The source of this uncorrected OCR text may be viewed in the DjVu format at: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/HD2951xC776/co29 or http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/ugafax/HD2951xC776/co29 240 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 $6.00 (.00 6.00 4.00 COO 4.00 «.oo ::.so l.oo 3. Story of Cooperation ..............$ .10 7. British Cooperative Movement...... .10 38. Consumers' Cooperative Movement in U. S., 1926 .................... .10 39. Consumers' Cooperative Societies in N. Y. State (Published by Con sumers' League) ............... .10 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe... .05 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States...................... .05 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase). ..................... .05 TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society ............. .10 6. A Model Constitution and By-Laws for a Cooperative Society........ .05 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined... .10 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale.. ....................... .10 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail....... .02 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild.... .................. .02 15. How to Organize a District Coopera tive League .................... .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson). ................... .50 43. Cooperative Housing .............. .10 50. A B C of Cooperative Housing..... .10 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apart ment House .................... .10 MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law............ .10 46. Producers' Cooperative Industries... ,10 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Cooperative Movement .10 12. Credit Union and Cooperative Store. .05 13. The Place of Cooperation Among Other Movements ............... .25 34. Cooperative Movement (Yiddish)... ,02 30. "When the Whistle Blew" (Story, by Brucc Calvcrt) ............... .06 65. Reading List on Cooperation....... .10 66. International Directory of Coopera tive Organizations .............. .60 41. Social Aspects of Farmers' Coopera tive Marketing (By Benson Y. Landis). .................... .25 42. Co-op Homes for Europe's Homeless. .10 49. A Way Out ...................... .02 55. A Better World to Live In........ .05 37. How a Consumers' Cooperative Dif fers from Ordinary Business..... .02 60. The " Moral Equivalent " of Jazz... .02 €2. Buttons (League emblem), M inch diameter.................... 63. Sign or Transparency of League Em blem. Green and gold, 8 in. diam. .25 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250. 68. To Mothers ...................... .02 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.50 per 500; $4.00 per 1,000.) (1) Principles and Aims of The Cooperative League; (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 1.75 1.25 .75 .60 2.00 15.00 1.00 About Cooperation in Europe?; (40) Have You Committee on Education and Recreation?; (45) and Stores; (47) A Man's Right to a Job; (6 eration Brings Disarmament. (61) MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, .$7.50 per hundred) Subscription, per year.................. ji nf. REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.)........... Per Year li en $1.65 if paid by check. BOOKS The following books are recommended as containing the best discussions of the modern Cooperative Move ment. They may be ordered through The League: Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement in Co-op " Book—For nc, Russia . . . . . . . . . . . Brightwill, L. R.: Animal Children ............................ Chase and Schlink: Your Money 's Worth, A Book for Consumers .................... Flanagan. J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 .......................... Gide, C. : Consumers' Cooperative Societies American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Co operative Committees .................... Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer. 1918. Paper bound....... Holyoake : Rochdale Pioneers ................. Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ......................... Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold. ............ Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Practices of Cooperative Marketing. .............. Nicholson, Isa: Our Story. ................... Oernc, Andrcs: Cooperative Ideals nad Problems Owen, Robert: Autobiography ............. Poisson, E. : The Cooperative Republic ..... Potter, B. : Cooperative Movement in Grea Britain ... . . . . . . . ................. Redfcrn, Percy: The Story of the C. W. S... Redfern, Percy: The Consumers' Place in So ciety, 1920 ............................. Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918 ..'...................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark. .......................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920. ...................... Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound ........ . . . . . . . . ............... Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) . . . . . . . ..................... Warbassc, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927........ ........ ................ Warbasse, J. P.: What is Cooperation, 1927.... Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ..................-.••••• Wcbb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board, $2.00; cloth..... Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1927 inclusive, each .....,..,,,........••••••• Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each. .,........•• Northern States Year Book, 1927. Paper..... The People's Year Book, 1928. Cloth, $1.00; paper bound ...............-..•-•••"••• (.Ten cents postage should be added for all 2.50 .15 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 .60 1.00 2.50 .50 3.20 .25 1.25 .50 1.75 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 .75 1.00 1.50 .50 3.50 5.00 1.50 *1.25 1.00 .30 .60 Jbook f.. JNlembere c'-Ci operative Committees ............. ..... Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope c the Consumer, 1«18. Paper bound....... Holyoake: -Rochdale Pioneers................. Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ......................... Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold............. Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Practices of Cooperative Marketing................. Nicholson, Isa: Our Story.................... Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals nad 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 So ciety, 1920 ............................. Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918 ........................ Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark........................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920....................... Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound............................... Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) ............................ Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927........ ........ ................ Warbasse, J. P.: What is Cooperation, 1927.... Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ......................... Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board, $2.00; cloth..... Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1928 inclusive, each .......................... Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each............. Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper...... The People's Year Book, 1929. Cloth, $1.00; paper bound ............................ 3.20 .25 1.25 .50 1.75 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 .75 1.00 1.50 .50 3.50 5.00 1.50 1.25 1.00 .60 .60 (D (NOTION A magazine to spread the knowledge •jl the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, produce and distribute for their own use the things they need. Second C, ———— tttr. , 1917, « Published Monthly by THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE OF THE U. S. A. 167 West 12th Street, New York City CEDRIC LONG, Editor o/ \rOL. XV, No. 3 MARCH, 1929 10 CENTS IN THIS ISSUE ot Credit; (.25.) Kesomtions Aaoptea oy A. r. 01 L.; „ , .\ (26) Factory Workers Cooperate!; (28) Do You Know (Ten cents postage should •>« added for all booKi-l The Uncooperative Manager When Poultrymen Cooperate My Point of View:—Watch Business Cooperative Insurance Comparative Figures for Largest Societies 42 COOPERATION COOPERATION 43 Editorial THE UNCOOPERATIVE MANAGER Is there " sich an animul" ? Yes, he is still common in our neck of the woods. In fact, I am tempted to say he is even more common in our parts than the honest-to- goodness cooperative manager. We are not yet fully civilized, in the cooperative sense of the word. We in the Northwest are still living in a cooperative wilderness, with the outposts of civilization rather few and far between. In fact, some of our so-called cooperative managers are even found in a wild state. In one locality, north of Minneapolis, -we had about a year ago the unheard-of experience of being shown to the door by the manager of the local cooperative store, simply because we wanted to know why he gave us and our district league the " cold shoulder." This manager evidently considers the traveling salesmen of the private jobbers his good friends, and, by the force of logic, all repre sentatives of the cooperative central organi zation his enemies. His grossly uncoopera tive attitude is illustrated by his muttered explanation: "We can take care of our own business." The Earmarks of an Uncooperative Manager How can an uncooperative manager be identified? Here are a few of the charac teristics by which he will be known. If you find a manager to have all or most of these characteristics, he is of the uncooperative type. The uncooperative manager sees no dif ference between cooperative business and ordinary business. He sees no need for cooperative education and sneers at the efforts of cooperative cen tral organizations to carry on such educa tional work. He feels very much his own importance and looks down on his board of directors as " a bunch of ignorant farmers" or " men who know nothing about business." At the store he tries to put up a front of a " digni fied businessman." He joins the local businessmen's clubs and goes to their conventions but never attends any cooperative meetings. From the latter he thinks he has " nothing to learn." He fails to understand the necessity and the advantages of a cooperative wholesale and views its representatives with suspicion and distrust. He advocates that his join the "Independent Grocers' Alliance" or some similar organization, but thinks it had better keep away from any genuinely cooperative wholesale organization. He considers the traveling salesmen of the private wholesale houses his natural friends, but is irritated at the sight of a traveling cooperator whom he thinks either a crank or an undesirable radical. He believes firmly in the necessity of hav ing business secrets and refuses to furnish any statistical information to cooperative central organizations. He considers the ad vocacy of perfect openness in cooperative business a foolish attitude. He believes in old-fashioned business methods, such as premium sales, bargain counters, giving cigars to " good " customers, etc., and thinks a cooperative store can not get along without such methods. He does not think much of such cooperative adver tising methods as arranging of educational meetings with cooperative speakers, mailing circular letters to members and customers, displaying cooperative slogans at the store, etc. He never opens a book on cooperation nof spends a penny on cooperative magazines and periodicals. Where Docs the Uncooperative Manager Come From ? He comes from the world of the old- fashioned and highly individualistic competi tive business. Usually you find he has had a business of his own before becoming man ager of the cooperative store. He has had no contact whatever with the cooperative world. He has read no cooperative litera ture, knows nothing of the achievements of the Cooperative Movement in other countries and has no understanding of its philosophy or its ideals. And, what's worse, be does not care to learn about these new things, as his is the psychology of a self-complacent individual who looks at everything from a narrow, selfish viewpoint, and for whom the collectivist point of view is an " unknown quantity " and an anathema. Nothing short of an earthquake or a miracle could open his eyes to see the cooperative light. Where Is He Going? We have recently spoken to several of these uncooperative managers. Their am bition seems to be to start sooner or later in business for themselves: a logical outcome f their view of things. Says one of these managers to us: "I have worked hard to create profits for these people, but I am not going to do it any more. I am going to start a business of my own, and keep all the profits for myself. I have that duty to my family-" This manager forgets that he has not created these " profits " alone. To create surplus at the cooperative store, the patron age of the customers is necessary, and the consumers must be willing to pay for the goods a certain price which makes the sur plus possible. But suppose that the con sumer becomes " class conscious" and refuses to patronize the private merchant? The former uncooperative manager who has turned a private storekeeper is then out of luck and will be quickly disillusioned. The uncooperative manager is certain to gravitate out of the Cooperative Movement sooner or later—provided he does not have a complete change of heart. Such change of heart would be almost a miracle; most of the uncooperative managers are looking for the first chance to get out of the Movement; they feel rather out of place in it. Some of them—the dishonest ones—don't even hesitate to set a trap for the board of direc tors of the store they are serving. They manage the store in such a manner that it is soon on the verge of bankruptcy, and then make an offer to the board and the mem bership to take the store over. What a glaring inconsistency! When the uncoopera tive manager runs the store as a cooperative he cannot make it go, but when he manages the same store as his own he is able.to make a success of it! 'What Is the Uncooperative Manager Good For? His value for the Cooperative- Movement is not only nil, but he has a distinctly nega tive and detrimental value. In many in stances it would be much easier to reform a non-cooperating store if it were not for the resistance of the uncooperative manager. It is much easier to win over an average direc tor to support cooperative central organiza tions and their work than it is to win over one of these uncooperative managers. The road to the confidence of the board and the membership usually leads over the dead body of this individual; he must be removed first before any headway can be made with the society. That is why we consider that as a rule, he has a negative value for the Move ment. He is good only for the cooperative scrap heap. What Influence Has the Uncooperative Manager Over His Directors and His Membership? It is deplorable that in many instances the influence of the uncooperative manager over his board of directors and the membership is still unduly great. However, he can last only in places where the level of cooperative education among the membership is low and the knowledge of the true nature of coop erative business hazy and insufficient. In such localities the membership has the tendency to leave everything to the manager. The members themselves are interested chiefly in dividends. They do not want to take upon themselves any responsibilities or wor ries for the welfare of the business. And where the membership feels and acts this way, the board of directors is likely to fol low suit. There are many instances in our district where the directors of the cooperative store are mere figureheads, they do not direct. They may meet three, four times a year, but only to spend a couple of hours in talking over their own farm problems, the latest news or—the weather. There are cases where the directors never meet. Board meetings are often subject to the call of the manager and if the manager feels that he can get along without the aid of the board, he never calls his directors together. In such cases the manager is " the whole cheese" and the cooperative store is only a sorry shadow of what it should be. To break the detrimental influence of the uncooperative manager on his board of direc tors and on the membership, our task must be to make the directors really ambitious of directing, and to arouse among the members sufficient interest in the affairs and welfare of their own store so that they begin to attend meetings and assert their influence on the control of the store. This is an ardu ous and difficult task—but it can be done and must be done. Heraus mit the uncooperative manager, if he proves incapable of reforming! Let's continue our cooperative training schools and turn out of these schools real cooperative managers capable not only of making the societies in our district financially successful but also making them true and live coopera tives, keen on joining forces with other genuine groups for the purpose of building a real, solid consumers' Cooperative Move ment in these our United States. V. S. ALANNE. 