Bull he is a fool to support cooperation in the way that he is doing now. He knows the Press Lords are no friends of his, and, yet he supports their publications even while he patronizes his own coopera tive stores! Whait is one to make of his queer behaviour? John Bull must be wiser than he was for he is more of a co- operator; but he has not yet learned how to put two and two together and is in (that respect the same blunder ing, illogical, and foolish old fellow that he was when he planted the Union Jack on every sea and imagined he was master in every country of the world. My Point of View By J. P. Warbasse Government Aid to Business ALL kinds of business are asking for .government aid. A strongly supported movement favors the crea tion of a government-controlled cor poration to buy domestic farm pro ducts, such as wheat, in the amount needed by the United States for home use. The government would fix the price and be the wheat market; the farmers themselves could sell abroad the wheat not consumed in this country at whatever price they wish. The farmers and not the goivernment would then do the dumping. This is seriously backed toy strong agricul tural groups. If this plan should go into opera tion, it means 'that the consumers would be taxed in the interest of capi talistic production. What is appli cable to wheat applies with equal cogency to other grains, potatoes, fruit, wool and cotton. It applies na turally also to meat, butter, eggs and milk. Fixing a high price, or a price suf ficient to yield a worthwhile profit on any of these commodities, would re sult in an immediate Increase in land values. Land owners, speculators, in surance companies and banks which hold the farms would be greatly ben efited. Rents would be increased to the tenant farmer. What would be the condition of the working larmiers after the first blush of the boom had spent itself? The farmers would have done to them precisely what the thiree-dollar wheat booim did to them during the war. An abnormally high price of commodi ties once established would have ,to be artificially kept up or collapse. Deflation of farm values would ensue. The three-dollar wheat did the farm er moire harm than good, because the price could not be maintained. But suppose the price-fixing and COOPERATION &5 grain-buying governmental corpora tion kept on year after year buying all the grain for domestic use at a price atoove the world market, what would it mean to the putolic? The flour 'millers and bakers would not be controlled. The first ithing they would do would be to put up itheir prices, and we know full well that they would do a good job for themselves. Under such circumstances these peo ple always have added to the selling price more than the increase in cost price. In other words the consumers would be taxed to subsidize the farm and land speculators and to increase the profits of the millers and bakers. Then the farmers would sell their surplus wheat abroad below the for eign market price. Thus the Ameri can consumer would be taxed to lower the price of wheat in foreign coun tries and make worse the lot of the poor farmers in the rest of the world. When the Russians do this, it is a terrible thing; but of course we are made of finer clay. The plan once put in operation could not stop with, one commodity. The other farm products should in the course of time all be brought un der the same roof. And then there are other products of the land. There is coal. And there are iron and copper and Mr. Melton's aluminium. And if all of this were done, is there any good reason why the government should not buy all of Ithe shoes, cot ton cloth, electric bulbs and every thing else? The poor people who ac tually do the work of making these things are just as badly off as th« poor people who sow and harvest the wheat. If the government goes into this sort of thing there is no place to stop. It muslt go on ito 'the end. But by the time it had gone very far with such a program, we should see the number of political departments, and bureaus so much increased and the number of political officeholders so multiplied that the business of politics would be come more profitable and inviting than the drudgery of raising wheat or digging coal. The farmers and coat diggers would 'find themselves busy supporting politicians who would have become 'their bosses and over lords. I am in favor of people solving these problems by the direct and na tural method. I believe if they have not the intelligence, social genius and organizing ability to unite and pro duce and distribute for themselves for their own service, then they have not the capacity to control through a political mechanism the social per formance of (these services. If the people are not intelligent enough to be cooperators, they are not intelligent enough to be socialists. If cooperation cannot be attained, then government ownership would be a deplorable mess. If, on the other hand, the people are capable of developing cooperative administration of their economic and social affairs, itihen they 'may leave out the government and get along with out the politicians. News from the Northern States District Farmers' Union Holds Cooperative Training School TP HE first cooperative training school -*• sponsored by the Farmers' Union Cen tral Exchange of St. Paul, Minn., and con ducted by toe Northern States Cooperative League came ito a close at Jamestown, N. Dak., March. 12th. Fourteen students registered ait tlhe school; of -these tlwelve completed the two weeks' course. They were, friom North Dakota: Gun- nar Balsitaidl, Devil's -Lake; Mrs. C. N. Cran- diall, Formaai; G. H. HJalonen, Kazelton; G. S. HJlleatad, Maddock; Cheater Joos, James town; Richard O. Joyce, Buffalo Springs; Albeit Sclhrock, Rock Lake; Mrs. Albert Schrock, Rock Lake; Leo Slteinman, Valley City; Carl V. Straws, Valley City; E. B. Walsih, Jamestown. From Montana: G. A. Esival, Peerless. The following subjects were covered during the itwo weeks: Principlee and Methods of Consumers' Cooperation; Administration and 96 COOPERATION Management of Cooperative Societies; Book keeping (as adapted to .the needs of coopera tive oil companies); Chemistry of Petroleum Products; Farmers' Union Business Institu tions; History of the Cooperative Movement. Tine following acted as instructors ait tihe school: Walter Jacobson, Chief Auditor, Northern States Cooperative League, Min neapolis (Bookkeeping); J. L. Nolan, St. Paul (Chemistry of Petroleum Products); Paul Lambert, St. Paul (Farmers' Union Business Institutions) and V. S. Alanne, Executive Secretary, Northern States Coop. League, Minneapolis (Principles and Methods of Con sumers' Cooperation; Administration and Management of Cooperative Societies; His tory of the Cooperative Movement). E. E. Greene, state secretary of the Farm ers' Union of North Dakota, addressed the class telling the students about the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of Amer ica and the North Dakota State organiza tion. Charles Sltevens, manager of the Farm ers' Union Oil Company of Valley City, N. Dak., also made a short address to the class. Five of these students were Farmers' Union oil company dor branch) managers; four others were oil company employees, one student was agent for Fawners' Union, in surance companies and two were managers' wives. During the two weeks the class covered one month's complete bodkkeeplng for the ima- gimairy "Sitiudenits' Cooperative Oil Company." At the end of the course the students took a •trial balance and prepared a statement of assets and liabilities and an operating state ment for 'this company. In Principles and Methods of Oonsuimers' Cooperation and in the Administration of Cooperative Societies the students were given a written examina tion. They were also given a "general in formation test," the purpose of which was to find out what .they knew about subjects of general interest in- coming to the school. The intenisiveness of ,the training given at the sdhool is indicated by the fact that dur ing the two 'weeks altogether 92 fifty-minute class periods were held. The regular schedule called only for 82 such periods but the students willingly agreed to put in a num ber of extra class periods partioularJy to finish their tasks in the bookkeeping class. It is to be hoped .that all Farmers' Union oil companies and other Farmers' Union bu siness institutions will give this school idea more attention in itihe future. A class of twenlty five or .thirty students could be handled with very little additional expense and a larger attendance would help to spread the knowledge of cooperative principles and such, important technical subjects as book keeping among -fine executives and employees of the Farmers' Union business institutions. Schools of this kind undoubtedly go a long way to strengthen not only the Farmers' Union business institutions but the coopera tive movement as well. V. S. A. Cooperative Youth League News ONE of tlhe latest projects of the active Cooperative Youth League of the North Central States is tio seek to establish a cir culating library of books on cooperation and on the workers' movement for the benefit of their members. The aim is to get at least five sets of books to circulate through the member leagues. The members are asked to donate books on cooper ative theory and history '" **&..* and on labor economics, t history and fiction. The ./ plan is to. loan these sets •:*• - of books to the leagues for two-week periods, charging $2, for deprecia tion and for buying new J .. > * f books, ., v . ;".'- A movement is afoot to establish a National Cooperative Youth League. This would s«nve to draw together the youth organizations springing up in cooperative societies through out the country. Considering the paramount importance of educating youth in the prin ciples .and practice of cooperation, a National Youtih League seems a logical step. is. K ,3 The Cooperative Youth Courses will be held again this summer at Cooperative Park, Brule,- Wis. The dates are July 25th to Aug. 21st. Up to 50 students will be ad mitted. The entrance fee has been lowered from $10 to $5. District Committee, Cooperative Youth League, Superior, Wis. COOPERATION 97 Readers' Forum THIS is the page where the reader gete in his say. Eree and open expression of opinion is invited. Let this be the national Qpen Forum, of the cooperative mjovement. All letters should be signed. Cooperative Movement Should "Act as Well as Talk" "Why nat act as 'well ais talk?" asks Oscar Cooley in the first editorial in COOPERATION for April. A very good question! Mr. Ctaoley addresses it (to those radicals who berate the capitalist system but do not join ithe cooperative movement. Sb far, BO good. The question is pertinent, and lit can fairly be addressed to (those to whom it is addressed to this case. But this is not the only group which should be asked the ques tion, "Why not act as well as talk?" It may also toe fairly put to *he cooperative move- ment. For example, further on in the editorial mentioned, occurs this statement: "The co operative movement gives us ail something to do, not merely talk about it...... the co operative movement is an economic boycott of the capitalist system...." But is it really? 7s it not true that the majority of the goods on the shelves (and in the refrigerators) of the cooperative stores are manufactured Toy capitalist firms? Is this boycotting the capi talist system? Assuredly it is not! Further, cocperators say a .great deal about "proteotMig the interests of the consumer" in respect to the quality of the goods marketed. Why, then, has the consumers cooperative movement not gotten wholeheartedly behind Consumers' Research, which scientifically tests products for the consumers' informa tion? Mr. Lever's suggestion for .the market ing of goods on an "open formula, openly ar rived at" basis, outlined in April COOPERA TION, is an excellent one. In this respect, al so, it may be faurly asked of the cooperative movement, "Why not act in the consumer's interest, as well as talk in ihis interest?" Again, cooperators say quite a lot about the futility of political action and the su periority of .economic action as a means of freeing the consumer-worker from exploita tion, by profit business. And yet, according to Dr. Waribasse, the majority of •cooperators vote for the candidates lof tlhe Democratic and Republican parties—parties which are financed and controlled by and for profit business! In other words, cooperators, who as they say are opposed to profit business, go to .the polls and help vote into office politi cians iwho, when they get there, spend at least nine-tenths of their itime legislating in the interests of profit business! It seems ob vious (that the very least oooperators can consistently do, is to refrain from voting for candidates of any political parity which up holds the capitalist system. In this connec tion, it would be well for oooperators to pander the question whether a tariff which is imposed in the initerestis of private business, and which compels cooperators to pay higher prices for tiheir products (as, for exmaple, C. W. S. tea) is a political or an economic measure. If cooperiatiors are opposed to profit busi ness, why dio they support profit business at the polls? Why not act as well as talk! Realistically conceived, cooperation is only one weapon of the labor movement. By the labor movement I mean the collective efforts of those who earn (their living—toy malking seme useful contribution to society—to free themselves from the domination of parasites who live by the work of others and from the exploitation and insecurity which -this domi nation entails. Tlhe cither itwo most powerful weapons of labor 'are labor political action, and labor unionism. The labor movement 'must make the fullest possible use of each of ithese weapons if tt is to accomplish its purpose. To neglect any one of them is to weaken the atihers. It is high time these various divisions of the labor army stopped fighting among themseJveis and concentrated their energies on the fightt against capitalism. Manford Httinger, Commonwealth College, Mena, Ark. Is the Advertising Invasion Unconstitutional ? I am, particularly interested in your edi torial entitled "The Remedy for High Taxes" April issue. It seems, that I am on a large number of mailing lists, probably because I once main tained .membership in a number of profes sional societies. I recently estimated that about $12 per year is expended by direct- mail advertisers in sending me information on commodities in which I have absolutely no interest. For instance this morning I re ceived two circulars selling books or maga zines, two solicitations for alleged charities, one advertisement of a firm that makes stop watches, and one solicitation for funds for a convalescent home that sent me a mono- gramed tooth brush, presumably to attract my attention! lAill this came second class mail, at rates 98 COOPERATION whiclh are much lower than any other form of mail maltter. I am probably on a mailing list wiith albouit 5000 other names, as that is the ulsual direct-mail unit. If I get about $12 worth of postage in second class matter ex pended per year, -the full list of 5000 is hav ing altogether $60,000 per year spent on it, in postage atone! This iis, furthermore, an unwarranted in vasion of an individual's privacy, connived ait by ifihe government. The federal govern ment does noit give salesmen letters of marque which permit them physically to force en trance into one'ls residence, but they do give each and every distributor, regardless of his intentions or the quality of his product, the right to infringe on individual privacy with no restriction whatsoever. I am very weak on constitutional righits of the average citi zen, but is ilt too fantastic to suggest that the second-claisE mail invasion; ,fche telepthone solicitation invasion; and the advertising in vasion presented by publication advertise ments are constitutional violations of the security and integrity of (the average citizen and his home? Now about the Department of Commerce. They undoubtedly are guilty of many ex cesses, but in the long run the system of commercial attaches in foreign countries is of great value to any one, be he business man or consumer, who has amy need to ob tain authentic economic data through these channels. Roswell Ward Our Goopenaltive House, New York City Good News from Quincy We held a very successful banquet for our members and customers recently. We fed over 400 people and created a better cooper ative spirit all around. Our sales increased almost $3000 in the lalst 3, months over a corresponding period last year and our tonnage has just about doubled in -the last five months. Frank Aaltonen, Mgr., United Cooperative Society, Quinoy, Mass. Editor's note: Mr. Aailtonen sends us a copy of itihe menu of the banquet. At the foot of the menu we find these verses: It's not the store or management Or the rebates they can pay, It's the close Cooperation That makes them win the day. It's not the individual Or the members as a whole; But the everlasting teamwork Of every bloomin' soul. What Do Others Think? In my judgment, the chief mistakes in tihe cooperative movement are: 1—The attempt to piece together a move ment out of individuals, without an existing basis .of working-class solidarity. 2—Failure to deal with utmost frankness in advance with all the difficulties and hazards. 3——Failure to* conduct thorough education ait every step and incessantly. 4—Undue stress on possible financial gains and too little appreciation of the general "spiritual" or social benefits. 5—Undue deference to American ideals of size, haste, show. 6—Failure to sublimate or eliminate self- seeking individualism within. 7—Failure to co-ordinate efforts over a wide enough area. Arthur W. Calhoun Gaffney, S. C. Statement of the ownership, management, circu lation, etc., required by the act of Congress of August 24, 1912, Of COOPERATION, published monthly at New York, N. Y. for April 1, 1982, State of New York, County of New York. Before me, a Notary Public, in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally appeared J. N. Perkins, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that she is the Business Manager of the Cooperation, and that the following is, to the best of her know ledge and belief, a true statement of the owner ship, management (and if a daily paper, the circulation), etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, re quired by the Act of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 411, Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to wit: 1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and busi ness managers are: Publisher, The Cooperative League of TJ. S. A., 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Editor, Oscar Cooley. 167 West 12 St.. N. Y. C. Business Manager, J. N. Perkins, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. 2. That the owner is: The Cooperative League of TJ. S. A., Ifi7 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Pres., J P. Warbasse, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Vice-Pres., H. I. Nordby. 2108 Washington Ave., N. Minneapolis. Treas., M. E. Arnold, 433 West 21 St.. N. Y. C. 3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: None. 4. That the two paragraphs next above, giv ing the names of the owners, stockholders, and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company but also, in cases wliere the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain state ments embracing affiant's full knowledge and belief as, to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the com pany as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association, or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other securities than as so stated by him. J. N. Perkins, Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 17th day of March, 1882. Rose Alpern, Notary Public, Bronx County No. El, Reg. No. SOASS Cert filed in N. Y. Co. No. 271, Reg. No. 3A200 Commission expires March 30, 1933. \ COOPERATION 99 All true cooperators patronize THE NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION (Established 1897) A strictly cooperative life insurance institution. Member of the Northern States Cooperative League. All standard forms of life insurance contracts written. Funeral Benefit and Disability insurance for only $1.00 a month! WE CAN INSURE YOU BY MAIL without medical examination! For full particulars clip this coupon and mail it to: NEW ERA LIFE ASSOCIATION, Grand Rapids, Mich. Name: . Address: STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence courses prepared and conducted by experienced cooperators are now ready. For full particulars, write THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th St. New York City FIRE INSURANCE ON YOUR FURNITURE SAFE—ECONOMICAL—COOPERATIVE WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY 227 East 84th St., New York, N. Y. Member of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A. Under supervision of N. Y. State Insurance Department. The Cooperative Builder An official organ of CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE An interesting and lively cooperative journal published semi-monthly at Superior, Wis. Subscribe now! Subscription rate $1.00 per year. CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE Superior, Wis. The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under the auspices of The Co operative Uiiiun of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street. New York. Please send COOPERATION for one year to $1.00 a year Name—. Address- i 120 COOPERATION STUDY CONSUMERS' COOPERATION The books and pamphlets listed below are available through The Cooperative League. Read them and pass them on to your friends HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 38. Consumers" " Cooperation in the United States (illus.), 1930.... .10 8.00 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart ! Chase) ...................... .06 4.00 , TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society .......... .25 16.00 i 6. Model By-Laws fo a year. We wonder how many of our read ers noticed that Cooperation blos somed forth in a new type dress with the June issue. It is called Intertype Medieval, but don't let anyone think because of that that we have gone back to the Dark Ages. On the contrary, we