44 COOPERATION COOPERATION 45 OVERLAPPING OB COMPETITION AMONG SOCIETIES "It is forbidden for any society affiliated with the Cooperative Union to organize its business in such a way as will place it in com petition with another affiliated society. Fur thermore, it cannot open new stores within the radius of activity of another society. In case this rule is broken, the Cooperative Union is obliged to discontinue all relations with the delinquent society.'' Translation from Rules of KOOPERATIVA PORBUNDET of Sweden The foregoing is only a sample of the kind of rule which is strictly en forced by the central Unions or Whole sales of many of the countries of Europe. The responsible cooperators do not in tend to have local societies using their valuable energies and material resources to compete against other cooperative associations when there is the entire capitalist system still unconquered and requiring all the attention which cooper ators can give to it. If a cooperative society wishes to test its strength in competition with other business, let it be careful in the selection of its antagonist. It would not seem that in the United States this was yet a serious problem. And in general it is not. But there are many definite communities where coop eratives are actively competing one with another. Waukegan had two Finnish organizations (one of them only semi- cooperative) situated side by side on the same street for many years, until the Trading Company last year bought out its competitor. Brooklyn has two Fin nish restaurants only one block apart. One Eastern town of only seven thou sand inhabitants has four cooperative stores, three of them on the same street, and all within two blocks of one an other; and although these four stores were started by three distinct nationality groups, still there is no room in such a small town for so many cooperatives; they are in a very large measure com peting organizations. Another Eastern community has recently witnessed a bitter political struggle between a coop erative bakery and a cooperative butchershop, both having a membership of the same nationality, where the butchershop group deliberately opened a new bakery in competition with its rival and the bakery society opened a competing butchershop in retaliation And meanwhile the dozens of private butchers and bakers in the community are watching with huge delight the de struction, of workers' cooperation in the neighborhood—something which the pri vate business men themselves could not accomplish. The "cooperators" are accommodating them. True, there are three societies in Greater New York operating butcher- shops, three operating bakeries, five operating grocery stores. But they are widely scattered geographically or they are catering to distinctly different con sumer demands; they are not in com petition. The same situation exists in other large cities like Chicago and Cleveland. When these societies have extended their activities to the place where they are competing for the busi ness of the same public, then it will be necessary to plan for amalgamation. Should The League establish such a rule as is common to most of the coopera tive movements of Europe? Some will perhaps object on the score that we would be interfering with the liberty, infringing upon the local autonomy of independent societies. But, on the other hand, it is the duty of The League to remind the cooperators throughout the country that their job is not that of attacking other cooperative societies. C. L. When Poultrymen Cooperate HOLDING TO FUNDAMENTALS The true meaning of the Movement can not be reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence, but only in the everlasting sacri fices of our veterans who have made it possible for us to sp&ak of our Movement as an established fact. Shall we sell its soul for dividends? If to buy and sell over the counter and create dividends is to be the result of the labours of our veterans and of ourselves, it were better that we had never come into existence. G. Booth, President C. W. S. of New South Wales By GORDON H. WARD "The fastest growing poultry coopera tive in the country," is the way poultry- men from San Diego to Vancouver refer to the Washington Cooperative Egg and Poultry Association. Organized in its present form early in 1917 with 114 members and doing a business of 14,000 cases of eggs during the year, the asso ciation had increased its membership to 7 000 in 1927 and these poultrymen de livered to the association to market for them 960,500 cases. The volume of eggs handled during the eleventh year was 67 times larger than the number marketed the first year. And in 1928 the Egg Department is doing 10 per cent more business than last year. The asso ciation is filling a real need and the poultrymen of western Washington are realizing this in increasing numbers. Between January 1 and August 7, 1928, 786 new members voluntarily joined without solicitation; the association hav ing no field service staff. In the valley between the Coast Eange and the Cascade Mountains from Win- lock down near the Oregon line and ex tending north to Lynden up close to the Canadian boundary conditions are very favorable for egg production. In this territory about 300 miles long and 100 miles wide the average winter tempera ture is about 45° and the average sum mer heat only about 71°. While they have an abundance of sunshine the air is not as dry as in many sections of the West. These conditions help maintain egg production at a more stable volume the year around. Before the War local production was not sufficient to supply the local demand and the egg dealers brought in supplies from other states. So when local pro duction began to expand the poultry- men found market conditions very unsatisfactory. A small group of pro gressives in the northern part of the valley concluded that a producers con trolled marketing organization to de velop the local market and ship to east ern markets when better returns could te realized by so doing was the only way out of the difficulty. Subsequent events have substantiated their faith in the cooperative method of solving economic problems. In 1921 the volume of business topped the 200,000 case mark and the associa tion was expanding rapidly, much faster than the local market. New outlets in the East had to be opened up to absorb this growing surplus. These Washing ton cooperators found the other poultry associations to the south were facing a similar problem. So the Washington Cooperative Egg and Poultry Associa tion, The Pacific Poultry Producers Cooperative of Portland, Oregon, the Poultry Producers of Central California, the Poultry Producers of Southern Cali fornia, and the Poultry Producers of San Diego organized the Pacific Egg Producers Cooperative with headquar ters in New York as their eastern co operative sales agency in April, 1922. In the nine months of that year PEP, as it is known through the egg trade, handled some 179,000 cases for the mem ber associations. By 1926 PEP was selling 906,500 cases and in 1927 reached 1,216,000 cases, or more than 100,000 per mont*h. PEP is developing markets outside New York as rapidly as possible to keep from over-supplying that market with fancy white eggs and at outside points in 1927 disposed of nearly a fourth of the eggs handled. The extent of the service rendered by PEP to the member associations can be judged by the fact that two-thirds of the eggs handled by the Washington Association were shipped east for PEP to sell. To assist its members in reducing their cost of production the Washington Asso ciation established a Feed Department four years ago. During the period of its operation this department has saved' the members about $3 per ton on the- feed it has supplied them, as compared with prices charged by private dealers. These savings have aggregated nearly a million dollars, most of which has been used in building and equipping mills 46 COOPERATION COOPERATION 47 •I and financing the operations of the department. But the members have been issued interest-bearing stock for their savings and this stock will be retired in rotation and replaced by new stock covering current savings as soon as sufficient capital has been accumulated. There are Unit Mills operating at Bellingham, Everett, Lynden, Seattle, and Tacoma on a very efficient basis since they must run to capacity almost all the time. In June, 1928, they handled 13,000 tons of poultry feed of the very finest quality obtainable. Chemists are continually testing the ingredients to make sure that only the best grains are used in compounding the rations according to the formulas scien tifically developed by the Agricultural Colleges for growing strong healthy birds and enabling them to do their best in egg production. This cooperation between the Feed Department and the colleges has not only greatly benefited the producing members, but has pro duced the phenomenon of 2,500,000 birds being fed approximately the same rations and handled according to sub stantially the same methods. As a result the Association receives eggs of approximately the same quality from almost all the members. This volume of eggs of uniform quality has never before been achieved, except by another cooperative, the Poultry Producers of Central California. This latter asso ciation uses substantially similar for mulas and feeding practices. As a result Pacific Egg Producers handles for these two associations the largest volume of eggs of uniform quality of any marketing agency in the world. The eggs are delivered at the twelve association packing plants two or three times a week, and in many instances more frequently. The weekly volume is mow averaging about 18,000 cases of 30 dozen each, or over half a million dozen. Every one of these eggs is carefully inspected and graded according to the rigid standards maintained by the asso ciation. The best eggs are separated into four main grades, according to size and color. These grades are known by the blue, red, green, and black colors of the labels on the cases. Between 60 and 65 per cent of all the eggs received can be shipped east in these grades, so that from two to six cars are started eastward every day to keep the consurn- ers of fancy white eggs supplied. To prevent evaporation and deteriora. tion egg handlers have for a number of years been dipping in hot mineral oil many of the eggs they wanted to store from the spring until the following fay and winter. The member associations of PEP found that this process some times overheated the eggs so they have improved the processing by spraying the eggs instead of dipping them. This seals the pores of the shell and keeps the contents in excellent condition. Because this protecting preserves the fine quality the eggs possess when laid until the housewife uses them, PEP is trying to educate consumers to the superior qual ity of eggs which have been "protected" at the packing plant soon after being laid. To help maintain the excellent quality 'of the eggs while traveling to eastern consumers, the Traffic Department has induced one of the railroad companies to build 140 special refrigerator cars for use by the Washington Association. Through cooperation with the railroads the time for crossing the continent has been reduced twenty-four to forty-eight hours so the eggs arrive in 11 to 12 days after leaving the packing plants. The Washington Association also worked out an improved method of packing the cars so that breakage has been very greatly reduced. In recent years the Poultry Depart ment of the association has expanded greatly, marketing both the old birds that have ceased producing and young birds marketed as broilers. The Seattle plant alone can feed 14,000 broilers at one time. In the spring of 1928 the poultry sales managers for PEP spent several months with the Association assisting them in developing improved methods of feeding, handling, dressing and packing the birds. The result of the combined efforts was a remarkable improvement in the quality of PEP broilers. Distributors pay a substantial premium for them. The application ot scientific research has developed birds of very superior eating quality. But if the broilers are going to stand p under this intensive milk feeding and if the laying birds are going to produce fancy quality eggs, they must have superior stamina and vigor in their con stitution. Some of the members of the Association who are interested in this problem have developed the Washington Cooperative Chick Association. This independent association supplies mem bers of the Egg Association and other poultrymen with nearly a million chicks a year, or about half of those hatched in its territory each spring. It is now developing a Master Breeding Farm to develop strains of superior lay ing birds with stronger constitutions to stand up under intensive methods. The various activities of the Wash ington Coop. Egg and Poultry Ass'n naturally require considerable capital. There is $2,000,000 of stock authorized at $1 per share par value. This capital is fully paid in and a surplus of $350,000 has been accumulated. Besides being invested in buildings and equipment, the funds of the Association are used to pay the members cash for the eggs de livered each week. The prices for each grade are determined each week by market conditions, allowing sufficient to cover expenses. Usually, however, there is a gain, especially on eastern ship ments and often on eggs stored until fall. These savings, or excess deduc tions, are returned to the members at the end of the year and often amount to over 1 cent per dozen. While the Washington Association is naturally trying to secure the full market price for its members' eggs, it aims to give consumers full value for their money in eggs of reliable fancy quality. The Association realizes that its continued existence depends upon serving its consuming customers as well as its producing members. To this end it is striving to stabilize the prices of eggs at levels which are equitable to both parties. Whenever the consumers are ready to purchase eggs in volume through cooperative wholesales, the cooperative poultry associations of the Pacific Coast will be glad to supply their needs. News and Comment A PROTECTION FOR CONSUMERS Stuart Chase and P. J. Schlink, au thors of the well-known book, Your Honey's Worth, with the office aid of Edith Copeland, started some time ago "The Consumers' Club." To-day the membership of that club is large and growing at a satisfactory rate. The aim of the club is to provide its membership with scientifically ac curate information about the commodi ties in everyday use. Its little prospectus of 40 pages does not pretend to list every kind of food, toilet article, kitchen utensel, furniture, farm machinery, heating appliance or automobile; but it gives some information on many of these items. For instance, What bottled beverages are good and what bad? B e What coffees offer the most value? which table syrups are really sugar syrups? How distinguish between good and bad oil- fired heaters? What is the best buy in thermometers? What are relative values of various iceless re frigerators ? How select the best vacuum cleaner? What brand of sheeting is best? Are there good and bad lubricants? Should you buy O'Cedar Oil or Lemon Oil? Where do you find the best insecticides? What is the most economical of the good radio sets? What low priced automobile offers the best service ? What are the best buys in second-hand cars? Which gasolines are the ones to keep away from? How about the various makes of typewriters? What razor blade lives longest? What watch is a really good wateli? And how about cosmetics!! All this and very much more. The League recommends the Consumers' Club to consumers who are bewildered and bedazzled by the conflicting claims of the advertising profession. 48 COOPERATION COMPARATIVE FIGURES FOR A FEW OF THE LARGER COOPERATIVES Franklin Cooperative Creamery Association Minneapolis, Minn. Farmers Union State Exchange Omaha, Nebr. (Wholesale) Cooperative Central Exchange Superior, Wise. (Wholesale) Cooperative Trading Company Waukegan, HI. Soo Cooperative Mercantile Association Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Consumers Cooperative Services New York City Cloquet Cooperative Society Cloquet, Minn. North Star Cooperative Store Co. Fairport Harbor, Ohio Cooperative Trading- Association Brooklyn, N. Y. United Workers Cooperative Association t New York City Cooperative Bakeries of Brooklyn & E. N. Y. Brooklyn, N. Y. Work People's Trading Co. Virginia, Minn. United Cooperative Society Maynard, Mass. United Cooperative Society Fitchhurg, Mass. New Cooperative Company Dillonvale, Ohio Grange Warehouse Co. Kent, Wash. Russian Workers Cooperative Stores Brooklyn, N. Y. Bock Cooperative Company Eock, Mich. Fort Bragg Cooperative Mere. Company Fort Bragg, Calif. Amalgamated Cooperative Service Corp. New York City Farmers Cooperative Trading Co. Hancock, Mich. United Cooperative Society Norwood, Mass. Grange Cooperative Wholesale Seattle, Wash. * Figures not available t Shareholders are societies rather than individuals t Store department only || Operated for Only a few weeks in 1927 COOPERATION 49 Year 1937 1928 1927 1938 1927 1928 1927 1928 1S37 1928 1927 192-8 1927 1928 1927 1938 1827 19S8 1927 1928 1927 1928 1927 1928 1927 1808 1927 1928 1927 1928 ],&2i7 1928 1927 1928 1927 1928 192(7 1928 1927 1928 1927 19 26 1907 1928 1927 ,1928 Income $8,641,740 3,410,387 1,618,288 1,775,84.9 1,265,676 I,517,8il3i 579,618 6719,198 €02,847 645,862 580,156 i&l'l,044 516,278 645,152 4149,361 458,514 428,l!2il 451,070 202,208 413,806 394,793 371,312 30.6,877 3173,4177 •338,i4«'8 360,000 3132,746 319,322 372,199 218,756 196,1I6B 223,290 149,784 185,191 144,8164 178,5193 159,4)54 175,252 152,747 136,091 145,121 113,741 110,182 105,881 109,862 Net Gain $67,499 96y521 49,096 37,930 18,336 * 24,136 24,1'70 38,886 37,011 34,611 134,056 16,980 17,8184 17,284 14,242 11,730 1,733 11,396 9,785 4,897 1,815 11,226 11,875 12,589 181,395 10,949 10,4215 11,216 1,460 61,94.7 3>29» 3,300 2,313 12,272 16,176 15,568 9,33iO 3,722 3,544 6,685 1,371 1,632 1,1786 1,3,21 Members 4,769 4,«32 * 6,300 51f * 1,240 1,350 580 585 2,838 3>152 1,317 1,2175 * * 1,968 2,114 1,800 * 1,100 1,100 861 961 755 686 600 600 410 3'50 250 250 120 138 374 3:95 290 290 133 150 772 772 200 205 17t 15t AMALGAMATED EXPANDS ITS HOUSING DEVELOPMENT On January 13th, in the presence of hundreds of members, ground was broken for the new group of apartment buildings to be erected at Van Cortlandt Park South, and later in the day, a sumptuous banquet was attended by the Cooperators, their friends, delegates from other societies, and officers of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. The new buildings will be six stories high and equipped with self-service ele vators. Monthly rental charges will average $11 per room. There will be 192 apartments. Only 50 per cent of the land will be built upon, the remain der being vacant as park space. When these buildings are completed, the total investment in this and the old group of buildings will be approximately $3,500,- 000, and the housing capacity of the apartments will be nearly 2,000 people. Members of any labor unions are wel comed to the new apartments, but pref erence will be given to members of the Amalgamated Union. Meanwhile, the educational work in the first group of houses is receiving much emphasis. One-half of the $1,000 recently awarded to Sidney Hillman, the President of the Union, by the Harmon Foundation, he has turned over to the Cooperative Library Fund, the other going to the Workers Kindergarten in Kovna, where Mr. Hillman was born. The A. C. A. Community Theater is putting on some interesting little plays. Study classes, lecture courses, a regular open forum, a kindergarten and other community activities are in full swing. The Association takes a bundle of 100 copies of the magazine, "Cooperation" each month and distributes them free of charge from the library and the Tea Room. FAIRPORT HARBOR, OHIO The North Star Cooperative Store Company of Fairport, though not known well to the readers of this magazine, is one of the larger societies in the country. Some figures for the past two years tell the story in outline. Gross sales... Net gain Capital stock. Surplus . . . .. 1927 $44)9,361: 17,284 160170 813,702 1928 $459,514 14,242 14,370 8,8,248 COOPERATIVE CHAIN STORE IN BROOKLYN There are several cooperatives in the U. S. which now boast of enough branch stores to warrant the title '' Cooperative Chain Store." One such is the Eussian Workers Cooperative Meat & Grocery Stores Association of Brooklyn, which did a business last year through its five stores of $185,191, with a net gain of $3,135. The association expects in the near future to open its own smoke house. My Livest News Item of the Month THE CURE FOR DRY ROT Measures were adopted by the annual meeting of the shareholders of the Farm ers Union State Exchange of Omaha, Nehr., in January, to prevent "dry rot" —the slow, but deadly, disease of co operatives which consists of a constantly declining number of shareholders, an in creasing proportion of whom are no longer active or potential patrons of the society or association. The Farmers Union State Exchange, which is a cooperative wholesale serving cooperative stores and other coopera tives handling merchandise, Farmers Union locals, and individual members, and also operating 10 branch stores, has about 6,000 shareholders. Only a few of these are cooperative associations. The rest are individuals. In the 10 years since the Exchange was organized on the present plan, many of the original share holders have moved from the state, gone into other lines than farming, or died and left their shares to heirs. Symp toms of "dry rot" were developing rapidly. Under an amendment to the by-laws and an accompanying resolution adopted by the shareholders' meeting, patronage 50 COOPERATION COOPERATION 51 dividends will be made to all patrons, the dividends of non-shareholder patrons will be credited on the books in payment for shares, and as rapidly as possible the shares of inactive and uninterested share holders will be taken up. This plan will not only keep the shareholders con stantly renewed, but it will place the shares of the Exchange in the hands of its patrons, whether they are individuals or associations. L. S. H. MORE INCOME TAXES REFUNDED Several months ago these pages told of a refund of income taxes overpaid by the Rock Cooperative Company of Rock, Michigan, on sales of 1923-4, due to the appeal of Mr. Englander, tax expert for The League. Since then ad ditional refunds have been made to the same company because of an appeal en tered by Mr. Englander on the business of 1925-6. The account now stands as follows: Original Final Amount Year levy levy saved 192-3-4 ...... $887 $3,67 $470 1925-6 ...... 