want this publication to be as modern in appearance and content and as "ea sy on the eye" as possible. • Give the Youth Clubs Free Rein A certain cooperative, we. hear, for some years has barred from member ship all but individuals of one nation ality. The old folks didn't mind, but re cently a youth club was formed in that cooperative, and youth is not such a respecter of nationalities. The question arose: Should the one-nationality rule hold in the youth club, as in the socie ty? Shall youth govern, or age? We can see how a group of people, transplanted into a foreign land, sur rounded by a strange tongue and strange institutions, would be inclined to set up a cooperative society, the kind of institution they were used to, as their own particular property, a haven for their own people in a strange land. In the store they would stock their own kind of goods and in the back room they would manufacture their own sau sages and other national dishes. At their socials they would sing the songs and give the plays of the home coun try, and their meetings would of course be held in the home language. Americans would do the same thing if they were suddenly transplanted in to the Congo—'only they would not be fortunate enough to have the tradition of a cooperative society to fall back upon. They would probably. establish a chain store, or a movie theatre. Cooperatives within national groups in this country have undoubtedly been of great service to the cooperators of those groups. Such restricted coopera tives have been a natural development, arising out of a need, but to continue this restriction upon their youth would be to oppose a natural development, which is leveling down nationality and language barriers. This is bound to come, and to oppose it is as futile as to command the sun and moon to stand still. If youth can not "mix" in the co operative society, it will go elsewhere to mix, and the cooperative will lose its young blood. No cooperative can afford to limit its membership to one national group. To do so is to artificially stunt its growth. It should, on the other hand, use every means within its power to attract other nationalities, in order that it may become a genuine community enterprise. There are no limits to its size then or to what it may accomplish, except the limits of geography. The most promising method of bringing this about is through the youth clubs. There we find a natural inclina tion to reach out and take in all young people who are attracted by coopera tion, regardless of their accent or their ancestry. The youth clubs are the melt ing pot of the cooperative movement. Instead of being haltered and hobbled by race restrictions, they should be en couraged and given free rein. The co operative society that does not do so has little eye for its own future. • Unemployed Turning to Self-Help At last the unemployed in some cities are deciding that if the municipality will not adequately help them, they will help themselves. The Unemployed Ci tizens League of Seattle, claiming 50,- 000 members, are carrying on a variety of enterprises, such as a clothing fac tory, shoe factory, coal mine, several farms and ranches, garages and bar ber shops, exchanging among them- 124 COOPERATION selves the goods and services pro duced. Farmers, unable to make a liv ing individualistically, have turned their farms over to the League. Fac tories, trucks and other equipment have been donated by owners whose activities are hog-tied by the economic impasse. A similar scheme is said to be work ing in Tacoma and in Spokane, and one is being agitated in Milwaukee. A number of cooperators in Stafford Springs, Conn., have a textile mill in operation and are looking for a mar ket for their woolens and worsteds. Hardly a day passes but we learn of another such plan. The success of such produce-and- barter plans seems to depend upon or ganizing, simultaneously, the produc tion and exchange of enough different kinds of goods and services to supply the entire needs of members. o. c. The Only Remedy We have only a few tens of thou sands of capitalists in this country, but tens of millions of working people, toil ing in the industries and on the farm, who depend for their subsistence on the productive labor they perform. Imagine one man saying to a thou sand people: "You have worked for me all these years but I must lay you off because I cannot any more make money out of your work." And imagine the thousand people helplessly accept ing this as the "final verdict," because they have nothing to say about their jobs and because the one man's word is the law at that working place. Consumers' Cooperation is the only remedy that will peacefully and per manently cure the present economic ills of the human society. It is the most thorough-going and the most radical movement known to man today. V. S. A. In Brief Three people in this country won enormous prizes on June 1st in an Irish lottery on the English Derby horse races. This, says The New York Times, "in number of subscribers and size of the prizes was the biggest lot tery ever organized." We might dis pute that statement with the Times, having as we do a dim remembrance of some things that went on in Wall Street in 1928 and '29, but there is no doubt that this Irish lottery was a fair- sized gamble. The worst part of it is that this sort of thing holds out hope to the common man of getting rich by simply drawing a lucky number and thus tends to renew his faith in the speculative racket which is modern capitalist business. That faith must be destroyed. • The billion-dollar tax bill has been passed. The currency is safe; the Treasury has stopped rocking; Ogden Mills sleeps sound again. The Moloch, Government, must be fed, and his high priests have decreed as usual that the consumer must feed him. This time it is through a 50% increase in the cost of sending a letter, through tariffs on staples such as coal, oil, lumber and copper, and — most abominably •— through a sales tax on various com modities from automobile tires to elec trical energy. The consumer is abjured to buy, but when he does buy, he is penalized by a tax. Business transac tions are few, heaven knows, but now even the few business transactions that we have are to be taxed. Not content with getting us down, our rulers tread in our faces. It is difficult to tell, sometimes, who is the more expert in inciting to revo lution—the Communists or the Gov ernment. • In the report of the Ohio Farm Bu reau Service Company, we run across this interesting comment "We sold around 300,000 pounds more twine (in 1931) than we ever sold. The quality of this twine was excellent. We were criticized to some extent because we COOPERATION 125 purchased it in Canada, but we were unable to make contracts with some three or four different manufacturers whom we approached, because they didn't want to jeopardize their own business by doing business with the Farm Bureau. Knowing the quality of the Canadian twine, we felt that this was the proper connection to make." Tough on those American twine manu facturers, wasn't it? This reminds us of that 1923 report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Fertilizer Industry showing what a fog the fertilizer companies were then in as to whether they should sell the farm bureau co-ops. It didn't seem right to their dealers, but gosh, there was the farm bureau with the cashl The F. T. C. summed it up: "Coopera tive buying of fertilizer has been the most important factor in lowering the price of this important product." Fertilizer prices in Ohio alone drop ped from 8 to 14 dollars a ton the year that the Farm Bureau went into busi ness. What Are the Aims of Cooperative Propaganda? By Jacques E. Ozanne IN the last analysis the strength of every cooperative society lies in the loyalty of its membership. Upon their understanding of the aims of the move ment, their willingness to sacrifice im mediate advantages for ultimate bene fits and their ability to spread informa tion about cooperative principles is based our only hope of advancing and expanding. The very fact that cooperatives are democratic institutions makes it doubly important that the problem of member ship education be clearly faced in all its potentialities for both good and evil. No consideration of the problem of cooperative propaganda can fail to take into consideration the need for a better educated and better informed membership. The natural and under standable desire to count our members in the thousands and the tens of thou sands must give way to the even more pressing need of making certain that those members that we have at present are in the true sense of the word, com plete cooperators. An appeal to consumers at large that they learn to cooperate for their own advantage is comparatively easier to make than it is to explain to those who have already accepted the outward and visible forms of cooperative ideals why they are not yet receiving the full share of the benefits they expected when they became shareholders. It may be asked whether we have in the past not aimed too much of our propaganda at the consumer psycholo gy and not enough of it at the coopera tive need. The result has been that in many co operative societies the natural con sumer-tradesman relationship persists and forces the management to regard members more in the light of customers than as fellow-cooperators. Cooperative education should be aimed at planting in the minds of all members a sense of ownership of the business and as complete an under standing of the facts and figures, the problems and the hopes of the enter prise as is humanly possible. This is a program which "requires pioneering in a new field of education. There is nothing in the precedent set by private corporations in their rela tions with their stockholders to teach us how this should be done. There, every attempt is made to present the information in its most technical form and to discourage stockholder inquiry or participation in the management of the enterprise. Those in charge of the educational affairs of the cooperative movement must devise ways of portraying the 126 COOPERATION problems of business management, the intricacies of financial organization, and the technique of merchandising in a way that can be understood by those unschooled in the ways of the ac countant or the parlance of the sales •executive. We must learn to dramatize the dull est figures. Percentages must be inter preted to mean cans of beans or loaves of bread and the whole picture of our cooperative affairs must be reduced to terms where not only will the individual be able to see it as it applies to himself and his family, but also where he will te able to judge the effect of his own consumption and to see how he could Toy increasing his patronage enhance also the position of the investment he has made in a common cause. T)ERHAPS nothing will so promote •*- an understanding of our affairs by our members as their increasing par ticipation in the work of the society. This is of course not an easy thing to do and perhaps the best suggestion that can be made is to caution ourselves against permitting too small a group to monopolize the responsibilities we have to offer our members. Certainly the •slightest desire on the part of any one member to become active should be recognized and he should be provided with a task at the next opportunity. We have perhaps too great a desire to discuss our affairs at large meetings with as many shareholders present as we can attract. If we could instead first divide our members into small round- table groups where a greater oppor tunity will be given to the timid but curious member to ask the questions he has on his mind, we would perhaps find ourselves better prepared to discuss these matters intelligently in a general membership meeting when the time presents itself. Before the cooperative movement can advance much further a way must be found to reduce those two hitherto incompatible forces—tradesman and consumer.