1,200 431 7169 $1,239 C. L. Northern States' Cooperative League 2100 WASHINGTON AVE., N. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. ANOTHER GOOD YEAR FOR THE FRANKLIN CREAMERY The Franklin Cooperative Creamery As sociation continued to show very satisfac tory progress during 1928. For the first time since 1924 the Creamery's sales showed an increase over the previous year. The total net sales in 1928 amounted to $3,410,- 396.74. Of these, 57 per cent were milk sales, 17 per cent butter sales, 15 per cent cream sales, and 7 per cent ice cream sales. The total sales in 1928 were $68,656.66, or 2.5 per cent higher than in 1927, the great est increase being in the milk sales. It is interesting to note, in the way of compari son, that the buttermilk sales of the Frank lin Creamery alone were nearly as large in 1928 as the average sales of the 115 co operative stores in Minnesota (the Franklin Coop. Creamery sold $73,506.62 worth of buttermilk in 1928), and still the buttermilk sales made only 2 per cent of the Creamery's total sales in 1928. The net gain from the year's business amounted to $95,521.30. As the consumers' cooperatives in this country are not exempt from federal income tax, Franklin has to pay this year to Uncle Sam from its net "profits" approximately $13,000. The shareholding members of the organization have received 6 per cent interest on their capital investment for 1928. As the paid-in share capital at the end of last year amounted to $943,000, nearly $60,000 had to be paid to these members in interest alone. The original book value of the property (buildings, lots, machinery, fixtures, and equipment) of the Franklin Coop. Cream ery amounts now to $1,683,909.17, but this has been heavily depreciated from year to year so that at the end of 1928 the net value of the Creamery's property amounted to $1,102,780.50. The net total of all assets was $1,439,504.39. The corporate net worth of the business, Dee. 31, 1928, amounted to $1,144,317.64. In other words, the present book value of the shares of the Franklin organization is 122 per cent of the original par value. Since its inception the Creamery has paid to its members and patrons the respectable sum of $574,501.00 in interest and patronage dividends, that is, more than one-half of its total paid-in capital stock. The total interest paid so far on the capital stock alone makes 42 per cent of the paid-in share capital. The prosperous condition of the Creamery enabled the Board of Directors to retire in the past year $100,000 worth of bonds which actually would have become due in 1932. The balance of this funded debt is now only $165,000, while a year ago it still was $290,- 000. And in spite of this the amount of cash on hand and in banks, as of December 31, 1928, was $159,939.46. The creamery continued to redeem some of its capital stock during the past four years. Consequently the number of share holding members dropped from 4,769 at the end of 1927 to 4,622 at the end of last year. This decrease of membership may be said to he the only undesirable feature in the de velopment of the Franklin organization. In the face of the good financial results shown, it was no wonder that the three directors whose terms expired at the end of last year were all re-elected. The only new member on the board is Mr. Andrew Frisell, who a few months ago, as an alternate, was called to fill the vacancy created through the death of Mr. Anthony Eud. The Franklin Coop. Creamery has for the last four years been managed by Mr. H. I- Nordby, who, besides his managership, also holds the positions of president of the Franklin organization, president of the Northern States' Cooperative League, and vice-president of The Cooperative League of the U. S. of America. i DISTRICT MEETING OF COOPERA TIVE STORES TO BE HELD AT MEDFORD, WIS. As a result of Secretary Alanne's recent trip to Central Wisconsin, a district meet ing of cooperative stores will be held at Medford, Wis., the first part of May. The purpose of the meeting will be to bring together leaders of the consumers' move ment in that territory and have them dis cuss their common problems. It is expected that a dozen cooperative stores will participate in this meeting, which may he of great significance to the coopera tive movement in these parts of the country. EDUCATIONAL AND ORGANIZA TION WORK AT MILWAUKEE At the behest of the Milwaukee Consum ers' Cooperative Association, Mr. Geo. W. Jacobson, a graduate of the University of Minnesota as well as of the Northern States' League Training School, has spent five weeks in Milwaukee since the first of the year in an effort to stimulate greater in terest among the thousand and odd share holders of the local organization in the welfare of its business and to organize a new branch store for the Milwaukee Con sumers at West Allis. According to a letter received at our League office from Mr. Axel Hansen, gen eral manager of the Milwaukee concern, Mr. Jacobson has done good work there and his efforts are evidently appreciated by the leading members of the local society. Other societies would do well to engage Mr. Jaeobson for similar work. Mr. Jacob- son is now helping the Cherry Farmers' Co operative Association of Iron, Minn., to organize a branch store at Forbes. NEWS FROM THE FIELD The individual membership campaign for 1929 is in full swing. The other day K. A. Nurmi, one of the Cooperative Central Ex change fieldmen, sent in 117 memberships in one bunch. Others are working to get individual mem bers for the League and there is hope that the 1,000 limit will be reached for the first time this year. Have you enrolled for 1929? * * * The Prentice Cooperative Supply Com pany of Prentice, Wis., was the first store this year to take 100 per cent individual membership in the League. All five em ployees were enrolled. * * * Sam Sahlman, manager of Union Con sumers' Cooperative Society of Duluth, spent two weeks in January at Willmar, Minn., taking an inventory of the stock of merchandise of the Willmar Cooperative Mercantile Company at the request of the N. S. Coop. League. The Willmar store joined the League last spring and they are the first society to ask the League to super vise the taking of an inventory at their store. What society will be next? * * * The Board of Directors of the Franklin Cooperative Creamery Association recently ordered 300 copies of the national magazine, Cooperation, for the whole year, through the Northern States' Coop. League. The plan is to send during the year a sample copy of the magazine to every member of the Franklin organization, in. an effort to make them regular subscribers. * * * The annual meeting of The Cooperative Society of Wausau, Wis., was held at the city hall, Thursday, January 17th. Eskel Ronn and V. S. Alanne, representing the N. S. Coop. League, were present at this meeting and spoke to the members. The Wausau society has recently changed man agers and hopes to get on its feet under the guidance of the present manager, Mr. Roy Sehaumburger. The Wausau meeting was well attended. * * * J. D. Dahlstrom, well known to those close to the activities of the Northern States'' Cooperative League, is now managing the store of the Cooperative Farmers' Co. at Georgeville, Minn. We wish Brother Dahl strom success in his new job. 52 COOPERATION COOPERATION 53 The Franklin Educational Committee has elected D. Leuchovius, a director of our League, their chairman for the year, and F. F. Burandt, another director of the League, treasurer. Miss Alice Johnson was elected secretary of the Committee. The last annual meeting of the Franklin organ ization appropriated $3,000 to the Educa tional Committee to be used by them during the year in educational work. * * * The League's Auditing Department has been kept extremely busy since the first of the year auditing the accounts of coopera tive creameries, stores, and oil associations in the district. The department is now in charge of Walter Jaeobson, since the resig nation of 0. J. Arness last fall. Mr. Newell, auditor of the Minnesota Co op. Oil Co., and Mr. Brown, office manager of the Franklin Coop. Creamery Associa tion, have assisted Mr. Jaeobson during the worst rush, taking care of a few audits. -Si it, * Mr. A. L. Newton, secretary of the Rail road Cooperative Stores Co. of Jamestown, N. D., was a caller at the Northern States' Coop. League office February llth. The League has helped the board of directors of the Jamestown organization to find a new manager for their store, which is doing a business of over $200,000 a year. Mr. F. W. Ransom, secretary-treasurer of the Manitoba Cooperative Wheat Producers (the Manitoba Wheat Pool), Winnipeg Canada, was also a recent visitor at the Northern States' League office. Mr. Ran som, while active largely in the producers' movement, is greatly interested also in the consumers' movement and thoroughly vm. derstands the consumer philosophy. * * * H. I. Nordby, Eskel Bonn, E. G. Cort, and V. S. Alanne attended the annual convention of the Farmers' Educational and Coopera tive Union of Nebraska, which was held at Omaha, Jan. 8-10th. The four representatives from the North ern States' League district were all deeply impressed by the sincerity and enthusiasm of the Nebraska movement as well as by their remarkable achievements. * * * Secretary Alanne has, during the months of December and January, attended two conventions (as a fraternal delegate), six membership meetings, and eight board meet ings of various local societies in the district. it, it, X Milwaukee is finally enrolled among the family of Northern States societies. The Commonwealth Mutual Savings Bank affiliated in January, and the Directors of the Milwaukee Consumers Cooperative As sociation voted for similar action at their January meeting. Cooperation Abroad The" cooperators of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales spent one billion dollars in their own stores in 1927. It's a large amount of money which if com posed of $5 bills placed end to end would reach more than three-quarters way around the world. The average pur chase per member was $3.30 per week. One-half a million new members were added during the year and approxi mately half the families in Great Britain are now affiliated with the cooperatives. 1928 the two Finnish wholesales, S. 0. K. and O. T. K. also joined the Scandina vian C. W. S., and the managers of these two wholesales of Finland were added to the board of directors of the International organization. Ten years ago the Cooperative Whole sale Societies of Sweden, Norway and Denmark organized the Scadinavian Cooperative Wholesale Society with its head office in Copenhagen. It is the first and only genuine International Co operative Wholesale. In the autumn of No cooperative movement has more successfully attacked and defeated powerful trusts than has the Swedish. Prices of flour, margarine, galoshes, formerly dictated by the trusts, are now controlled by the cooperatives. The Swedish Wholesale is now launch ing an attack upon the electric lamp bulb trust. An ordinary bulb costs about 35 cents in Sweden, 25 cents ID Denmark, 36 cents in Norway, 35 cents in Finland, 27 cents in Germany, less than 25 cents in France and nearly 40 cents in England. The new factory of the Swedish Wholesale will have a capacity of two million bulbs annually, will employ about 100 persons, and will be able to retail its bulbs at 20 cents and still realize a surplus. Up to November, 1928, more than $15,000 had been subscribed to the Bul garian Cooperators Earthquake Relief Fund organized by the International Co operative Alliance; and many national or local unions had sent additional relief directly to Bulgaria, "El Hogar Obrero", the Consumers Building and Credit Society of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the largest and most successful cooperative in South America, perhaps of the two Americas. Organized in 1907, the Society now has 7,700 mem bers and sales for 1927 totalled $721,986, or an average of $94 per member. Net gain for the year was $65,584. There are 56 employees. The banking depart ment has 1,183 accounts and total de posits of $552,572. This society in 1928 became a member of the English Cooperative Wholesale Society. District Leagues EASTERN STATES LEAGUE The Executive Committee of the Board of Directors met on February 4. The Treasurer's report showed total income of $3,125, $1,968 of which was from membership dues and $269 from the joint buying commissions. The largest item in expenditures was $872 for executive salaries. There was a balance on hand at the end of the year of $929, with all bills paid. The budget for 1929 calls for several hundred dollars more from affiliation fees and for ex penditure of larger amounts for salaries, field work, and Year Book. A delegate was present from the Pater- son Butchershop to ask for assistance to that organization in its fight against another cooperative in the same city. The Committee explained that it could take absolutely no part in any factional fights between cooperatives, except to aid in arbitrating such disputes. Funds were appropriated to send an adviser to TJtica Cooperative Society if the right man could be found. It was decided that two days should be allowed this year for the Annual Convention, one for the league meeting and one for the meet ing of the Eastern Cooperative Whole sale; and directors are being consulted with a referendum on exact time and place. The Board of Directors of the Eastern Wholesale met on February 6th to take 11P again the question of manager. Mr. Wirkkula reported himself ready to be gin work just as soon as he was relieved of responsibilities in Cooperative Trad ing Association of Brooklyn, but the recall of the old board of directors by the membership of that Association and the discharge of the newly elected man ager demanded a further continuation of Mr. Wirkkula's services there for a few weeks longer. The Fourth Week-end Conference of Cooperative Societies of Greater New York was held on Sunday, February 3d, with the delegates as guests, at dinner, of the Cooperative Trading Association of Brooklyn. Fourteen societies were represented by 29 delegates. The first session was devoted to an interesting dis cussion of Edward Cohen's presentation of the subject "What is the social Ideal of the Consumers Cooperative Move ment? " In the afternoon Barrow Lyons opened up the consideration of "A Review of all proposals to date for joint educational work and definite sug gestions for two or three concrete activi ties for immediate effort." It was agreed that an attempt should be made to organize a one-week summer institute next summer, preferably at Brookwood Labor College. Reorganization of the Eastern Cooperator was also discussed, as well as arrangement of a dinner to the delegates of the Annual Convention of the Eastern League if that Convention comes to New York. 54 COOPERATION COOPERATION 55 My Point of View By J. P. WABBASSE WATCH BUSINESS Distributing goods for service or for use receives comparatively little attention in this country. Most people do not know about it. Selling goods for the purpose of making money from the consumers is the big thing. Many colleges have a professor of mer chandising, and courses are given in adver tising, selling, and salesmanship. Dr. Paul H. Nystrom, who occupies the chair at Columbia University, classifies retail trade in the United States in seven divisions. He estimates the amount of business done by each in 1928. ESTIMATED DISTRIBUTION OF RETAIL TRADE BY TYPE'S OF RETAIL INSTITUTIONS IN 1028 Billions Per Cent of of Total Dollars Retail Trade Department stores including general merchandise stores 6.5 10 Chain stores including all organizations of two or more stores under one ownership and manage ment ................... 6.2 15 Mail order houses including about 1,200 concerns doing a mail order catalogue business. ...... ........ 1.4 3% Company stores — Stores owned and operated by industrial concerns pri marily for their employes. These are generally of the department store type..... .8 2 House to house selling, can vassing, peddlings, etc..... .8 2 Consumers' cooperative stores ................... .1 Vt Independent stores not in cluded in classifications given above ............. 25.2 Total . . . 41.0 61 % 100 This table shows that the independent private distributor still holds out against the invasions of the department store and the chain store. At the end comes consumers' cooperative stores with one-fourth of 1 per cent of the retail business of the country. That is not big, but it may grow bigger. Professor Nystrom told his students in a recent lecture, that, if in the future any dominant method of retail business should grow careless in its effort to suit the con suming public, either in service or in price, then the time will have come for a rapid development of consumers' cooperative stores. That situation will bear watching, lie says. Perhaps the time is already here when the situation will bear watching. We are now in the era of large scale manufacturing. " Mass production " is the great goal of business. The necessary ac companiment is "intensive selling." The two have to go together. A recent writer has said, that if you pay $3,000 for a car, about $1,800 goes to pay labor in the automobile factory and $1,200 goes to pay other people for selling it to you. This $1,200 pays for advertising, showrooms, salesmen, fancy rugs, potted plants, and other sundries that cost 40 per cent of the list price. An automobile accessory is mentioned by the same writer, of which the actual labor cost is less than 35 cents. The manufacturer sells it for $5, and the retail list price is $35. We are told that the difference is due to the expense of selling the article—plus, of course, some profit. We have long known that the farmer who produces the food gets the small end of the consumers' dollar. Whatever price he gets, the farmer's commodity goes out into the market; and, outside of the cooperative so cieties, the consumer is still at the mercy of the traders who are interested in selling at the highest price possible. We have now the vicious circle of pros perity. To make more profits requires more production; more production requires more sales; more sales requires more buying power; more buying power requires more wages; more wages requires more production. The circle is completed. The snake's tail is in its mouth. This is called prosperity. Everbody has a hold upon the slippery money while it is gliding through his fingers. But is every body getting more real prosperity—more life? Plants are equipped to produce more than the people need. Salesmanship is counted upon to make the people buy. Is not the situation that will bear watch ing already here when the changing of styles has become just as much of necessity for the producer, and as much of a burden upon the consumer, as " intensive salesmanship " f It is the style to have more than one needs. Shoes, suits of clothes, pipes, cigarettes, sodas, radios, victrolas, cars, stocks, bonds. V buy, buy is written on the sands of the ocean; the trees of the forest are killed to •oelaim it; it is emblazoned across the sky. In the automobile industry, a very effective propaganda is being carried on by the Gen eral Motors Corporation to " make the people two car conscious." Every worthy citizen once had a car; now he needs two cars. " Do not sell the old car; keep it." "After the husband has driven to work with one car, the wife needs a car of her own to go shopping." The smart man has two cars. The two-car garage has taken the place of the one car garage. " Buy another car! " " Say it with a Chrysler!" But where is the end? There will be just as much reason to go ahead " to break down sales resistance " in the interest of three-car psychology as there was for the two-car distemper. How long can this go on with its installment buying and credit selling? Much talk about prosperity does not make prosperity. The declaring of more dividends, the increase of bank clearings, even the de cline of unemployment are not enough to mean prosperity. In 1920 there were 8,970 failures of busi ness concerns in the United States. In 1925, as " prosperity " increased, there were 21,000 failures. In 1926, as " prosperity " gained, there were 21,773 failures. And in 1927, with "prosperity" in full swing, 23,147 businesses went under. The mortality rate is very high in keeping prosperity going. In this situation, we have the Secretary of Labor, James J. Davis, appealing to the national inventive genius to busy itself in venting new wants and more novelties, to create new demands, in order to make jobs for the workers who have been thrown out of work by labor saving devices. And a presidential candidate has spoken glowingly of the wonderful prosperity that transfers to commercial employment hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs in productive industry. Farmers and factory workers become clerks and salesmen. This is the New Industrialism. America also has its " New Economic Policy." Our "nepmen" are riding on top. Compared with other countries, our stand ard of living is high. But poor Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America are not high ideals toward which to aim. The important questions are: Are we getting our money's worth? Could we do any better with our prosperity ? Perhaps it is a good thing that we have started that little one-fourth-of-one-per cent of business for service. It may be the train ing school which some day will be much needed. In Russia it was just that which saved the people from utter chaos and utter failure. Who can tell what it may yet do for us? Report of the Committee on Cooperative Insurance to the Sixth Congress of The Cooperative League At the Fifth Congress of The League, held in Minneapolis in November, 1826, a part of one session was devoted to a discussion of coopera tive insurance, the result of which was the appointment of a Committee to look into the entire question of insurance under cooperative control and to report to the next Congress of The League. Such a committee was appointed 'and our report is as follows: As it was impossible to get a meeting of the committee, all discussion has been carried on by correspondence. It was assumed from the beginning that the function of the Committee was to investi gate possible ways and means of developing cooperative insurance, national in scope, and either directly under the control of our con sumers movement or else very closely allied with it. Immediately the question arose: should the start be made with life insurance or fire insurance; for which is there the greater demand; and which offers the fewer organiza tion difficulties? That question has been before us for the entire two years, and we have not disposed of it yet. The cooperative movements of Europe have almost universally gone first into fire insurance, for the financial problems are not so great, and there is a far greater demand among farmers and workers for pro tection against fire than for protection against death. A man usually takes out life insurance only once and keeps that same policy for many years; fire protection may be easily transferred from one company to another; furthermore, there are many different kinds of property within a single family which should 56 COOPERATION COOPERATION 57 I be insured against fire: dwelling house, barn, garage, livestock, automobile, crops, household furniture. Conditions among cooperators in America are quite different, however. The majority of consumers' cooperatives are among the farmers, and farmers already have their little township or county fire insurance societies organized on the mutual or cooperative plan in thousands of communities throughout the country. These little societies are in most instances legally forbidden to overstep the boundaries of the little territory allotted them when they were organized; they are very effi cient; and no large nation-wide company can begin to compete with them. For the con sumers cooperative movement to organize a fire company, therefore, would seem to be unwise, for most of the consumers' cooperative groups are already covered. How about life insurance, then? Here there is a wider scope, with little competition in the cooperative field. The great handicap is that of initial finances. New York State is not more stringent in its insurance laws than many other states; yet here we should have to have approximately $250,000 of capital in hand at the very beginning before we would be permitted to write any insurance. This handi cap applies to all kinds of life companies, whether stock or mutuals. Faced with these difficulties in both insur ance fields, your Committee then turned its attention to one possible way out. Was there a cooperative life or a cooperative fire insur ance company already in the field with which we might align ourselves more and more closely until ultimately that company might become the insurance department of the consumers cooperative movement? At once we found such a company in each field. The New Era Life Association, with its headquarters in Grand Rapids, and writing insurance in both Michigan and Illinois, proved to be not only a democratically controlled mutual (most mutuals are highly centralized as regards control), with proxy voting for bidden, initiative and referendum available to the members, and representation on the con trolling body a delegated rather than a direct responsibility of members, but it also had the lowest premium rates to be found anywhere in the country. This association is a constit uent member of the Northern States League and of The Cooperative League since the early part of 1927. It has upward of 30,000 member polieyholders, and is 31 years old. The Presi dent, E. E. Branch, is on the board of directors of the Northern States League and a member of this committee. In the field of fire insurance we found the Workmen's Furniture Fire Insurance Society, with head offices in New York City, and with branches in more than fifty cities and towns throughout the country. This society is 56 years old, has upward of 50,000 members, and has made gains in membership every single year since it was organized. It insures house hold furniture only, and only in communities which are protected by a fire department. Jts rates are the lowest to be found in the country The New York Branch (which comprises about half of the entire m'embership) holds the annual meeting which determines the policies of the organization and elects the governing bodies. The Society affiliated with The Co? operative League in the Spring of 1926. Are there possibilities that either of these organizations might gradually become the recognized and official insurance departments of The Cooperative League? It is hard to say. In both instances there are difficulties in the way. The New Era Life Association having always operated on the current cost basis, never attempted to create any reserves such as are now required by the insurance laws of Michigan and nearly all other states It has, therefore, been necessary to readjust its rates on a legal reserve basis, the theory of the law being that in time to come the increasing age of members will cause higher mortality costs, and the reserves will thus be needed, although the New Era has for its more than thirty-one years always been able to meet its claims promptly and fully. In order to quickly meet the requirements of the law, it was the intention of the manage ment to reineorporate as a stock company but a referendum vote of the members has failed to carry that proposition. Hence, it will continue on the present basis, and witliout change in its method of organization. The amount needed for the regular reserves will either be raised among the friends of the institution or else will be accumulated during the next two or three years through savings in mortality and expense costs. If some mem bers of our committee feel that we might be taking a big risk in tying up with a company which is somewhat embarrassed financially, tlie heads of New Era Association remind us that the temporary financial embarrassment is not one tenth the handicap that we should find in trying to start a brand new company, with the enormous initial capital necessary and the expense and energy required for getting policy- holders. If the lack of a legal reserve is a liability, then a membership of more than 30,000 polieyholders and the experience of nearly 30 years in business are decided assets to offset such liability. As regards the Workmen's Furniture Fire insurance , Society, here we have a larger organization and one that is in excellent financial condition. Another factor of great importance is the origin and control of this society. It was started by German Socialists, and the control has remained with that group from the beginning. This means that there is a fundamental cooperative character in the leadership; they are men who know and under stand the cooperative movement, and they are exceedingly jealous to prevent any vestige of private profit-making from creeping into their society. In this respect, the organization is more cooperative than is the New Era, most of the officers of which are not from the ranks f men who have made a study of our economic 0 tem' most of them probably see little in vitalism that is undesirable. The W. F. F. T S. is weak in the following respects. It m 'insure household furniture only; and ttempts to broaden its charter have so far been unavailing. It exists outside the ordinary Purauce iaw Of the state having been char tered by special act of the legislature. It has had difficulty getting permission to operate in two or three states, since it is not organized trietly according to the conventional insurance Jaws (Massachusetts and Minnesota are two cases in point); and it is operating in ten or twelve of the states, not by permission of the authorities, but merely because local groups have asked the Main Office for the right to start branches and this right has been granted without seeking legal authority for such action. The officials of the Society, however, feel that both these legal restrictions might be overcome by persistent and intelligent action. Another question which has faced the Com mittee is this: Provided both the organized consumers' movement and these existing in surance societies were in favor of closer align ment, just what are the largest immediate practical difficulties? Undoubtedly they are the difficulties of responsibility during the transition period. So long as these societies are controlled quite independently of the con sumers' movement and The Cooperative League, the League inevitably takes a risk in recom mending that its membership- join them. We would be standing sponsor for organizations outside our control and liable at any time to change their cooperative character, or perhaps to get into financial difficulties. On the other hand, these organizations are quite within their rights in demanding that the consumers' cooperatives give them some very tangible and material support as an earnest .of their good intentions; organizations as old as these in surance societies and having such great respon sibilities to their own members cannot afford to throw themselves all at once into the arms of a consumers movement which is still very young, poorly organized, and, as a united movement, still without experience in adminis tering any kind of central cooperative business. It is worth noting the experience of the Swedish cooperative movement in getting its insurance departments started, for there are some exact parallels to our situation here. The Swedish Union first organized fire insurance for protection of furniture only, and for many years insured no other kind of property; a precedent possible to follow here. Again, the Swedish movement, when it was ready to under take life insurance, instead of organizing a new company, started negotiations with a life company already in existence, and after con siderable parleying made that company its life insurance department and changed its structure to fit the requirements of its new position and new tasks; another precedent which might perhaps be fruitfully studied by ourselves. One other development has taken place dur ing the past six months which is worth mention ing. A committee on Cooperative Insurance ajppointed by the Cooperative Union of Canada has been making a study similar to our own. Correspondence between the secretary of their committee and members of ours has led us both to believe that there might be possi bilities of organizing a cooperative insurance society to cover both Canada and the United States, control to be vested in an administra tive body elected or appointed jointly by The Union and The League. Old line insurance companies are today writing insurance in both countries; a cooperative company should have no difficulty in getting permission to do the same. And certainly the needs and demands for insurance among the cooperators of both countries are similar. If a new company were to be organized, the financial burden would thus be shared between the cooperatives of the two countries. Whether we were to proceed with a new or an already existing company, the base for our insurance work would thus be broadened considerably and the administra tive expense spread over a much larger area and larger number of members. If the organization of a new company were to be considered, the Committee has thought it possible to begin business in some of the states where the insurance laws and require ments of initial capital are not so stringent as they are in New York, Minnesota, and Massa chusetts and other states having very high standards. Though incorporation in such a state would not permit us to do business in these states above-mentioned, still it would enable us to work in many states, build up our capital and our organization, and thus gain the strength which would qualify us for writing insurance in these states at a later date. One final question, and a highly important one to be answered before we can proceed far is this: Is there yet in the Board of Directors of The Cooperative League sufficient harmony of spirit, unity of purpose and busi ness experience to warrant our launching any such difficult kind of business directly under League control? Your Committee has not discussed this vital question, but it must be discussed before advanced progress can be made. This is as far as the Committee appointed by the Fifth Congress has gone with its study of the possibilities of developing insurance directly under the control of the consumers cooperative movement in the United States. Before going further we must find out how our members themselves feel on the various problems here presented. (Signed) Committee on Insurance, E. E. Branch, Paul H. Douglas, B. Fogelson, . A. S. Goss. Huston Thompson. 58 COOPERATION COOPERATION 59 •ii 1 COMING A Series of Debate articles. Subject: Shall we Promote Cooperative Brands or Shall We Push the Nationally Advertised Products? By four or five managers of the Largest Societies in the country, wholesale or retail. WATCH FOE IT! CAN CAPITALISM PROMISE MORE? A Saskatchewan man joined the Young Cooperative Society in 1914, buying a $20 share. He bought supplies through the society and each year left his patronage dividends with the organization until the share was worth $100, the limit set. Then he continued to leave his annual dividends as loan capital until the sum reached the limit of $400, since which time he has drawn his dividends. He now owns $100 share capital, $400 loan capital, and has received $359 cash as interest and divi dends. The Reader Writes FROM ONE OF THE PIONEERS IN THE MOVEMENT EDITOK COOPERATION : The mining conditions in Eastern Ohio are now about the same as they are in West Virginia. Working under open shop conditions where they have started operations. Only in communities where our stores are located the miners are still idle with the exception of Bradley where the U. S. Fuel Company started with non-union labor a year ago. Such are the fortunes of labor, and the miners are largely themselves to blame. The Jacksonville Scale sounded their death knell. The good wages received under that agreement made the mem bership careless of their organization. It is the sad truth that labor is more defenseless than it was '20 years ago—and no policy for the future,—and no Cooperation. The MONTHLY PROPAGANDA POSTER SERVICE issued by the CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE enables you to utilize the display space around the cooperative's premises for the most effective sort of cooperative propaganda, at a very moderate cost. For samples, prices and information, address: CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 1303 N. Park St., Bloomington, 111. Wishing all of you in the League a Happy New Year. Yours for Cooperation, Peter Moerth, Mgr. Piuey Forks Branch New Cooperative Co. WHO FELL DOWN ON THE INCOME TAX JOB? * . . . . We expected you to be able to get an exemption for us this year, but I guess you fell down on your duty. You know as well as we do that we have to pay Income Tax on dividends paid on Capital invested and also on any amounts put into the Surplus account. And we have over $50,000 Capital Stock on which we pay 8% dividend, so there is no way out of it except to pay the Income Tax until such time when you can get the law changed so that Cooperative Stores will be exempt. We do not feel that we should pay an Income Tax, but under the present law there is no way out of it. Very truly yours, CRYSTAL FALLS COOP. SOCIETY, Andrew Ostrand, Manager. Crystal Falls, Midi. * Several hundred dollars worth of printing mid postage went into a series of begging, cajoling, .pleading letters to 1700 cooperative societies throughout the country in the autumn and winter of 1927-8, asking for a little information wliich would enable us to get that exemption. And tlie final result of all these letters was only slightly more than 400 replies,—not enough to convince the Ways and Means Committee of Congress that the cooperatives of the country were interested in getting exemption. COOPERATIVE DEMOCRACY Second Edition completely revised by JAMES PETER WARBASSE f'resident 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 " vTe hope Dr. Warbasse's book will find readers throughout the world"—O. J. D. O. Ooedhardt, ex-President International Coop erative Alliance The Macmillan Co., New York, Publishers Order from The Cooperative League, 167 West 12th St., New York, U. S. A. Price, $1.50. The Cooperative Union, Holyoake House, Han over St., Manchester, England. Price 6 sh. German Edition: Verlagsgesellschaft deutscher Konsumvereine, Strohhause 38, Hamburg, Germany. Price, 6 marks. IS YOUR FURNITURE INSURED IN A COOPERATIVE COMPANY? This Company is 55 years old It has 50,000 members Its rates are the lowest Is there a branch in your town? If not, why not? WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY Care of Cooperative League, 167 W. 12 St. NEW YORK CITY STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence Courses prepared and con ducted 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 THEi COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West l«ith Street New York City The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under tlie auspices of The Cooperative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum "The Cooperative Pyramid Builder" Official Organ of Cooperative Central Exchange is a snappy, live cooperative magazine. Get in line! Subscribe WOW Subscription price 50c a year. COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE Superior, Wis. COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPEEATION for one year to Name. .................................... Address ......................••.••••••••• $1.00 a year 60 111 •LI PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 3. Story of Cooperation ..............