—into a common economic personality. Patience is the first requisite in all this work. Honesty is of course essen tial. But perhaps it is only the frank admission to ourselves that we are in business and that for better or for worse we must conduct our affairs in a businesslike way that will make us realize that education and not agita tion is the policy to follow. Our struc ture is built on a membership of con sumers. Let us be sure that it is firm. Credit Plan [Continued from page 122] Not every society will be able to de posit $500, but some should be able to deposit more, brinoing up the average. And practically every individual co- operator has at least $5 tucked away somewhere—perhaps in a none too sound bank—which, with the security here offered, he ought to be willing to transfer to this Fund. The Fund can succeed only as co- operators make it succeed. Every so ciety should carry on constant publicity for the Fund among its members. No one knows when his own society may be the one that is in extreme need of the loan that will carry it through. Plans for Publicity The League will embark on a cam paign of publicity, spoken and written, for the Fund, it is also planned for representatives of the League to carry word of the Fund directly to the Boards of Directors and membership meetings of the various societies. It has been suggested that subscrip tion agreements ue circulated, whereby societies will aaree to deposit a certain sum, at stated intervals, in the Fund. Similar subscriptions may be made by individuals. Thus the Fund would be sure of a constant inflow of deposits. To the extent that this plan is suc cessful, and prevents the loss of worthy cooperative enterprises, when private enterprises are going bankrupt by the hundreds, the cooperative movement will prove beyond all question the su periority of group action by consumers. COOPERATION 127 News and Comment C-A-P Oil Association Makes Good Record P. Kokkonen, manager of the C-A-P Cooperative Oil Association, Kettle River, Minn., sends us a copy of their financial statement for the year ending April JU, 1932, "to show what cooper ation will do, taking the place of the middleman in the distribution of petro leum products." On total sales of $74,- 685.89, a gross margin of $20,623.13, or 27.61%, was made, and the net was $12,540.65, or 16.79%. Operating ex penses were 10.82% of sales. Stock was turned during the year 12.57 times. The volume of gasoline, kero sene, oils and greases sold was con siderably higher than the year before. • Trade Unionists to Study Cooperation A Cooperative and Trade Union Educational Council has been formed in Minneapolis with the aim of in teresting local trade unionists in co operative enterprises and informing them about the cooperative movement. Erick G. Wachter, of the Bricklayers' Union, is president. • Testing Tractors in Nebraska Consumers Research, Inc., we learn are not the only folks who are testing goods and giving the purchaser the lowdown on his money's worth. Some what similar work is being done by state officials in No. Dakota and Con necticut, and the work of W. W. Burr of the College of Agriculture, Univer sity of Nebraska, in the testing of tractors is especially noteworthy. Every tractor sold in the state is tested and a report on the performance of each brand is made available to the public. In these performance reports, we read such illuminating remarks as "In the test the cab needed additional bracing to hold it rigidly to the engine frame," and "During the drawbar tests it was necessary to place two small bolts in the gear shift lock to keep the gears in mesh." Some tractors! Mr. Burr's work has attracted atten tion abroad. The Agricultural Ma chinery Testing Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in England pays its respects to him by stating that the "Nebraska work has led to competition between manufac turers to improve tractors and then submit to further test. Thus it has played an important part in the devel opment of the agricultural tractor in the United States." • Ohio Farmers Purchase Cooperatively Cooperative purchasing through the Farm Bureau is progressing in Ohio. The Ohio Farm Bureau Service Com pany, formed in 1923, now distributes more fertilizer and feed than any private fertilizer or feed company in the state, according to Arthur Weed. It does about 17% of the total fertilizer business and 11 to 12% of the total feed business in the state. It also handles seed and inoculator, fence, oil and grease, coal, twine and miscellaneous farm supplies. Considerable volume goes through the business departments of the county farm bureaus. But about 70% of the total is done through branch stores owned and operated by the Service Company, somewhat like the stores operated by the G. L. F. Exchange in New York. There are 40 of these branches. "Since the organization of the Serv ice Company," writes Mr. Weed, "we have paid about $1,250,000 in pat ronage dividends. The greater part of these dividends has been paid on fer tilizer." • No. Chicago Opens Branch The Waukegan-No. Chicago Co operative Association opened a new branch store at 1245 Victor Street, No. Chicago, recently. 128 COOPERATION New Era Congress Takes Stand for Cooperation * I yHE biennial Congress of the New •*- Era Life Association, held in Grand Rapids, Mich., May 12th, with 34 delegates seated, unanimously passed the following resolution on Co operation: "The founders of the New Era in corporated into its Constitution the provision that the first object of this organization shall be to contribute to ward the dawn of the new era. The present economic crisis strikingly proves the far-sightedness of the foun ders of our organization. We must all join efforts in earnestly working for the realization of this new era, a better and more equitable social system, if we are to carry the ideal of our founders. "The Cooperative movement in the United States is an organized effort toward the realization of these same ideals in the economic field, and. there fore, this Congress wishes to qo on record as expressing its satisfaction •with the action of the governing bodies of the New Era in maintainina a con stituent membership in the Northern States Cooperative League, and throuqh it with the Cooperative League of the United States of America." As may be judged from the unani mous adoption of the above resolution the delegates as a whole were stronqly in favor of cooperation and whole heartedly endorsed the affiliation of the New Era with TheCoonerative League. The cooperatives were indirectlv repre sented bv six deleaates from Michiqan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. George Halonen of the Central Cooperative Wholesale was elected to the Senate, which is the law-raakinq body of the New Era. V. S. Alanne. secretary of the N. S. C. L., was elected to the Senate in the previous Conqress and ho^ds over till next Conaress. The financial report of the last two years showed an encouraoing improve ment in spite of the fact that the mem- bershio has somewhat decreased. At the end of the year 1931 there were 19.000 members and the amount of in surance in force was $21,000,000. The premium income of 1931 was $667,- 379.18. Death claims paid in 1931 amounted to $312,860.82. Dividends paid to members amounted to $24,838,- 64. The decrease in membership has not affected the average age. The death rate has decreased from 84.28% in 1930 to 79.31% in 1931 from the ex pected 100%. Congress instructed the governing bodies to exercise a stringent economy and to make further cuts in expenses. As the difficulties arising in changing from the old current cost basis to the Legal Reserve basis are now overcome, the New Era is in a position to view the future with greater confidence than ever. In the election of officers, a few changes were made in the hope of bringing about a greater efficiency. G. L. Taylor is now President, taking the place of E. E. Branch, whose term expired; Gaylord Nelson is General Secretary as before and A. E. Hanson is General Manager, this position being held previously by Harry Baxter. Arne Halonen. Joins League Style Builders. Cooperative, makers of men's suits, of Milwaukee, has ap plied for membership in the Northern States Cooperative Leaque and has been accepted subject to final action of the board. This organization consists largelv of members of the Amalga mated Clothing Workers Union of Milwaukee. Its scheme is to sell suits bv the Nash plan, that is by aqents taking orders. It is hoped especially to qet many orders among members of cooperatives in the Northwest. Con sumers will be taken into membership, the plan of organization being modelled on that of the Franklin Cooperative Creamery Association. The Union Oil Company (Coopera tive), of Kansas City, is investigating the proposition of setting up its own refinery. COOPERATION 129 1 Central Credit Plan Is Born at Fitchburg Convention By Roswell Ward THE word convention, in the realms of individualistic business, con jures up pictures of long-winded speak ers who say nothing; of interminable "entertainment" expense accounts, and after-convention head-aches. Coopera tive conventions are nothing like that! In fact, after attending several cooper ative conventions, I am inclined to think that one of the most advanta geous contrasts between consumers' cooperation and profit business is in this matter of conventions. Cooperative conventions are held in places where the hotels are not expen sive; they are confined to a discussion of matters relating only to consumers cooperation (or at least the program committee intends them to be); they are short, and they get something done. If you ever feel doubtful of the value of a cooperative convention—go to a business man's convention some time. You won't be worried about co operative conventions after that! r I 'HE cooperators of Fitchburg, Mass., ar- -*• ranged facilities for this year's convention of the Eastern States Cooperative League (May 21-22) which were ideal—even judging by the high standards I have indicated for our particu lar type of convention. The committee on ar rangements, I am told, consisted of Henry Pu- ranen, peneral chairman; Emil \Vaaramaa, secre tary; David Kurki, chairman on eats; K. E. Grandahl, John Suominen, Vaino Pernaa, Helvi Kiuru, Aina Liikanen, George Takola, Hj. Toko, Svantte Huhtaniemi, John Kelly, Hugo Erick- son. and Arne Oksanen. They did a good job. About 120 