$ .10 $6.00 7. British Cooperative Movement...... .10 38. Consumers' Cooperative Movement in U. S., 1926 .................... .10 39. Consumers' Cooperative Societies in N. Y. State (Published by Con sumers' League) ............... .10 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe... .05 4.00 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States. . . . . . . . .............. 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase). . . ................... .05 TECHNICAL 6.00 6.00 4.00 .05 4.00 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society ............. .10 4.00 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 Fun a Women's Guild.... .................. .02 15. How to Organize a District Coopera tive League .................... .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson). ................... .50 43. Cooperative Housing .............. .10 50. A B C of Cooperative Housing..... .10 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apart ment House .................... .10 MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law............ .10 46. Producers' Cooperative Industries... .10 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Cooperative 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 30. " When the Whistle Blew " (Story, by Bruce Calvert) ............... .06 65. Reading List on Cooperation....... .10 66. International Directory of Coopera tive Organizations .............. .60 41. Social Aspects of Farmers' Coopera tive Marketing (By Benson Y. Landis). .................... .25 42. Co-op Homes for Europe's Homeless. .10 49. A Way Out ...................... .02 .75 55. A Better World to Live In........ .05 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Dif fers from Ordinary Business..... .02 .60 60. The " Moral Equivalent " of Jazz... .02 €2. Buttons (League emblem), $4 inch diameter.................... . 2.00 63. Sign or Transparency of League Em blem. Green and gold, 8 in. diam. .25 15.00 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250. 68. To Mothers ...................... .02 1.00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.50 per 500; $4.00 per 1,000.) (1) Principles and Aims of The Cooperative League; (20) Why Loyalty Is Necessary; (21) Cost and Crime of Credit; (25) Resolutions Adopted by A. F. of L.; (26) Factory Workers Cooperatel; (28) Do You Know About Cooperation in Europe?; (40) Have You Committee-on Education and Recreation?; (45) c-i~ ,a and Stores; (47) A Man's Fight to a Job. "cnool> MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred) Subscription, per year.................. »,/„ REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.)...........Per Yea?$11£ $1.65 if paid by check. ' *UO BOOKS The following books are recommended as containing the best discussions of the modern Cooperative Move ment. They may be ordered through The' League: Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement in Russia... . . . . . . . .................... 2 50 BrightwiH, L. R.: Animal " Co-op " Book—For Children............................ 15 Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers .................... 2.00 Flanagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 .......................... 2.00 Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth.. 2 00 Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Co operative Committees .................... 2.00 Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound....... .60 Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers................. 1.00 Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ......................... 2 50 Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold............. .50 Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Practices of Cooperative Marketing................. 3.20 Nicholson, Isa: Our Story.................... .25 Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals nad Problems 1.25 Owen, R obert: Autobiography................. .50 Poisson, E.: The Cooperative Republic......... 1.75 Potter, B.: Cooperative Movement in Great Britain............................. 1.00 Redfern, Percy: The Story of the C. W. S..... 2.00 Redfern, Percy: The Consumers' Place in So ciety, 1920 ............................. 1.00 Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918 ........................ 1.00 Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark........................... 1.00 Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920....................... 1.50 Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound............................... .75 Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish) ............................ 1.00 Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927........ ........ ................ 1.50 Warbasse, J. P.: What is Cooperation, 1927.... .50 Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ......................... 3.50 Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board, $2.00; cloth..... 5.00 Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. 1-50 COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1928 inclusive, each .......................... *«25 Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each............. 1-00 Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper...... -60 The People's Year Book, 1929. Cloth, $1.25; paper bound ............................ .75 (OOFCRATION F^X : A magazine to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, 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 CEDRIC LONG, Editor Futered as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. VOL. XV, No. 4 APRIL, 1929 10 CENTS (.Ten cents postage should be added for all-book*.) NEW HEADQUARTERS FOR COOPERATIVE TEMPERANCE CAFE, "IDROTT." The unique and highly siiccessful consumers cooperative of Chicago, which operates 'without capital stools, without patronage rebates, and with a limit placed upon number of members, fhis building houses the large restaurant, the cafe, the 'library and reading rooms, the lectwe 'tall, and the bakery of the society. 62 COOPERATION COOPERATION 63 The Cooperative Temperance Cafe "Idrott" Without exaggeration we may state that the Cooperative Temperance Caff "Idrott" of Chicago, 111., is one of the most unique and interesting cooperative business organizations in the country. It has retained several features which are not practiced by most of the other cooperatives here. For example, it is incorporated under the non-profit corporation act of the State of Illinois, not under the regular cooperative law. It has no capital stock. The members of the organization pay a membership or, really an entrance fee of $5.00 which carries no interest. No member can pay in more than this $5.00. So far only people of Swedish nationality or descent have been admitted into member ship, but the by-laws of the organization do not prevent it from admitting others. A rule of admitting only 10 new members each year is provided for in the by-laws. Any person wishing to join the organization has to present an application in writing which the annual meeting may either approve or reject. During the fifteen years of its existence the organization has never paid any patronage rebates. Practically all of the yearly surplus used for educational purposes has been transferred to a surplus fund which at the end of last year amounted to $72,039.06, while the paid-in membership fees totaled only $1,005. None of the various committee members, including the board of directors, receives any fixed compensation for his work, but in recent years an honorarium has been voted at the annual meeting to the various committee members on whose shoulders the brunt of the administrative work falls during the year. Otherwise all the surplus is used for expansion, as working capital, and for educational purposes. In this respect the "Idrott" follows the so-called Belgian plan, that is, its surplus is used collectively, never rebated to the individual members or customers. The "Idrott" Society has also retained the somewhat ultrademocratic feature of letting the membership decide by ballot whom they want to select, for instance, for branch manager, etc. In such cases, however, the board of directors usually makes a definite recommendation and under normal circum stances the membership is likely to adopt the recommendation. The Cooperative Temperance Cafe "Idrott" was organized in the fall of 1913. The following year, its sales were $17,461. At present the organization operates a cafe and restaurant with a library and reading rooms at 3204-10 Wilton Ave. No., in a building owned by it, a bakery and bakery store in the same building and a branch restaurant at 5248 No. Clark Street. The building in which the main restaurant and the bakery are located was erected in 1924. In December, 1928, this property represented an investment of $115,610.58. The very first year this fine building, the picture of which appears on the front page of this issue, had been opened for business, the sales were more than doubled. In 1923 they were $67,595.74; in 1924 they jumped to $160,168.50. In 1926 when the branch restaurant was in operation for the first full year, the sales took another jump; increasing from $186,563.06 in 1925, to $270,906.17 in 1926. During the past two years the volume of business has further increased at a rate of about $10,000 a year, the figure for 1928 being $292,160.49. At the end of 1928 the Cooperative Temperance Cafe "Idrott" had 201 members. At the annual meeting held February 17th, 13 new membership applications were considered and three of these were rejected in accordance with the provisions of the by-laws. The organization now gives employment to 53 men and women to whom a total of $71,133.01 was paid in salaries during the year of 1928. The two restaurants cater to at least 1,000 people while less than one-half of the 201 members are said to patronize the business of the organization. The educational activities of the "Idrott" Society are quite widespread. There is a "Literature Committee" taking care of the Society's library and reading rooms. In 1928, 1,800 books were loaned from the library and 350 new volumes acquired. For the reading room in the main cafe building, 42 different papers and periodicals are subscribed to, 28 of these being published in the Swedish and 14 in the English language. A special "Entertainment and Lecture Committee" puts on programs from time to time under the auspices of the organization. In 1928 the Literature Committee spent $1,213.81, chiefly for books and periodicals, while the Entertainment and Lecture Committee spent only the modest sum of $108.37. Besides these expenditures for educational work, the organization donated last year $150 to the Scandinavian Workers' Educational Fund. The "Idrott" Society has found a unique way of financing part of the activities of their energetic Literature Committee. In connection with the cafe rooms located on the second floor of their Wilton Avenue building, they have established a veritable branch post office, with some 500 individual mail boxes to be used by their members and customers. These people pay $1.50 a year each for the privilege of using such mail boxes. All the money collected from the rent of these boxes is turned over to the Literature Committee, while the employees and officers of the organization take care of distributing the mail. All the business in the restaurants and bakery shop is done on a strict cash basis. The total net gain last year amounted to $12,859.17. The bakery manu factures bread, toast and pastries, but no hardtack. The sales of the bakery have been steadily on the increase since its establishment in 1924. Last year these sales amounted to $38,455.49. It is an indication of the "Idrott" Society's up-to-date methods that it has published every year, since its very beginning, a comprehensive report of its activities in booklet form. This "yearbook," however, has been always printed in Swedish which has made the report rather inaccessible to cooperators who do not know that language. The "Idrott" Society was organized by young Chicago Swedes, most of them single men who were interested in temperance work and athletics ("idrott" means "sports, athletics") and wanted to have a rallying place where they could spend their evenings and discuss things in their own language. They have remained a rather exclusive group. They are not yet connected with any cooperative central organization nor with the movement at large. However, last fall, the "Idrott" Society was represented by a fraternal delegate at the National Cooperative Congress and its board of directors is now considering affiliation with the Central States' Cooperative League. We certainly would like to see this interesting and vigorous organization join forces with the national and the international cooperative movement. V. S. A. TEUE TAIE OF A TOPPEK A certain Cabinet Minister in England told how he saved money in buying his top hats: "I told my hatter he ought to give me 5 per cent discount. The shopkeeper said it was against his principles, but he added 'I mark your hats as you will buy them A, B, C, etc. When you get to Z, I will give you one for nothing.' And I got through to 'Z' all right and got my top hat." It took that Cabinet Minister forty years to get the free hat, and it was equivalent to only 4 per cent discount after forty years of waiting. If he had bought his hats from a coopera tive store he would have received a cash dividend on all his hats up to 10 per cent, or even more, paid to him every half year. He would have also received interest on his savings during each of the forty years equivalent to the percentage given by the private trading hatter. If he had bought most of his personal requirements at the cooperative society the Cabinet Minister would have been able to secure ALL HIS TOP HATS FOR NOTHING and more beside out of the trading dividend credited to him. Ill 64 COOPERATION COOPERATION 65 Editorial VISION AND LOYALTY, TOO As I meet business and professional men who know of my connection with the cooperative movement I am forever hearing the old song: "The trouble with cooperation is that you don't pay your managers enough to get good men. You need good business men for managers." This unctuous advice is always offered with such an air of certitude that further discussion of the question is quite fore stalled. The United States Department of Agriculture, in its flood of "educa tional" matter on cooperative market ing, keeps singing the same song. The chief of the Division of Cooperative Marketing has declared that the success of cooperation depends mainly upon business management. One of the "ex perts" of this division went so far as to attribute the success of a certain cotton- marketing association to a calculating machine used in figuring payments on pooled cotton! More important, and more serious, is the fact that not a few recognized lead ers in the cooperative movement—co operative educators, if you please—stress business management as the principal factor in the success of cooperation. One such educator has attributed rather exclusively to poor management the widespread failure of cooperative stores in a middle-western state. From this widely-prevailing notion that business management is the chief factor in the success of cooperation, I wish to dissent most emphatically. For the greatest success, we must have good management, of course. Nobody will dis pute that. But good management alone will not keep the members from taking the baits offered by old-line concerns to disrupt the cooperatives. Only vision and loyalty among the members can afford protection against such attacks. As an example, I have in mind a Farm ers Union cooperative store in a Nebraska town, a store that has an ex perienced merchant and an excellent business man for manager. It has been a high-priced town. Because of this and the capability of the manager, the co operative association, up to the close of the latest fiscal year, has been remark ably successful in making good patron age dividends. The manager has been so capable that the directors and sharehold ers have left the business largely to him. And the manager has pinned his faith to business efficiency. Cooperative spirit and morale have been but little culti vated. Within the past six months two chain stores have been opened in this town. They have not only lowered the price level, but have followed the usual prac tice of offering "leaders" as baits. Trained to price appeal, many of the members of the cooperative association have been grabbing these baits, with the result that the sales of the cooperative store have suffered a serious slump. The manager is worried. He expressed his anxiety to a member of the Farmers Union staff. When advised that he should take the matter frankly to the members and appeal to their loyalty, he replied that he had so long appealed to them on the basis of price and dividends that it was hard to tell them he could BO longer cope with or exceed the other fellows without the members' help! Yet there is not the slightest doubt that if the members of this association would give their own store 100 per cent of their patronage, they could obtain their supplies, as a whole, for less money than by running away to the chain stores. Temporarily, however, they must resist the baits offered them in order to attain this higher efficiency in their own store— and this requires vision of what co operation is about and loyalty to live up to that vision. In crises, therefore, vision and loyalty are the saving graces—not efficient man agement alone. And every cooperative is bound to have its periods of stress when old-line concerns will compete at a loss to put the cooperative out of busi ness. So while stressing good manage- jflent let us not forget that it is even more important to have a body of loyal cooperators back of every cooperative enterprise. L. S. H. ) HOW MUCH FOR A CODE OF ETHICS? The retail grocery associations of vari ous kinds last autumn held a "Grocery Trade Practice Conference" in Chicago. At that conference a Code of Ethics was drawn up, and among the practices which the grocers promised to give up were secret rebates, premiums and prizes, bribery, misrepresentations, false advertising, slack-filled packages, sales below cost, abuse of power, specialty or ders, drop shipments, diversion of brok erage, substitution, and discount for cash. At any rate, so runs the report of Charles W. Dunn, counsel for the American Grocery Manufacturers' Asso ciation and the National Association of Retail Grocers. It seems to us that any group of business men which has to promise to stop lying, cheating, thieving, and other wise knifing one another and the public at large, is damning itself pretty effec tively. The cooperative movement can never be charged with having to call such a conference as this. But even more significant are the promises that were left unspoken. These private business men and corporations said nothing about eliminating the profit element which is the underlying reason for all these outrageous practices. They did not offer the consumers control of their stores, nor even participation in control. They made no mention of put ting service to patrons ahead of profits to stockholders or owners. A Code of Ethics judged by what the code says may look very fine. But when judged according to what it omits to say, it may look very hypocritical, after all. C. L. Which Should We Use? Nationally Advertised or Cooperatively Labelled Package Goods USE OUR OWN LABELS TO PROMOTE QUALITY GOODS, HONEST BUSINESS, AND COOPERATION By C. MCCARTHY, MANAGER Farmers Union State Exchange of Nebraska * Should cooperatives build up sales for nationally advertised products, or should they develop the field for products un der the cooperative label 1 Nationally advertised merchandise is usually controlled and financed by a group who have a monopoly of that par ticular product. You buy it from them or not at all. Since they have a monop- *Mr. McCarthy is General Manager of the wgest cooperative wholesale in the United States; the central merchandising agency for of thousands of Nebraska farmers. These are developing their own cooperative as rapidly as possible. oly, there is no price competition until a rival concern enters the field with larger campaign funds and more attrac tive displays to attract the public eye. The guileless consumer pays the cost in ever increasing prices. A cooperative may find it easier to sell nationally ad vertised goods—the brands are familiar to patrons. They may ask for them, and it is so easy to hand a customer what he asks for. But other merchants in town have the same article at the same price. If competitors cut prices, the cooperative must also or lose his 66 COOPERATION COOPERATION 67 trade. No attention is paid to values. Advertising sells it to the merchant, and he depends upon advertising to sell it for him. Advertising agencies and manufacturers, newspapers and maga zines grow rich at the consumer's ex pense, who is paying an exorbitant price for ordinary goods in a fancy package. National advertising is fast becoming the finished art of catching suckers. Now your cooperator does not enjoy be ing played for a sucker. Cooperators are folks of independent spirit—they have the necessary courage to desert the beaten path, they refuse to be led—if they were otherwise, they would not be cooperators. Any organized move of profit business naturally arouses their doubts and suspicions. They well know there is no altruistic motive back of ad vertised goods. They recognize it for what it is—another cold blooded desire for more profit. Not only does the consumer pay the advertising bill, but he is aiding a monopoly, and giving it greater power to squeeze more profit out of him. A cooperative must be something more than a dispenser of merchandise. Not only must we teach the theory and practice of cooperation while serv ing our patrons, but some way must be found to teach merchandise values. Our first step is to educate our members to buy grades and not brands. A certain grade of canned vegetables for instance, whether it be standard, extra standard, fancy or any other grade desired, can be purchased under a dozen different brands. A cooperative that educates its members in values and wins their con fidence by furnishing quality merchan dise at a fair price, has overcome in large measure the demand for adver tised brands. Our buyers of course must "know their onions" and buy goods true to grade. Individual cooperative stores cannot well exercise this necessary care in buying. A cooperative whole sale becomes a necessity. A capable buyer can buy for twenty or one hun dred stores more easily than for one as the larger quantities desired attract wider sources of supply and better prices. Cooperative buyers should en courage the smaller mills and factories so as to prevent a monopoly by large concerns. The next step naturally is to develop our own brands. This will be a simple problem if we have sufficient volume to control the source of supply. Unless the volume is well worth while, it is much better to stick to the open market, choosing the brands that meet require ments. The State Exchange sells its best grade of coffee under the brand '' Co-op.'' This brand has been blended for us by the same firm for many years, and is the most satisfactory piece of merchandise we have in our grocery de partment. Our spices are packed under our own Co-op label. We have a Co-op brand of flour. We have found our own label a particular advantage in flour. We have a number of mills in our im mediate territory. We need only de mand Co-op quality and buy from the mill that offers us the most in quality and price. We find it important to deal with only reliable firms. An unscrupu lous miller killed our flour business at one or two of our stores. We have had a similar experience with another line of goods. Re-labeling goods is a sort of fraud that is sometimes practiced and should not be countenanced by coopera tives. If our own labels cannot be put on at source, it is better to sell the mer chandise for what it is. Much has been said and is being said, of the importance of management m cooperative enterprises. I fully realize the importance of management, but even more important, more necessary, is the need for faith in the movement itseu, and confidence in our fellow workers. Honest goods in an honest package in stills both faith and confidence. AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE SOLD ON THE HIGHLY ADVERTISED BRANDS—GIVE THEM WHAT THEY DEMAND By LEO LELIEVRE, MANAGER Soo Cooperative Mercantile Association * For several years we have been in the mercantile business in this city, and from time to time we have taken on privately labelled merchandise. Very lit tle sales apparently could be built up on private labels on account of the ex treme demand for the nationally ad vertised lines, especially in the past few years when so much advertising is being done over the radio. If the cooperative membership is of one class I believe that privately labelled merchandise can be handled, but when a cooperative store is catering to all classes it is very difficult to "put over" privately labelled merchandise. When a customer nowadays orders corn flakes, she will nine times out of ten say "Kellogg V; if she wants jelly powder she says "Jello" and the same with many other items. It is, therefore, very hard to try to talk to customers *Mr. LeLievre has for years been known as the most able store manager in the city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and private firms have repeatedly tried to win him away from the Soo Cooperative Mercantile Ass'n. This association for several years did the largest business of any cooperative store in the country, until the Cooperative Trading Co., of Waukegan went ahead in 1)928 and have them change their brands. We have tried it and find that if you want to progress you must sell the housewife just what she wants and not try to talk her into buying a brand of merchandise she is not familiar with. The large grocery chains today seem to be drifting away from their private brands of merchandise and going strongly to the nationally advertised; and why should we, the cooperative stores, try to accomplish something that has proven a failure by these large or ganizations? We, therefore, feel that the nationally advertised merchandise is the line for the cooperative stores to handle. There are some exceptions in com munities where all the customers of the store might belong to the mining or farming class and where meetings can be held of these people and where it can be explained to them that they can buy as good an item for less money under private labels. Then, I believe, privately labelled merchandise could be sold, but a cooperative store which is trying to cater to all classes is better off with the nationally advertised lines. News and Comment WHO GETS THE RETAIL BUSINESS OF AMERICA? Dr. Paul Nystrom, well known au thority on merchandising, says that re tail sales in this country amount to $41,000,000,000 annually, divided as follows: Independent retail stores .......... $25,200,000,000 61 Department stores.. 6,500,000,000 16 Chain stores ...... 6,200,000,000 15 Mail order houses.. 1,400,000,000 Company stores.... 800,000,000 2 % House to house ped- "Ming . ......... 800,000,000 2 % Consumers coopera tes . ......... 100i,000,000 % % Apparently he finds plenty of room for development of cooperative stores! But the most interesting part of his study is the comparison of the rise and fall of different types, of merchandising. From 1914 to 1922 department stores nearly doubled their business, but since then have gained very little, and have probably reached the height of their development. Chain stores, on the other hand, have quadrupled sales since 1918, most of the gain coming since 1921. Mail order houses made big gains up until the World War but since 1920 have barely held their own; probably this is the reason Sears Roebuck and Mont- 68 COOPERATION COOPERATION 69 gomery Ward are entering the chain store field. House to house selling has had three periods of active expansion, each of them immediately following a business depression: from 1894 to 1899, from 1908 to 1912, and from 1921 to 1925. But this form of business has declined rapidly since 1925, just as it did after 1899 and 1912. Independent and cooperative stores have experienced three great waves of alarm. In 1900 it was the department stores which seemed to be engulfing the country and threatening the very exist ence of the independent merchant. From 1910 to 1915 it was the mail order houses which threw a great scare into these merchants, so that the latter even tried to suppress the new form of busi ness octopus by means of legislation. From 1921 to 1925 it was the house to house canvassers who seemed to be un dermining retail trade. And now we are in the fourth phase— an attack of fear lest the chain stores monopolize the retail sales of the country. Dr. Nystrom believes that just as the independent retailers have lived through the former crises, they will live through this one, and will see the chain stores lose their terrors. The following observation by such an expert in the field is interesting to co- operators. '' If, in the future any single type of retail institution, such as the chain stores, should gain ascendant or dominating position over all other types of retail institutions, and if this posi tion should lead to carelessness in effort to suit the consuming public, either in service or price, then the time will have come for a rapid development of con sumers' cooperative stores." DORCHESTER COOPERATIVE COM PANY, DORCHESTER, WIS. This society shows sales for 1928 to be $110,340.05, including $12,764.42 worth of produce sales. This leave a gross gain of $15,957.52, from mer chandising activities, and as the oper ating expenses were $ll,72l.59) ^ net gain for the year is $4,235.93. The total assets of the Dorchester Co-op Company at the end of 1928 were $53,798.74. The paid-in capital Was $23,100.89 and the net worth of the business of the society amounted to $40,598.89. The gross profit percentage (14.5 per cent) and the expense percentage (106 per cent) both indicate efficient manage ment. As the net worth is 176 per cent of the paid-in capital, the society is in a good financial condition. This is re flected also in the fact that the current assets ($31,620.96) are nearly two and a half times as large as the current liabilities ($13,199.85). Considering the fact that the Dor chester Co-op Company operates a general store, handling groceries, dry goods, hardware, etc., the inventory value of its stock of merchandise, as of Dec. 31, 1928, amounting to $23,721.52, does not appear excessive. The store has been in operation for 18 years and during this time its total net earnings have amounted to $112,551.62 or a sum nearly five times as large as the total paid-in capital. Not less than $95,052.73 of this has been paid back to members and customers in form of patronage dividends and interest on capital stock. The present manager is L. C. Pranzen who assumed management in the latter part of 1927. That the society is pro gressing under his management is-indi cated by the fact that in 1928, as com pared with 1927, sales increased by nearly $18,000; both the accounts re ceivable and the merchandise inventory were decreased as were also the accounts and notes payable. While operating penses, as expressed in percentage, emained about the same in both years, the gross gain in 1928 was considerably higher than in 1927 when an operating loss appeared, evidently because of cuts in the inventory values. ANOTHER RECORD YEAR FOR FARMERS' UNION STATE EX CHANGE OF NEBRASKA The largest cooperative wholesale in the country continues to push up its figures for 1928, and reaches the total of $1,775.849 for sales through its whole sale and retail outlets. Net gain was $37,930 as compared with $49,096 in ]927. Gross profit for the year was 8.61 per cent of sales, and net, 2.14 per cent. By paying cash for all goods, the Exchange earned $23,000 in discounts. Grocery sales fell off $22,000, but this was more than made up on increase in oil and gasoline business. The total as sets are now $529,537, more than half of which is represented by current assets. There is $155,823 invested in the equip ment of the ten branch or "chain" stores belonging to the wholesale. Cur rent liabilities are only $47,788. Paid in capital is $325,637, and surplus or undivided profits $37,070. One highly significant action taken by the annual meeting should serve as a good example to hundreds of other cooperatives throughout the country. They set up the machinery for getting rid of dead timber among the members and putting in its place new wood, in other words, guarding themselves against the danger of what they call "dry rot." At present less than 20 per cent of the patronage of the Exchange comes from its shareholders. The meeting author ized the directors to credit patronage rebates on non-members' purchases to their capital stock account, and to buy back the stock of non-trading members as rapidly as conditions permit. EXCELLENT PROGRESS AT LOS ANGELES The Cooperative Consumers League operating a bakery in Los Angeles had gross sales in 1928 of $81,461 and a net income from the bakery business of ,. This cooperative has a balance sheet showing current assets two and a half times as large as current liabilities. Share capital is $7,375, and surplus- reserve fund in excess of $50,000. Northern States Cooperative League 2100 WASHINGTON AVE. No. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. OUE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN Up to March 10, our annual individual membership campaign had brought in 302 individual members who had paid their membership fee for the calendar year of 1929. These members were obtained with the assistance of the following eight co- operators whose names we publish here on the honor list, giving the number of indi vidual members obtained by each: K. A. Nurmi, Superior, Wis.......... 117 IF. A. Earj-u, Superior, Wis.......... 74 Toivo Terihunen, Supreior, Wis...... 50 F. F. Burandt, Minneapolis, Minn.... 31 Jos. Flor, Minneapolis, Minn......... 4 Walter Jacobson, Minneapolis, Minn.. 4 Alice Johnson, Minneapolis, Minn..... 2 Eero Saarela, Superior, Wis.......... 2 Eskel Bonn, general manager of the Co operative Central Exchange and a director of our League, has managed the campaign in the Central Exchange territory, which so far has brought such encouraging results. Minneapolis is just beginning to get aroused and in the next issue of COOPERATION we expect to publish surprising results from the Franklin group. The Prentice Cooperative Supply Com pany, of Prentice, Wis., has this year the distinction of being the first cooperative store in the district at which every em ployee has taken an individual membership in the League for 1929. Of course, most of the Cooperative Central Exchange societies are now also 100 per cent in this respect, after the three energetic fieldmen of the Exchange sent in their heavy bunches of memberships as given on the above honor list. "I! * 70 COOPERATION COOPERATION 71 I OR WE? If every member of our own Northern States' Cooperative League army of some 60,000—or even a goodly portion of them— would realize how gratifying and fruitful of results is the task of securing individual members for our League, the enrollment of such members would most assuredly be far greater than any of our expectations this year. Then everyone of our most active members (after first joining himself) would sally forth with a subscription book in his pocket in search of individual members for our League. One frequently hears of a two-fold benefit resulting from securing individual members to the N.S.C.L., but really the benefit is three-fold. In the first place the educa tional work of our League is financed by that means; secondly, in the very task of securing members one is of necessity bound to spread a certain amount of elementary educational work, and, thirdly, it offers to the soliciting member himself a fine oppor tunity for learning. The following three questions are most frequently put to anyone who is trying to secure members: 1. "What is the Northern States' Co operative League? " 2. "What will I get for my dollar?" 3. "What will We get for our dollars?" The first and second questions belong, in a way, in the same category, for practically without exception such a person in our territory who does not even know what the N.S.C.L. is, asks also that second question, namely: "What will I get for my dollar?" For the person who knows what the N.S. C.L. is, his question invariably is: "What will we get for our dollars?" An answer to the first question isn't difficult. A brief explanation that the N.'S.C.L. is the cooperative educational league of this district, etc. But the second question is a little more difficult. It elicits the answer that there aren't any great personal benefits to be derived in return for the dollar, whereas the dollar is used to further our general cooperative educational work in the district. For the sake of experimentation, I once approached the proprietor of a private bak ery to test how "non-partisan cooperation" would work out in practice. I urged him to become a member of the N.S.C.L. and pointed out that such a membership would cost him only one dollar. "And what will I get for my dollar?" was his question also. "You'll get only this button," I swered, "but with the aid of the doll we'll propagandize all the people to eat only cooperative bread made in coopera tively-owned bakeries." He thanked me for my frankness but didn't go so far as to contribute the dollar for a noose to hang himself by. If a person isn't close with his money then the story is soon told. He gives you the dollar. And when he hears that he doesn't stand to gain very much personally out of it, it doesn't give him much concern where the money goes. But if the indi vidual is "tight," then you're due to con duct a session of cooperative education from A to Z. The third question is a much more com plicated one to answer, than either of the first two. Those who ask that third ques tion are practically without exception class- conscious workers. They insist on know ing definitely for what purpose their dollars are to be used. Are they to be used to organize such as the above-mentioned bakery proprietor and his kind, whose inter ests are opposed to the interests of real wage-earners, or are they to be used to build a cooperative movement of the genu ine worker elements. Once they feel as sured of the latter, the dollar is given generously from even meager funds, and many more of them if necessary. They understand they must bear the financial burden of the work of educating those workers who still ask: " What will 7 get for my dollar?" K. A. NUEMI. What's Going On in the N.S.C.L. District? The Board of Directors of the N.S.C. League has decided to employ Geo. W. Jacobson, a graduate of the University of Minnesota and the League's own coopera tive training school, as permanent field man to do cooperative educational and organiza tion work for the League and its various affiliated societies. Cooperative societies wishing to engage Mr. Jacobson for such work should com municate with the League office. * * * * Three cooperative store societies affiliated with the Cooperative Central Exchange and through them with the N.S.C. League expect to open branch stores within the next few weeks. These are: the Cherry Farmers Cooperative Association of Iron Junction, Minn., who will open a branch store at Forbes; the Northern Farmers' Cooperative Society of Angora, Minn., who will open a branch store in the Sturgeon township, gt Louis County, and the Orr Farmers' Cooperative Trading Company who expect to open a branch at Gheen. The two latter societies already have each a branch store and are now going to open another. Mr. Jacobson has been assisting these societies in raising the additional capital needed to open these three new branch stores. The Auditing Department of the N.S.C. League had during the first two months of the year audited the accounts