registered, although there must have been many more present at some of the sessions. Of those registered, 75 were delegates and 45 visitors. The first session, on Saturday evening, was held in a big hall which belongs to the Finnish Socialist group, the Saima Society. It was big enough, it was comfortable and well ventilated, and you could hear the speakers. And it was easy to get at. After greetings by Emil Waara- maa, president of the Cooperative Club of Fitchburg, an entertainment was presented which gave the visitors- a very favorable im pression of the versatility of the Fitchburg group and those associated with it. The acro bats of Fitchburg should have a place in co operative annals. For three-quarters of an hour we sat on the edge of our seats and watched those young athletes put on a demonstration of tumbling which was remarkable. Having once "tumbled" a bit, the writer feels competent to call attention to the very unusual character of this act. If the young people of all the coopera tives have as good physical training as they have in Fitchburg, the cooperative movement will not suffer from the traditional maladies of business men. Dr. Warbasse spoke. So did loe Salerno of Lawrence. loe was especially voluble, and al most as acrobatic as the acrobats. Then there was a dance. The young folks were there en masse, and, for beautiful blondes, go to Fitch burg! Incidentally, the oirls didn't just do duty as lovely decorations. They worked hard. They waited on table and attended to the hungry wants of some hundred and fifty cooperators. The biqaest part of Sunday mornino's pro- pram was the renorts. The Secretarv reported that the Eastern Leaane now has 40 member- societies, numbering 16,743 members. This is 13 more societies than we had a year ago. 10 of these being the farmers' co-ops around Fitch burg which joined us last summer. The Secre tary also made a strona olea that the Eastern League should have a full-time secretary of its own. At least we should be working toward that, he said. Twenty-eight societies renorted. Some of them are getting along well: a few not so well. It became very evident that here is a time when the Eastern League needs to mobilize its forces to the aid of some of its members. A committee was appointed to frame a plan for a credit pool to give financial assistance to co operatives that need it. This project, described on another page, stands out as by far the most substantial result of this convention. The elections Sunday afternoon were not verv thrillina, because almost everybody was reelecfed. NPW directors chosen were: K. E. ("JrandaH and Lauri Moilanen of Fitr^hiirg. Frank Aaltonen of Qnincv and S'mon F= ing in the Cen tral Wholesale territory. The Northern States Institute, I held at Maple Plain, Minn., on the banks of Lake Independence, register ed 39 students, most of them between the ages of 16 and 21. V. S. Alanne was principal. The attendance of many of the students was financed by co operative societies and trade unions, chiefly of the Minneapolis district. It is planned to collect and publish the talks in pamphlet form. The Central States Institute, in charge of A. W. Warinner, met at Cook County Forest Preserve, near Chicago. Many outstanding leaders and spokesmen for the movement in the Central States took part in a compre hensive and well planned program. A slight inno vation was plan- " ned for the pro gram of the East- , ern States Insti- ' t u t e held at Brookwood La bor College, Ka- tonah, N. Y. In addition to the regular lectures and discussions, a "Study Pro ject" for the week was inaug urated. (Cont. on page 153) '*- 142 COOPERATION COO PERATI D N An organ to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, produce and dis tribute for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U. S. A., 167 West 12th St., New York City.____________________ _____OSCAR COOLEY, Editor ___ Entered as Second Class matter. December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. T., un- der the Act of March 3. 187S. Price $1.00 a year. Let's See—Maybe the Unemployed Can Use Cooperation (^ONSUMERS Cooperation fails to ^-^ get the support of many today be cause, they say, it depends upon slow evolution and offers no answer to the urgent problem of unemployment in these desperate times. Is this neces sarily true? It seems to us that the problems of the times call imperatively for a con sumers cooperative solution. Here are 10 million unemployed. What do they need? Work, you say. No, they do not need work. They need bread, coats to put on their backs this coming winter and houses to shelter their families. They need the goods and satisfactions to meet their bodily needs. They need all that goes to make security. Think of them not as "unemployed"; think of them as consumers in distress. Certain ly they are that first, and unemployed second. Consumers cooperation is a way in which such consumers can help themselves. There are two ways in which the unemployed can approach their prob lem as consumers. They can go from clobr to door, and from relief station to relief station begging, as many of them are doing. That is the individual istic way. It is achieving nothing, ex cept, possibly, keeping them alive. It is ruining their morale as self-respecting men and women, creating a class of paupers and placing an intolerable bur den on the community. Or they can adopt the cooperative way. Looking about them they see an over-abundance of raw materials, nay even of ready-to-be-consumed goods. They see enormous potential capacity for production on all sides being delib erately sabotaged by owners, simply and solely because there are no profits in production. They see idle factories without number, tools and machines rusting for want of use, farms aban doned and land growing up to weeds where corn and potatoes might be growing. And at the moment, hunger is gnawing at their stomachs. Such a state of affairs seems to them absurd, and it is absurd. But there may be a cure for it along the following lines. Let them go in a body to the owners of these idle factories and say, "Here, these idle factories are doing you no good. Let us operate them, to produce not for sale but for our own use. We will keep them in repair, and we will give you a share of the output as rent, or as purchase payment." Could the owner refuse? Not if the request comes from 10 million con sumers, peaceably inclined, seeking simply a chance to get at the sources and tools of production of the things they desperately need. Not if the group numbers, in addition to capable work ers, skilled and unskilled, foremen, re pairmen, technicians and managers. Not if they come to him with a plan of operating not only his plant but others in other lines, transportation systems, mines, fisheries and farms, and of ex changing the output of these produc tion plants among themselves, to each according to his needs. Such a plan does not require the power of the state or of organized charity or of millionaires back of it. It requires one thing: The concerted backing of those who need it, the 10 million consumers themselves. It is for their benefit and for no other. Conse quently it should be subject to their authority and to no other. Some may say that each group of workers of any one trade, or in any one plant, should control their own operations. It is probable that they should, practically speaking, providing that ultimate control of production rests with the entire group of consumer- workers, exercised through their chosen representatives. That is where the control must rest, if the scheme is to work. Factories under the capitalist COOPERATION 143 system are run for the benefit of the owners; consequently the owners con trol. But these factories will be run solely for the benefit of consumers; therefore the consumers should control. One does not have to be versed in the history and technique of the con sumers cooperative movement to un derstand such a plan as this. It is mere common sense. To those who complain that consumers cooperation depends on long years of education of consumers, we would say that education can be ac quired rather rapidly under stress of the conditions that exist today. An ounce of starvation may be worth a pound of instruction. A plan similar to the above has al ready been embarked upon in the state of Washington. True, it appears to be interlarded with political ambitions which have nothing to do with cooper ation, but the essence of the thing is what we have described. And we doubt very much if the Washingtonians had all taken their advanced degrees in co operation before going in on this thing. More likely conditions forced them to use their heads, and they saw that this was the obvious thing to do. Such an application of the principles of consumers cooperation to the crisis of the times is not original with us. Many minds in many cities are think ing along the same lines. We forecast that if the depression lasts long enough there will be significant developments in this field of produce-and-barter. It will be consumers cooperation by force of circumstances. Cooperators can help in this move ment. They can help by guiding it into cooperation and keeping it out of local politics. They can help by impressing upon the unemployed individual his position as a consumer and how he can do something about it. For months he has waited for relief to come from others, under the old myth that "the world owes him a living." It owes him nothing and it is giving him just that. It is time that it dawned on him that any relief worth having will only come through and by himself, cooperating with his fellow-sufferers. In Brief 1932 Beatitude: Blessed be the de pression, for it has brought about the bankruptcy of the New York Evening Graphic. a It is reported that hotel business in Chicago during the Republican and Democratic conventions did not come up to expectations. In other words, our political conventions failed to accom plish their primary purpose. a "The best thing which the richest, most influential and most ambitious graduates of American colleges during the past forty years have been able tc achieve is to send 127,000,000 people into bankruptcy and mess up all of North America."