of 17 co operative creameries, 3 cooperative stores, 2 cooperative oil associations and 1 co operative telephone company, or a total of 23 cooperatives. As the Cooperative Cen tral Exchange has its own auditing depart ment employing three auditing crews, and taking care of the auditing for their own store societies, it is natural that the num ber of cooperative stores whose accounts have been audited by the League's audit ing department is still small. However, more stores will come in during the year. * * * * Interesting developments have occurred during the past twelve months in the Will- mar Cooperative Mercantile Company, one of the oldest and strongest cooperative store societies in Western Minnesota. A year ago progressive elements gained con trol of the board of directors of the said society, with the result that they voted to join the N.S.C. League. These directors had suspicion that the inventories of their store society had been valued too high, so they requested the League to send a competent man to take an inventory- at their store the first days of January. The League sent one of the coop, store managers from the north-eastern part of the state to do the inventorying and he found that the value of the stock was actually several thousand dollars less than what it had been represented to be at the previous inventories. However, the manager did not want to accept the valuation of the League's repre sentative, because if that value had been accepted, the company's business would have shown over $3,000 loss for last year. The manager raised the inven tory as an issue at the annual meeting and the directors who were responsible for bringing in the League were all defeated in the election. The vote stood about 50 for the manager's faction and 30 for the directors who wanted to look for the inter ests of the members rather than to try to please the manager. However, only one fourth of the membership took part in the election. As an aftermath, the new board has noti fied the League of their withdrawal from the N.S.C. League. There is still a slight hope that they may be persuaded to recon sider their action. The sales of the Willmar Cooperative Mercantile Company at one time exceeded $300,000 a year. Last year they were $146,000. For the last six or seven years things have been on a downward slide for them and it was in an effort to put a stop to this that the directors last year resorted to the steps related above—with such dire results to themselves. Overstocking and an uncooperative management have been the bane of this society as of so many other isolated cooperative store societies in Minnesota. * * * * January 11, 1929, a meeting of the mem bers of the Modern Book Store, Inc., of Minneapolis voted to dissolve the organi zation and return to each member 90 per cent of the money paid for shares, 10 per cent having been spent in efforts to organize. This decision was reached after persist ent efforts to raise enough money to open a progressive book store to be operated on a cooperative basis. Those interested never succeeded in raising more than one-third of the money considered as a minimum required to open the store. District Leagues EASTERN LEAGUE On Wednesday, March 6, the Board of Directors of the Eastern States Wholesale, and the Executive Commit tee of the Eastern League Board of Directors each held meetings in the League House, and between times held a joint meeting. The Wholesale Board authorized Adolph Wirkkula to begin work as full- time manager on March 11, temporary offices to be in the Brooklyn building of the Cooperative Trading Association until a permanent office can be found in the market district of Manhattan. The First Annual Meeting of the Wholesale was set for Monday, April 29, to be held in Maynard, Mass. Campaign for stock- 72 COOPERATION COOPERATION 73 holder members will begin after the new manager has completed two or three weeks of work and has drawn up a prospectus to present to the Eastern so cieties. Various commodities to be handled were considered. Report showed a net income of $42 per week from coffee sales. The joint meeting of the two Boards was for the purpose of deciding whether the profits made on joint buying during the past two years should remain the property of the Eastern League or be turned over as initial working capital to the new wholesale. Mr. Regli, the accountant, pointed out the value of starting the wholesale with a substantial reserve fund in addition to such capital as might be contributed by its members Others agreed that the money belonged logically, if not legally, to the Whole sale Department. Those who contended ONE WEEK COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE IN THE FOOTHILLS OF THE BERKSHIRE MOUNTAINS At Brookwood Labor College KATONAH, NEW YORK The Eastern States Cooperative League is arranging, exclusively for coop- erators, an opportunity for combining study and play in the beautiful hill country 40 miles north of New York City. Open to directors, employees, plain rank-and-file shareholders, or miscellaneous enthusiasts for the cooperative movement. Mornings will be devoted to study and class work in the History and Theory of Cooperation; Practical Problems of Administration and Organiza tion; Questions That Bother Directors, Managers and Employees; Relation of Cooperation to Other Radical or Progressive Movements. Afternoons will be left open for tennis, baseball, basketball, hiking, swim ming, and miscellaneous social recreation. Evenings will be divided between more formal lectures by visiting leaders from the cooperative, labor or political movements, and informal debates or round-table discussions among the cooperators themselves. Some of the foremost cooperative leaders of the country will be present to give special lectures and to take part in discussions. • * * * * * * * * * * * Katonah is on the Harlem Division of the New York Central R. R. Single fare one way from New York City is $1.49. _ The Institute runs from Sunday morning, July 28th to Saturday night, August 3rd. Those attending will sleep in the dormitories or bungalows belonging to Brookwood Labor College. Twenty dollars covers entire cost of tuition, room and board tor the week. Those who come to the Institute will bring camping clothes, bathing suits, hiking shoes and tennis rackets and balls, if this game sounds interesting. Towels, bedding, etc., are provided by the College. , Reservations must be made before June 15th. After that date the books will be closed. Five dollars should accompany application for registration. MEN OR WOMEN, YOUNG OR OLD, FROM ANY PART OF THE COUNTRY COOPERATIVE OFFICIAL, ORDINARY SHAREHOLDER, OR UNATTACHED ENTHUSIAST—ALL ARE WELCOME. THE ONLY REQUIREMENT IS A GENUINE INTEREST IN THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT. For further information, write to THE EASTERN STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE, 167 West 12th St., New York City for retaining it in the Eastern League treasury based their arguments on the fact that the wholesale would make profits anyway while the Educational League would always be handicapped for funds. Finally it was unanimously agreed that the money should go to the wholesale but with the understanding that after a year or two, if financial conditions warranted it, restitution should be made to the League. .There is in excess of $800 in this fund. The date for the Annual Convention of the Eastern League was set for Sun day, April 28th, and the place Maynard, Mass. The Secretary was instructed to draw up a tentative agenda to present to the next meeting of the Committee, and Mr. Long was instructed to make a two weeks' survey trip among the East ern societies, the results of this sur vey to be written up and presented to the Convention as a basis for discussion of the Cooperative Movement in the Bast. Several directors urged that the newly organized wholesale be given a prominent place on the agenda. The Secretary presented a tentative budget for 1929 which was approved in princi ple and also a statistical table showing relative volume of support given various League activities by the member socie ties. He also reported application for membership from the Cooperative Auto Services at Brooklyn. Applications for managers are in hand from Utica, N. Y., and from Plainfield, Conn. Considerable discussion was given to the financial difficulties which have plunged two of the larger New York housing societies into receivership, and a committee to delve more deeply into this entire situation was appointed; namely, Mr. Long, Miss Arnold, Mr. Kazan, Mr. Rubinson and Mr. Wirkkula. The Secretary and the Accountant were instructed to prepare for presenta tion at the next meeting of the Com mittee, recommendations as to the societies which should receive the League Certificate of Merit, and also a schedule for the statistical information to be pre pared for the eastern section of the National Cooperative Year Book. The Educational Committee has un dertaken plans for a Cooperative Insti tute to be held at Brookwood for one week in late July and early August. Particulars are given on another page of this issue of COOPERATION. NEW DISTRICT LEAGUE In January, a conference of cooper ators, most of them active leaders in various Finnish societies of Oregon and Washington, was convened at Astoria, Oregon, to consider the work done by •their informal committee appointed one year earlier to carry on centralized coop erative education. Seventy delegates were present and a decision was made to attempt the formation of the '' Pacific Coast Cooperative League." An execu tive committee of fifteen members was elected, three of them from Astoria and two from Svensen, constituting the Emergency Committee. Officers elected were Alex Piippo, president; A. N. Koskela, secretary; Richard Wirkkunen, treasurer. Although the national office of The League knew nothing of this conference for several weeks after it had been held, it is now in touch with these cooperators and if the basis for this League is made broad enough to include all nationali ties and all kinds of consumers' coopera tives, there should, in the near future, be another flourishing district federa tion in the United States. CENTRAL STATES LEAGUE The Cooperative Trading Company of Waukegan made March its "expansion month" opening with a great propa ganda meeting, March 2d, and clos ing with a similar meeting on March 30th. Prominent leaders of the coopera tive movement from other cities were speakers on these occasions. Prizes of $25, $15 and $10 were offered to the members or employees who brought in the largest number of new customers or members during the month. The sales in 1928 were $680,000, the quota set for 1929 is $750,000. A new branch store on Grand Avenue is opened this spring to handle groceries, meats, dairy and bakery products. 74 COOPERATION COOPERATION 75 COOPERATIVE TRADING COMPANY OF WAUKEGAN, ILLINOIS COMPARISON OF SALES AND GAINS BY DEPARTMENTS For Years 1927 and 1928 1927 1928 1927 1928 Department Sales Sales Increase Dairy ........ $278,274.40 $313,089.25 34,814.85 Bakery ....... 19,013.52 19,013.52 Main Store Gro cery . . ..... 132,846.71 139,993.93 7,1471.23 M ain Store Meat . . ..... 84,206.11 114,400.29 30,134.18 Branch Grocery ] f 64,418.83 ] 84,230.40 j I 8,470.83 { 28,288.40 J My Point of View By J. P. WAEBASSE Branch Meat} J Special Losses.. Gains $16,237.91 4,236.58. 4,76,6.94 1,028.74 2,134.40lt $24,135.77 Gains Increase $21,485.90 $5,347.99 596.43t 596.43* 3,134.68 1,101.90* 4,370.11 396.83* 2,289.71 1,360.97 6.,514.38t 4,379.88* $24,16,9.68 $33.92 * Indicate Decrease. t Indicate Losses. j Separate Records of Branch Store Grocery and Meat Sales were kept only during latter half of 1927. My Livest News STEPPING ON IT Farmers Union members at Osmond, Nebr., have a thriving cooperative gaso line and oil business built entirely from savings. In the spring of 1924, Win. H. Schulz, business agent for one of the locals, ad vanced the money to purchase a bulk storage tank for gasoline, and ordered a car of gasoline from the Farmers Union State Exchange of Omaha. The capital Mr. Schulz advanced was repaid from savings. In those days, the members took their barrels to town on stated days and had them filled. Later, members of the four Farmers Union locals tributary to Osmond ad vanced sufficient funds, as loans, to pur chase a kerosene storage tank and a delivery truck. All this loan capital has been repaid from savings, and the business now has an accumulated capital of $1,518.11. Sales in 1928 totaled $14,- 249.51, covering 88,279 gallons of gaso line and kerosene, on which the net saving was $2,759.26. All of this net saving has been returned as patronage dividends. Item of the Month The business is not incorporated. The members are considering incorporation, however, in order to get away from the unlimited liability of a partnership. L. S. H. HOW OUR INCOME IS DISTRIBUTED The People's Lobby of Washington, D. C., has compiled some interesting figures showing the aggregate and the average net incomes for various classes within the population of the United States in 1927. These figures are for 11,000 people who received over $100,000 of income in that year and for several million wage earners employed in various industries. The average year's income for individuals in each class works out as follows: Persons with incomes of over $100,000 ...................... $263,459 Wage earners in food factories.... 1,112 Wage earners in textile mills...... I,017 Wage earners in iron and steel mills (except machinery) .............. I)5"9 Wage earners in lumber and allied products mills................... I)062 Of all wage earners in all industries. I)280 The average net income per farm was .......................... 8^7 C. L. PIONEERING IN CANADA The United States was once an agri cultural country. It is now a commercial country. Trade and commerce have super seded agriculture as the chief occupation. During the last seven years three million people have left the farms. The farmer's debts now have reached fifteen billion dol lars. The farmer in the United States is at the mercy of commercial forces which see that he gets enough to keep alive and productive, but the big rewards are found in trading in the products of labor rather than in producing. The three Prairie Provinces of Canada— Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, are still pristine agricultural areas. Wheat farming is the dominant occupation. The farmers are well organized, dignified, intel ligent, and progressive. I have recently been lecturing at the three Universities of these provinces. The students who are preparing to go into agri culture represent a high grade of intelligent interest in their studies. Most students have come from the farms. They have not been sent to college; they go to college, and they are trying to get as much out of educa tion as possible. Canada has a much higher percentage of university graduates who go into agriculture than the United States ever had. The popular degree is Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (B.S.A.). These students all study the economics of cooperation. The farmers of the three Wheat Provinces average high in education and intelligence. I have met many who were once occupied in farming in the United States. They have no desire to go back, and they all express regret that they did not come to Canada sooner. Their marketing organizations are su perior to those in the States, and embrace a larger proportion of the producers. The Wheat Pools are successful. Sixty per cent of the wheat growers of the three wheat provinces are in the pools, which last year marketed 210,000,000 bushels of wheat for which they received $290,000,000. In addition to this, the Pools handled over 18,000,000 bushels of other grains, for which they received over $16,000,000. The Alberta Pool was the first organized, in 1923. The two other Pools started in 1924. But before their organization there were many years of experimenting with farmers' joint marketing. The Alberta Pool has 36,000 members, Saskatchewan has 85,000 and Manitoba has 20,000. These Wheat Pools represent the most efficient large scale marketing the farmers of this continent have ever developed. They carry on their business through a central selling agency, the Canadian Cooperative Wheat Producers, which handles most of the wheat of the Provinces. The Pools own over 1,400 county eleva tors and several large storage and transfer elevators at the wheat shipping terminals. Besides their many offices in Canada, they maintain offices in New York, London, Paris, and Argentina. They export wheat to twenty countries. Their chief customers are Great Britain, Holland, Italy, China, and Japan. Each of the three Pools has its well organized central offices; and the central marketing organization, which sells the wheat for all, maintains a complete equipment of high class executives. I have met the leaders of these four or ganizations, and have been impressed with their efficiency and earnestness. There is something peculiar about their attitude toward cooperation. They are not only in terested in the farmers' marketing organi zations as economic enterprises, to get the farmers better rewards for their labor, but they are interested in them as social forces for improving rural life. They are getting results. Before me lies a booklet on "Elevator Improvement." It is not a discussion of the mechanical equip ment of these great grain storehouses; it deals with the beautification of the grounds about the elevators. Plans are shown for landscape gardening, flower beds, hedges, trees, and walks. "Better grounds, better business, better homes" is the text. At the many agricultural schools the girl students take not only courses in agricul ture but also home-making. Domestic economy is the specialty for the girls. They prepare dinners and work in the presence of beauty in a dining room and kitchen which would do credit to a refined house hold. It is a pleasure to see the boy stu dents in the agricultural schools come in from the barns, shops and fields, and sit down to dinner at small group tables with the girls. They wash, clean up, wear coats 76 COOPERATION COOPERATION 11 and collars, and eat their meals in an at mosphere of beauty, due to the cleanliness, attractive lunch and flowers at each table. The farmers at present elect and control the governments of the three provinces. Recently their leaders have come to see the danger of complicating their economic or ganizations with politics. And they have gone so far in their thinking that they realize the necessity of developing con sumers' cooperation as an essential adjunct to their marketing machinery. Here are farmers, with political power in their hands, who seem to be wise enough to turn to consumers' cooperation as the field in which to work out their further pros perity. In the United States, the Farmers' Union of Nebraska and the Grange of Washington are about the only state-wide farmers' groups interested in consumers' cooperation. But here in Canada are the wheat growing farmers, as a mass, giving consumers' cooperation their approval and making ready to take hold of it in earnest. Each of the wheat provinces is pretty well blanketed with consumers' societies—in all there are about seventy-five store societies and two hundred and fifty purchasing locals. A cooperative wholesale society has been organized in each province and is now functioning. It is interesting that the Wheat Pools have efficient educational departments which are keenly sympathetic to this con sumers' movement and stand ready to give it assistance. The same is true of the chief educational organization, the United Farm ers. No such situation exists, or ever has existed, in the United States, on so large a scale. The American farmers have started farmers' stores, which they called coopera tive. Most of them were not. But they have never, or rarely, called upon experts in consumers' cooperation for advice. The Canadian farmers are doing other wise. The library of the Wheat Pool of Manitoba contains every important book on