—Prof. Walter Pitkin. speaking recently on the benefits of college education. a One would think that every corpo ration and individual in this country were in the red, and yet 688 corpora tions in the month of May declared dividends of over $280,000,000; 18 of these were "extra" dividends, and among the "extras" we find Coca Cola Company. A case of piling profits on pop. a The output of playing cards, accord ing to internal revenue figures, in the month of April was 3,425,120 packs. That's an interesting statistic. Perhaps it means that due to the temporary lull in the poker game of business, men are seeking solace in real old stud poker. a Note. We read that James D. O'Reilly, an employee of the city of Chicago for 25 years, has lost his home under the sheriff's hammer for failure to pay $34 in taxes, when at the same time the city owes him $850 in unpaid salary! a Tune in on WEVD, New York, for Cooperative League program every Wednesday, 3:30 to 3:45 p.m. 144 C O O P E R A TI O N 1933 League Calendar to Picture Pioneers of Cooperation HPHE 1933 Calendar published by the •*- Cooperative League will be some thing different from the usual decora tive lithograph. It will contain the portraits of twelve "Pioneers of Co operation," one for each month, with a short biography of each pioneer writ ten by Dr. J. P. Warbasse, president of the League. They will be men like Robert Owen, George Jacob Holy- oake, Raffeisen, Plunkett, Gide—and our own Cedric Long and Eskel Ronn —they were pioneers, too. The por traits will be mounted three on a page, with directions to tear off a page at the end of each quarter. Under each pio neer's portrait will appear two or three paragraphs telling who he was and what he did for cooperation. Thus the calendars will be full of meaning and educational value for cooperators. The calendars will be attractively printed and mounted, and in size will be 8 by 12 inches. As on past calendars, the name and address of the local co operative society will be prominently displayed, providing the society places a minimum order of 100. Thus the Pioneers Calendar will be a valuable advertisement, throughout the year, for both the local society and for co operation. The price will be no greater than that of the 1932 calendar; that is, in lots of 100, $12; 500, $55; 1000, $100. Individual cooperators not affiliated with any society will also want the Pioneers calendar to hang on the walls of their homes, workrooms and offices. The original plan was to select a painting for a calendar out of those submitted in the League calendar art contest. In spite of the offer of $50 for the best painting submitted, none ar rived at the League offices which was suitable. A society does not need to be a member of the Cooperative League in order to make use of the educational Pioneers calendar. Orders from all true cooperative societies will be received and filled at the same price. Every cooperative society should place one of these calendars in the hands of each of its members. It would be a profitable advertisement if dis tributed to all customers. Let the League know at once about how many of these calendars your society will de sire, so that the print order can be placed at once, getting a low price on volume. Back-to-the-Land Movement May Not Be So Bad "The depression has caused a strong 'back to the land' movement which some fear will have a disastrous effect by increasing already burdensome sur- plusses. If the 'back to the land' move ment results in opening up any con siderable amount of new land, proba bly their fears would be justified, but if the movement results in breaking up some of the large farms and supplant ing the commercial type of farming with sustenance type of farming, the movement will be beneficial to both agriculture and the labor situation. The past fifteen years has seen the consoli dation of thousands of small farms into large farms, with a net increase in com mercial output much greater than enough to supply the retiring farmer when he became a factory worker. A reversal of this process and the re- establishment of agriculture by some hundreds of thousands of people as a means of living, rather than a com mercial enterprise, will have an effect altogether wholesome, for America's greatest asset is a stable farm popula tion. "—From an address by A. S. Goss, Master of the Washington State Grange and a director of the Coopera tive League. COOPERATION 145 What Consumers Cooperation Means to a Depression-Sick America By Oscar Cooley With illustrations by Henclrik Willem Van Loon ancl Fritz Brosius WE Americans pride ourselves on being "a great industrial na tion." We have tapped our rich sources of raw materials and turned out ma chines of marvelous ingenuity and un limited numbers, reared up the tallest buildings in the world, laid down hard- surface roads long enough to take us all to the moon and back, and drawn into our vaults a major .part of the world's precious metals. Yes, we are a great industrial nation, but— At this moment more than 10 million of our people, 8% of our entire popula tion, are unemployed, totally unpro ductive, many of them reduced to the position of paupers and the balance fast becoming so, for how long nobody knows. And many millions more are working at half or third capacity, pro ducing with the efficiency that might be expected of one-armed or one-legged men. Why? Is it because we have al ready produced all that we can eat, wear or otherwise consume? No.—go out on the street and ask that ragged, unshaven, dejected being, looking more beast than man. Why then? In the last days of Rome, arid in France before the revolution, the peo ple were ground down by tyrannical rulers; but we can not say that this present condition has been enforced upon us, consciously, by any tyrant in the shape of man or group of men. In fact every one of our rulers, from Mr. Hoover, or Mr. Morgan down, would give his left leg to see us out of this. If the whole nation is united on any one desire, it is that this misery cease. No, the tyrant in the case is not a man; it is a point of view. It is the point of view that has governed the major part of our economic activity in the last hun dred years. It is false, utterly false. Karl Marx pointed out its falsity, and if he were here today he could well say, "I told you so." This false viewpoint has been label ed by some "the producers view point," for it is the viewpoint that starts with production rather than con sumption. Its consequences are well pictured by Hendrik Van Loon in the cartoon appearing on the next page. And the antidote is drawn by Fritz Brosius, an artist-cooperator. Study well the difference in point of depar ture. Van Loon's capitalist looks at the heap of raw materials and says, "\Vhat a fine lot of goods I can make out of that to sell to somebody!" whereas Fritz Brosius' cooperators look at one another and say, "How many are there of us? Let us count noses—or rather mouths. How many mouths are there to feed? Now then—what is the least possible amount of raw materials we need to feed them?" The capitalist says, "What a tidy sum of money I will make out of selling the food to feed these people!" Our cooperators say, "No one shall make a cent out of the essential industry of feeding us. This is too important a matter to be entrusted to those whose main interest is to make money. We will feed ourselves in the cooperative way." And it is not only the capitalist, the Rockefeller, or Dupont, or Charlie Schwab, who gets off on the wrong foot, with the viewpoint pictured with such biting sarcasm by Van Loon. The majority of our entire population has the same viewpoint. The farmer, look ing at his broad acres, thinks only of the number of bushels of wheat, or bales of cotton, or hundred-weight of hogs, he can produce therefrom and sell to the public. He appears to vi sualize the public as standing always waiting, with unlimited appetite and al- 146 COOPERATION Going To It The American Way By Hendrik Willem Van Loon Reproduced by permission from The Survey Graphic ] '' COATS u/E BUILD c?t/R OtfA/ WE BAK£ ONLY AS MUCH NEED NO "SALES PROBLEM" BUILD OUR SYSTEM TOBIHM6 US THE FLOUR WE QU/LD OUR OU^A/ MH-L. TOMILL THE WHEAT THAT k/£ MISE ON OVR OWN FARM A/V0 THERE IS NO "( i-fr PRODUCE FOR OU/A/, A KNOWN,DEMAND 148 COOPERATION ways with ample money. To his sor row he has found out differently in re cent years. Your consumer-cooperatcr, on the other hand, looks at the farm er's fertile fields merely as a source of the breadstuffs and the garment-stuffs which he and all of his fellow con sumers need to maintain life. industrial worker, too, very •*- largely has "the producers view point." He is hardly to be blamed, for it permeates the country like a plague, the germ of which is the desire for profit. Consumption the worker too takes for granted. He looks at the coal pile and thinks, "Maybe Mike and I can get a job shoveling that coal. There's a lot of shoveling for some body to do." He sees a factory and he says, "Golly, what a big factory. They must hire a lot of men. Maybe they'll hire me." Hire him for what purpose? To do what? Ah, to help Mr. Dupont convert those raw materials into goods to be sold — if you can sell them, Mr. Dupont — to the public at a profit. If — if — 'everything depends on that "if." If Mr. Dupont can sell his goods at a profit, all is well with both him and his workers. If he can not, all is decidedly not well. And Dupont does not know. Far less do his workers know. They are all guessing, speculating. If he loses, he, Mr, Dupont, may have to go with out an extra limousine this fall, but his workers — alas, it may mean starvation for them, Dupont perhaps can afford to follow this false "producers view point," but Mike and Bill most certain ly can not afford to. They can not af ford to prop up with their labor a sys tem which periodically is certain to break down — Marx reasoned that it would break down and history has proven him right in this respect — and precipitate themselves and their wives and kids into want and starvation. That is why it is up to Mike and Bill and every other worker in this broad land to get wise, to learn a new point of view and to act on it. It means hunger or plenty, life or death, to them. Consumers Cooperation has the new viewpoint, and so far as we know it is the only movement that has. Study Fritz Brosius' cartoon; hand it to your friend; paste it in your hat. It is our basic philosophy. And don't be worried by the seeming impracticality of*—'"We build our own railroad system." There are cooperative organizations in the world quite big enough to build their own railroads, or to buy out others, providing they are good railroads. The Mikes and Bills of the United States can build or buy a dozen railroad sys tems providing they will rally their power as consumers and their power of united public opinion to the job. To the Mikes and Bills, we feel like saying, "Here you fellows, haven't you muddled along in this slough of alter nate feast and famine long enough? Isn't it time you quit playing the sucker to the racket of production-minded, profit-minded Duponts, Schwabs, In- sulls and their like? They would never turn over a wheel if it were not for your dollars as consumers which they are confident of getting. They say it is all for your good, but you know bet ter, today. Isn't it time you looked into this cooperative way of doing things?" IT does little good to say that. Radi cal changes do not come about through exhortation. They come about through great, silent convulsions in the ways of thinking of the people, forced in upon them by circumstances arising from their actions. It is our belief that such a convulsion is in process now, slowly changing the people from the producers viewpoint to the consumers viewpoint. When a man is thrown out of work and is forced to panhandle on the street, he suddenly becomes con sumer-minded. When a group of such men club together and put up a rough shack on a vacant lot to shelter them selves, you have a consumers coopera tive. And those who do not have to put up shacks on vacant lots—yet—are be ginning to think in terms of "produc tion for use, not for profit." Oh not the business men, but the people, the workers. They are thinking and grop ing toward Consumers Cooperation. Let us see how we can help them. COOPERATION 149 News and Comment Proof of the Pudding The Farmers Cooperative Store of Cromwell, Minn,, reports net gain of $1,787.74 for the last fiscal year. A 7% patronage dividend on gasoline sales was declared. The Peoples Cooperative Oil Asso ciation of Luck, Wis., reports net of over $3000 for the year ending June 1. This is in spite of a prolonged price war in that territory. Cooperating farmers of Wrens, Ga,, run their own cotton gins, feed mills, purchasing, planting and marketing or ganizations. At the present time this community is reported to be "enjoying normal prosperity." The Farmers Cooperative Trading Company of Orr, Minn., reports net of $435.52 for the last six months. This cooperative is about to build a new branch store. The oil cooperative of Plainview, Minn., reports net of $4,511.84 for the first eleven months of operation. This is a saving of 13 cents on every dollar of trade. The A 6 B Cooperative Oil Associa tion of Ashland, Wis., reports net of $3,136.27 for the last year. A patron age dividend of 10% on purchases was voted to member patrons, and 5% to non-member patrons. Payment is made in merchandise. The Midland Cooperative Oil Asso ciation, wholesaling to oil co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin, increased its gasoline and kerosene volume 16J/2 % in the first half of 1932 over the same period of 1931. Gas and kerosene sales of the Union Oil Company (Cooperative) of Kansas City for the first six months of 1932 ran 23% over those of the same period last year, and oil sales ran 35% ahead. The oil department of the coopera tive association of Spooner, Wiscon sin, paid back to patrons 20 cents on the dollar of purchases during the last quarter. Spooner is a railroad city of 2000 people, 180 families of which are being fed by the city. There must be a reason for all this. • Northern States Cooperators to Meet, Sept. 12-13 All affiliated societies of the North ern States Cooperative League are urged to send representatives to the Annual Convention in the auditorium of the Franklin Creamery in Minnea polis, Sept. 12 and 13. Here plans and policies will be made for the new fiscal year, Delegates-at-large to the national Congress in New York will be elected. A women's conference will be held just before the convention, on Sunday afternoon at 2. Delegates from the Women's Cooperative Guilds will at tend and all other women interested in the movement are invited. Elect your delegates early and noti fy Executive Secretary Alanne. • Brownsville Responds The residents of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N Y., are rallying to the support of the Cooperative Bakery, Meyer Rubinson, the manager, tells us. A pamphlet in Yiddish written by Abraham Shiplacoff is being widely circulated and the Jewish housewives are calling on their storekeepers for "Cooperative bread" in no uncertain terms. The employees are doing their part by offering to take their vacations without pay, thus saving the bakery a considerable sum of money during the summer months. Operating figures are looking up. • Fuel for Man and Car The Union Oil Company (Coopera tive) of Kansas City, in connection with its service station at 13th & Bur lington Sts., has established a coopera tive lunch room. The turnover of both lunch room and service station is on the increase. One feature of the station is a 24-hour Western Union service. 150 COOPERATION Has Your Society Appointed Its Delegates to the Congress? A Letter to Our Members July 14, 1932 Dear Fellow Cooperators: The time for our EIGHTH BIENNIAL CONGRESS is rapidly approaching. This national convention, by vote of the League Board of Directors, is to be held in New York City, September 26 to 28. The times are critical. Our capitalist economic system is seriously sick. In fact, it may die on our hands any moment. Therefore now we have an unparalleled opportunity to put forward the cooperative sys tem to take its place. Instead of adopting the over-cautious, scared tactics of the capitalist, let us step out boldly and put forward Co operation as the thing which the country needs at this hour. One way we can do this is by making this Congress as large and enthusiastic a get-together of cooperators, from every part of the na tion, as possible. Your society, as a member of The League, should have a strong delegation at the Congress. You are entitled, as you know, to one voting delegate if your membership is 500 or less, and to one addi tional voting delegate for every additional 500 members or major fraction thereof. (If yours is an insurance, credit or banking society, you are entitled to one voting delegate per 3500 members.) In addi tion, we suggest that you urge upon your members that any who can possibly attend as visitors, in addition to the appointed delegates, do so. They will be cordially welcome, and all sessions and privileges of the Congress, with the exception of the voting privilege, will be open to them. Again, we say, the time of the Congress is not far off. According ly, will you take up the matter of the Congress and appoint your delegates at the earliest possible date, and let us know how many and who will represent your society. Have you any suggestions as to the conduct of this Congress, and as to the things to be taken up there? We should be glad to receive them. Please give this matter your immediate attention. Promptness is the watchword. Yours for Cooperation, J. P. WARBASSE, President OSCAR COOLEY, Secretary COOPERATION 151 The Value of a Cooperative Congress It costs money for scattered coopera tive societies to send delegates to a co operative Congress in these days, but may it not be that the value of the mu tual effort in coping with the many problems that beset the movement to day is worth it? On this question, Gen eral Secretary George Keen of the Co operative Union of Canada says: "The gravity of the difficulties with which the country is confronted, the progress ive deterioration of the economic fab ric, and the obvious failure of the capi talist system properly to function, make it more necessary than at any time in the past that cooperators should get to gether to propound the cooperative solution of our economic ills, as well as to take concerted action to solve their own problems, and to promote a sane and sound development of the movement." The annual congress of the Cana dian Cooperative Union was held at the Parliament Buildings, Regina, Sask., July 5-7. • Dillonvale Booms Branch at Tiltonsville A cooperative mass meeting was held in Tiltonsville, Ohio, June 19, un der the auspices of the New Coopera tive Company of Dillonvale, the pur pose being to spread the knowledge of cooperation in this town and to get more members and trade for the new branch store recently opened here by the Dillonvale cooperative. Tiltonsville is on the Ohio River just north of Wheeling. Prof. Gaspare Nicotri of New York City spoke in the Italian language, there being many Italians in this re gion. Professor Nicotri is a colorful figure, full of fire and fight for the cause of cooperation. He was formerly a member of the board of directors of the cooperative league of Italy, until that organization was smashed and he exiled by Mussolini. Frank Ledvinka of Bridgeport, Ohio, was another speaker. He pointed out the incon sistency of people who, while they rebel against the capitalist system, con tinue to support and maintain that sys tem with their buying power. As a result of the meeting a number joined up on the spot and others prom ised to do so in the near future. Among those present were cooperators from Dillonvale, Piney Fork, Bradley and Bridgeport, as well as a number of former members of the cooperative store that used to exist in Yorkville. • Cut Margins to Meet Purses Sales of the Farmers Union State Exchange, Omaha, Neb., in the first half of 1932 totaled $680,115.82, against $963,728.82 in the correspond ing period in 1831. The greater part of this decline in dollars-and-cents sales was due to lower prices for commod ities handled, but part of it represents smaller purchases of farm and house hold supplies by farmers, due to the depression in the depression. Net profit, or saving, for the six months this year amounted to $23,800.19, compared with $46,953.99 in the first six months last year. To a very considerable ex tent, the reduction in net savings is the result of operating on narrower mar gins, Manager McCarthy reports. The Exchange has deliberately cut its mar gins just as low as possible, in order to meet the difficult financial circum stances of the farmers. • "Across the Street, We Are Consumers" "We are wholeheartedly with the movement, altho we are a producers' cooperative," writes C. E. Deal, secre tary-treasurer of the Lawler Coopera tive Creamery Association of Lawler, Minn.,—in a letter in which he reports an increase in business of 40% over last year. "Across the street, we are consumers," says Mr. Deal. Cooperator Deal, we assume, refers to the situation that exists in many Minnesota towns where on one side of the street is the farmers' cooperative creamery, usually a member of Land O'Lakes, and on the other is the co operative store (perhaps affiliated with the Central Cooperative Wholesale), 152 COOPERATION or maybe oil station (as like as not one of the Midland Oil Association group), owned and operated by the very same group of farmer-cooperators usually, altho separately incorporated. The farmer coming to town with his cream stops at the creamery first; then, out bound, he fills up at the co-op oil sta tion and lays in a supply of groceries at the co-op store. Is he conscious of a double indentity, first as a producer- cooperator, then as a consumer-co- operator? No, it is all the same to him. Cooperation to him is a method of fill ing all his needs, be they a market for his cream, or a source for his groceries. Somehow we have tremendous sym pathy for this way which the farmer of the Northwest has of looking at co operation. • Central \Vholesale Celebrates 15th Year The Central Wholesale will cele brate its 15th year with a two-day festival on Sept. 3 and 4 at Coopera tive Park, Brule, Wis. The Wholesale was organized in 1917 by a dozen co operative store societies. It now has over 100 member societies and many non-member patrons. It is predicted that representatives of all these socie ties, as well as many from a distance, will attend this grand get-together. We congratulate the Central Co operative Wholesale of Superior, Wis., bulwark of the cooperative movement in the North Central states, on the eve of its 15th Anniversary! • Changes in Managers Otto Ronkkonen has replaced .rtrvo Rivers as general manager of the Rock Cooperative Company of Rock, Mich. Ronkkonen is also treasurer of the Rock credit union and manager of the North land Cooperative Oil Association. Rock comes nearest perhaps to being a 190% cooperative town of any in the United States. Rivers has had some thing to do with that. He is now on the job as manager of the United Co operative Society of Maynard, Mass., so Rock may have a competitor soon. Waldemar Niemela, veteran Maynard manager, now has the reins of Brook lyn Cooperative Trading Association in hand. Another change is at Marengo, Wis., where T. R. Ranta replaced John Sailey as manager of the cooperative society on July 1. • No Credit! Floodwood (Minn.) Cooperative Store on July 10 voted to go on a strictly cash basis. Only 2 members voted nay, and they were for strictly limited credit. The Trend toward Consumers Cooperation There was once a labor union of clothing workers. They had a strike, which caused the liquidation of one of their employers. Faced with the per manent loss of their jobs, they set up their own factory. Their output was taken by a certain well-known firm of clothing venders. Then came the de pression. This tirm withdrew its con tract. The workers then started making suits as a producers-and-consumers co operative, selling the suits direct to consumers through agents. Consumers are expressly invited into membership, each member, whether producer or con sumer, having a vote in management. Thus the worker finds that his search for economic security in the end leads him to intimate contact with, and em ployment by, organized consumers. Style Builders Cooperative is located at 926 West Juneau Ave., Milwaukee, It has sales offices also at 208 No. Wells St., Chicago, and in Minneapolis and Detroit. The price of a share is $5, and the maximum number of shares al lowed one person is fifty. Each share holder has one vote only. Any surplus after interest on share capital is paid and adequate reserve is set aside is re funded to consumers as savings returns. Every cooperator located within its sales territory should join and patron ize this organization. The cooperative distribution of clothing does not have to wait for the setting up of coopera tive department stores. COOPERATION 153 SUMMER INSTITUTES (Continued from page 141) This project was: "To plot out a program of aims and activities for Co operative Youth Clubs." It was out lined at the opening of the school and discussed daily during the week, with the aim of drawing up and "adopting" such a program for Youth Clubs on the last day. The results of this experiment will be told in next month's COOPER ATION. A need for standardizing to a greater extent the courses and programs of the different institutes, with due regard to local conditions, has been expressed. Standard pamphlets and syllabuses which all could use, it is felt, would be a help. All ideas for building up the institutes and making them a greater force in our educational program are welcome. Let us hear especially from the students and instructors who have just attended. Cooperation Abroad Theatre Agency The English C. W. S. has estab lished a theatre ticket agency. Co- operators wishing to book seats for theatres in London and other large ci ties may do so through the sub-agen cies being set up in the local societies. • In Russia Mr. Epstein, of Centrosoyus, speak ing at the British Cooperative Con gress, stated that the Russian move ment now has 73,700,000 members, or 76% of the entire adult population. The consumers cooperatives conduct be tween 65 and 68% of the total retail trade, he said, while the State conducts 30%. Ontario to Have "Wholesale The Ontario Cooperative Whole sale Society, Ltd., is being organized and has applied for incorporation. At first it will operate as a collective buy ing agency, not warehousing merchan dise until sufficient volume has been developed to justify it. That Knotty Labor Problem Apparently the British cooperatives have not entirely solved their labor problem. At the recent congress in Glasgow, it was stated that "the co operatives had all along been in favour of compulsory arbitration, but the trade unions refused to abandon the prin ciple of the right to strike." Finnish Colony in Brazil Seeks Aid Toivo Uuskallio was in New York recently seeking financial aid for the Finnish colony, Penedo Farm, of which he is the leader, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The colony was settled by a group of 70 people from Finland, many of whom have invested savings in it, and the aim is to make it a co operative. The holder of the mortgage is pressing for payment and $25,000 must be raised at once. The farm is 8500 acres and is said to be now worth over twice what was paid for it. The crops raised are oranges, bananas, pineapples and other fruits, sugar, corn, beans, sweet potatoes, etc. There is a sawmill, flour mill and power plant; also a main house, smaller houses and other buildings. The cli mate is said to be salubrious and the water excellent. The people incline to ward vegetarianism, but do not en force it. Sounds like a good place to go to desert the depression. • Roumania has several Fishermen's Cooperative societies. These are pro ducers' societies. They lease lakes and ponds from which their members take the fish. In 1931 one such society sold 1,970,000 kg. of fish. 154 COOPERATION My Point of View By J. P. Warbasse Prohibition and Profits 'T'HE conversion of sugar into alco- -L hoi, by means of minute yeast plants (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), probably began early in the history of plant life. There was alcohol before there was any animal. Man accidentally discovered alcohol in some fluid which he was, perhaps, keeping to quench his thirst, or in some mass of juicy fruits which he had set aside for later use. After partaking of this spoiled ma terial, he noticed a strange new taste and a strange effect upon his nervous system. After a while he became ac customed to it. Then he decided that he liked it. Then he purposely dupli cated the natural process and learned how to make it as he wanted it. Presently all peoples used alcoholic drinks. All races became intoxicated. No people became sober until they had been thoroughly drunk. We are all descended from ancestors who have gone through this process. Alcohol has contributed to killing off a large catalogue of people who indulged to excess or whose susceptibility to the ill effects of alcohol was so great as to destroy them. We survivors in this process of natural selection represent the survival of the fittest. We are the descendants of ancestors who could stand alcohol and not go under. We have inherited a capacity to withstand its harmful effects, for those who could not, have perished, and their lines of procreation have ended. Still, immunity in any capacity runs out; and, even in the most immunized, alcohol still has the power to inflict damage. It is an alluring substance, capable of creating a habit which is destructive of mind and body. It is al so a pleasant food in limited amounts. It possesses the power to benumb and then to paralyse the inhibitory centers of the brain, which means that it can make people more natural and frank. It brings a sense of forgetfulness of cares. The conflict between the desirable and the harmful qualities of alcohol developed with civilization. In this con flict alcohol has usually won, and peo ple have succeeded in getting it. But there has always been conflict. Some have cried out against its harm and others have extolled its virtues. In the United States, the conflict has been thick and fast. We had the free exploitation of alcohol quite generally up until the prohibition act in 1916. Al coholism, like prostitution, not only throve but was promoted because there were profits to be made in its traffic. The incalculable harm that grew from this commerce had its roots in the profit system. The desire to make profits meant urging people to drink alcohol. Advertising was invoked; the bar and the saloon were made alluring; people were encouraged to treat; the non drinker was scoffed at; the wages of the bartender depended on the amount of sales he could make; free food and other inducements were added; and the traffic was made large and profitable. The curse of wine re sided in the profit motive more than in the alcohol itself. And still the pious people who inveighed against alcoholic drinks were practically all devoted to the perpetuation of the profit system, the thing that was fostering drunken ness and was making prostitution its handmaiden. The saloon got a bad name. It was frequented by low persons. If tem perate and cultured people had fre quented it, the saloon could have been made decent. But these people were not wanted; they did not drink enough. Profits have no interest in decency, ex cept as it can serve as a decoy to bring in more profits. Then came prohibition, enacted by a government solemnly committed to the COOPERATION 155 support of the profit system. The ab surdity of the situation promptly be came apparent. Neither the hunger for profits nor the thirst for alcohol were assuaged; nor did the Government take any step to that end. A Government which stood for the profit system with a gusto, and which had given lessons to its citizens in racketeering on hun dreds of historic occasions (such as the looting of the Indians, the robbery of Mexico, the attempt to steal Canada, the racketeering in Nicaragua and the southern countries for the big bankers, and innumerable other instances), this Government gave to the world the amazing exhibition of assuming the moralist role of suppressing traffic in alcohol. The result was what might have been expected. Business men con tinued the noble work of making profits out of the people's thirst for alcohol. Racketeering was combined with the enterprise. The result is a penetration of the al cohol business into every nook and cranny of the country. An army of in spectors and political officials has been created, so corrupt from its top to its bottom that the Government would not dare to start an investigation—it would not be' permitted, because the corruption is a part of the Government itself. One of the beneficent results of the action of the Government has been that the making of alcoholic drinks has been driven back into the homes. The pro duction of beer and wine in the homes has been reduced to an art. Good wine and good beer are now made in every house where they are wanted, being made for use and not for sale, and profit in the traffic being removed, they are cheaper and better than they were before prohibition. People who never drank before have acquired the habit. An advantage of the home produc tion of these beverages is that they are consumed at home. While the profit system has been going on in its natural way, it has been destroying the home. But now prohibition is making a funda mental contribution to its encourage ment by this accident of legislation. But a still greater advantage has come from prohibition: people have learned to apply the simple principle of making alcoholic drinks for use and not for profit. This is a really great dis covery in this age of profit psychology. People were beginning to lose the con ception of doing things for service. Most everything had become commer cialized. Food that once had been pre pared in the house was bought in stores where it was sold for the sake of profit. Amusements, sports, recreations, art—• everything was becoming commercial ized and no longer carried on for the sake of the consumers. Then suddenly the people were deprived of a commod ity they wanted; and instead of ac cepting dangerous and spurious articles