consumers' cooperation to be had in the English language. Twenty-five copies of a recent work on the subject were placed in the hands of twenty-five executives for their reading. Not only do cooperative execu tives read this book on consumers' coopera tion but it is read by members of Parlia ment, Ministers of the Government, and teachers. The Prime Minister of one of these Canadian Provinces attended a recent '' In stitute of Cooperation," held by farmers' marketing organizations in the United States. He was surprised to hear nothing of ideals, nothing of consumers' coopera tion, but only discussion favoring getting higher prices, stimulating consumption and promoting higher tariff. The Canadian agricultural provinces are making ready to move forward with new plans and ideals. Cooperative training schools for executives and central coopera tive auditing are in process of evolution There is already enough knowledge and ex perience to prompt the farmers to know that the program must proceed slowly and with patience. In the United States, agriculture, as a dignified and outstanding profession, has decayed. The farmers have been overcome by rampant commercialism and in their distress they have turned to the politician to save them. In Canada's three great prairie provinces, agriculture is still dominant and powerful. Commercialism is utterly subservient to the agricultural interests. The farmers have mastered the art of producers' joint market ing; and they are now proceeding in a de liberate, studied, and business-like way, to supplement it with consumers' cooperation. The farmer votes control the three govern ments, but they are disposed to keep their economic organizations free of politics. Each of the three provincial governments has a department for the promotion and supervision of cooperative societies. At least one of these departments has intimated to me that it hopes soon to see its functions taken over by the voluntary cooperative associations and discontinued as a politi cal agency. Many enlightened officials in these provinces think and talk in terms of the "fading state" and the expanding cooperative movement. Here is an unique situation, and an opportunity. It is possible that in this field, coopera tion may become established before com mercialism gets control. It is possible that the farmers may not stop with the development of marketing organizations and of ultimately becoming commercialized themselves, but they may perfect their cooperative movement and get control of their spending power also. It is possible that the quest for high prices and profits may not become the main interest of the farmers, to the exclusion of their larger opportunities. It is even possible that, having tasted political power and having discovered its dangers, the farmers may turn to their economic organizations for the solution of their larger problems, and may use their olitical control only to keep in check the monstrous State organism. In the United States it is now too late. Commercialism is in the saddle and is riding chatted with boot and spur to its end. Eastern Canada is rapidly going the same way; in testimony of which is the recent establishment in Montreal of a branch of the great Barclay's banks, with two billions of capital. Where commercialism once be comes dominant, there it remains the master until it collapses or until the slow and doubtful force of education may cause it to be supplanted by something else. The wheat provinces of Canada are yet virgin and unspoiled". It is conceivable that here men may witness another oasis on the face of the agricultural world where the farmers may build a civilization of their own! Cooperation Abroad COOPERATIVE PIONEER DIES Sir William Maxwell, who died sev eral weeks ago, is one of the last of the Pioneers of the British Movement. Born three years before the Rochdale store was opened in 1844, he lived to see the ideals of those twenty-eight weavers achieve international significance and himself contributed as much as any one man toward that end. What Mitchell was to the English C. W. S., Maxwell was to the Scottish. It was his work which produced the group of great cooperative productive factories of the Scottish Wholesale in Glasgow and he assisted in forming the enormous joint tea department of the English and Scottish Wholesales. President for many years of the Wholesale in Scot land, it was but natural that he should be promoted to the presidency of the International Cooperative Alliance. In 1918 he was knighted by the British Government. The life of this man, one of the last to span the period between 1844 and 1928, has just been written by Sidney R. Elliott, well known cooperative journal ist of England, under the title, "Sir William Maxwell; a Pioneer of National and International Cooperation." SWEDEN Cooperative Housing in Stockholm, Sweden, is offering some remarkable ad vantage. The three.latest buildings to be erected by the Stockholm Tenants' Cooperative Society contain between 600 and 700 flats of two rooms and kitchen ette. Rents will be at least 25 per cent lower than for similar flats elsewhere in Stockholm. Each building contains a large central court with park and chil dren's playground, and the society sup plies free the nurse to take care of the children in each playground. Each flat has central heat, hot water and bathroom (the latter is a real luxury for the worker of Europe, not the common neces sity it is for the American). A newly invented device for removing dust from rugs and carpets, entirely noiseless and dust-free, is neither the old fashioned carpet beater nor the modern vacuum cleaner, though the architect has not yet revealed the exact nature of the inven tion. But the most unique feature is a joint radio service which provides di rect hook-up with every flat. The cen tral contrivance is equipped with a time clock which automatically re-charges the battery and which also automatically connects and disconnects the apparatus when the program begins and when it ends. The monthly "rent comes to about $21. This society now has 12,000 tenant members accommodated in buildings whose aggregate value is more than $10,000,000. CHINESE FARMERS LEARNING TO COOPERATE With interest rates all the way up to 100 per cent per annum, the first need of Chinese farmers is money at reason able rates of interest to finance their pro duction of rice, vegetables, and other crops. Since 1923 the College of Agri culture and Forestry of the University of Nanking has been instrumental in organizing 16 cooperative credit unions and has three more in process of organi zation. The method is to find one or two reliable men and thoroughly interest 78 COOPERATION COOPERATION 79 them in the theory and practice of co operation. These men then help select the charter members who elect the offi cers, executive committee and council of supervision. Unlimited liability at taches to membership; so that great care is used in accepting members, in making loans, supervising their use, and in col lecting money. One-fourth of the profits go into a reserve fund. Success in this field led to coopera tion in securing fertilizer, reconstruct ing irrigation reservoirs, growing better crops, and marketing them. In Shan tung province seven societies have formed a Union and have purchased over 80,000 mulberry trees which the mem bers have planted on the hillsides where rice will not grow, thus diversifying their farming by adding silk culture. These societies use and demonstrate the superior seeds developed by the Univer sity. They are beginning to buy modern machinery for cooperative use. There is a healthy growth toward a cooperative agriculture in China. ITEMS According to Nicholas Zawoyko, the Ukrainian cooperative movement which is within the province of Polish rule is again being persecuted, the cooperative wholesale's creamery at Lembergh being broken into in November, goods de stroyed, and a woman official who pro tested against the outrages being mur dered in the presence of thousands of people. The MONTHLY PEOPAGANDA POSTEE SEEVICE issued by the CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE enables you to utilize the display space around the cooperative's premises for the most effective sort of cooperative propaganda, at a very moderate cost. For samples, prices and information, address: CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 1303 N. Park St., Bloomington, 111. At the Forty-First Congress of - trosoyus last year, many interesting re. ports were rendered covering the size and rapid development of the Russian movement. Membership had increased by 41 per cent, from 16,000,000 to 22,- 581,000, while the number of shops had increased from 73,000 to 85,000. The trade turnover for the country jumped 23.6 per cent, and that for the whole sale alone by 43.5 per cent. Three years ago the consumers movement handled 33 per cent of the total retail trade of the country, two years ago this had increased to 42.3 per cent, and last year to 53.5 per cent. Private mining of coal in England seems to be at a standstill, yet the co operative movement, far from being frightened by this fact, goes on extend ing its holdings of coal property. It is eleven years since the C. W. S. of England purchased and began opera tion of the Shilbottle Colliery at Aln- wick. An additional purchase of the South Shilbottle Collieries at Newcastle has just been completed — one of the most up-to-date in the country from the point of view of working conditions for the miners. The entire Shilbottle Seam is now controlled by the C. W. S. Equipment includes 4% miles of rail way, aerial ropeway, electric and steam plant, eight houses, twenty-five cottages, 1,782 acres of minerals, and mining rights over 4,000 acres. There are said to be 31,574,000 tons of virgin coal in this property. COOPERATIVE RADIO TALK On Friday, April 12, at 5:50 p. m,, the Cooperative Correspondence School of the League will be explained over Station WCFL of Chicago by Colston E. Warne, director of the school. On Thursday, April 18, at the same hour, the consumers co operative movement in the United States will be described by Cedric Long, Executive Secretary of the Cooperative League. All those in the central part of the country who are interested in hearing these talks should tune in. 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 cfate to the Profit System, to Labor, to Agriculture and to the Arts and Sciences " We hope Dr. Warbasse's book will find readers throughout the world "—G. J. D. C. Goedhardt, ex-President International Coop erative Alliance The Macmillan Co., New York, Publishers Order from The Cooperative League, 167 West 12th St., New York, U. S. A. Price, $1.50. The Cooperative Union, Holyoake House, Han over St., Manchester, England. Price 6 sh. German E'dition: Verlagsgesellschaft deutscher Konsumvereine, Strohhause 38, Hamburg, Germany. Price, 6 marks. IS YOUR FURNITURE INSURED IN A COOPERATIVE COMPANY? This Company is 55 years old It has 50,000 members Its rates are the lowest Is there a branch in your town? If not, why not? WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY Care of Cooperative League, 167 W. 12 St. NEW YORK CITY STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence Courses prepared and con ducted 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, l'2ith Street New York City The Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under the auspices of The Cooperative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum ''The Cooperative Pyramid Builder" Official Organ of Cooperative Central Exchange is a snappy, live cooperative magazine. Get in line! Subscribe NOW Subscription price 50c a year. COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE Superior, Wis. COOPEEATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPEEATION for one year to Name. ...........................-••••••-- Address.................................. $1.00 a year 80 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS — OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per 100 .10 $6.00 3. Story of Cooperation..... ...... 7. British Cooperative Movement..... .10 38. Consumers' Cooperative Movement in U. S., 1926................... .10 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe.. .05 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States . . .................... .05 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase). ..................... .05 TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society ............ .10 6. A Model Constitution and By-Laws for a Cooperative Society. ...... .05 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined.. .10 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale ........................ .10 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail...... .02 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild ....................... .02 15. How to Organize a District Coopera tive League ................... .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson). .................. .50 43. Cooperative Housing ............. .10 50. A B C of Cooperative Housing.... .10 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apart ment House .................. .10 MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law. .......... .10 46. Producers' Cooperative Industries . . .10 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Cooperative Movement . 10 Credit Union and Cooperative Store. .05 lo. The Place of Cooperation Among Other Movements ............. .25 34. Cooperative Movement (Yiddish).. .02 30. " When the Whistle Blew " (Story, by Bruce Calvert) ............. .06 66. International Directory of Coopera tive Organizations ............. J 60 41. Social Aspects of Farmers' Coopera- tive Marketing (By Benson Y. Landis). . . . ................. .25 42. Co-op Homes for Europe's Homeless . 10 49. A Way Out .................... .02 55. A Better World to Live In. ....... .05 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Dif fers from Ordinary Business.... .02 60. The " Moral Equivalent " of Jazz . . .02 62. Buttons (League emblem), 24 inch diameter .................... 63. Sign or Transparency of League Em blem. Green and gold, 8 in. diam. . .25 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250. 68. To Mothers ..................... .02 6.00 6.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4 . 00 2.50 1.00 1.75 1.25 .75 .60 2.00 15.00 1 .00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.50 per 500; $4.00 per 1,000.) (1) Principles and Aims of The Cooperative League; (20) Why Loyalty Is Necessary; (21) Cost and Crime of Credit; (25) Resolutions Adopted by A. F. of L.; C26) Factory Workers Cooperate!; (28) Do You Know- About Cooperation in Europe?; (40) Have You Committee on Education and Recreation?; (45) o-.i," ,a and Stores; (47) A Man's Right to a Job. °°ls MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred) Subscription, per year. ............... «l nn REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATTnw (Pub. by the I. C. A.) .......... .Per YeaV $! 50 $1.65 if paid by check. ' M'50 BOOKS The following books are recommended as containing the best discussions of the modern Cooperative Move ment. They may be ordered through The League: Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement in Russia . . . . ........................... Brightwill, L. R.: Animal " Co-op " Book—For Children . . . . ......................... Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers..................... Flanagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 . . . . ................... Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Co operative Committees ................... Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound........ Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers................. Jessiiess, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ........................ Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold............. Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Practices of Cooperative Marketing................ Nicholson, Isa: Our Story................... 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 So ciety, 1920 ............................ Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918........................ Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark . . . . ......................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920...................... Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound . . . . . .......................... Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish). . . . . ........................ Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927). . . . . ........................... Warbasse, J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927... Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ........................ Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board, $2.00; cloth..... Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1928 inclusive, each ......................... Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each............. Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper...... The People's Year Book, 1929. Cloth, $1.25; paper bound ........................... $2.50 .15 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 .60 1.00 2.50 .50 3.20 .25 1.25 .50 1.75 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 .75 1.00 1.50 .50 3.50 5.00 1.50 1.25 1.00 .60 .75 (0076 RATION A magazine to spread the knowledge , the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, produce and distribute for their own [Jse the things they need. Published Motithfrj> THE COOPERATIVE LEAGtfE U. S. A. 167 West 12th Street, New CEDEIC LONG, Editor • Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act , March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. VOL. XV, No. 5 MAY, 1929 10 CENTS I'": MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE OP THE COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE WHOLESALE AT SUPERIOR, WISCONSIN. From left to right they are: Ivan Lanto, Peter Kolclconen, Henry Koski, Secretary, Oscar Corgan, President, Matti Tenhtmen, Eslcel Ronn, General Manager, George Halonen, Educational Director. This Committee is appointed ty the Board of Directors to exercise close supervision over the affairs of the Exchange. (Ten cents postage should be added for all books-) 82 COOPERATION COOPERATION 83 A Progressing Cooperative Wholesale THE 12TH YEAR OF THE COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE A review of the activities of the Cooperative Central Exchange during the past year, with some comparative reference to its modest origin and upward struggles during the past twelve years, gives an encouraging and at the same time instructive picture of the consumers' cooperative movement in the north- central states. i Operating as a cooperative wholesale, the sales of the Cooperative Central Exchange totaled $1,517,818 in 1928. In the American private business world this might be considered an almost insignificant sum, but, when it represents cooperative efforts in centralizing the buying power of consumers' cooperatives in the Northwest, it becomes significant evidence of the progress of the coopera tive movement. The Cooperative Central Exchange was organized at Superior, Wisconsin, in 1917, through the joint action of a small number of local cooperatives in the district. The working capital given to this wholesale at the first meeting represented a collection of about fifteen dollars. When business was started one cooperative after another bought a hundred dollar share. For the greater part, the present capital of $61,700 has been 'made' by the wholesale itself through stock dividends. The growth of the C. C. E. has not been phenomenal, but steady, its sales increasing annually by about 25 per cent over each preceding year. The net gain for 1928 amounted to $23,894.18. The policy followed by the C. C. E. has been to pave the way through persistent educational work rather than through spectacular maneuvers. Ex pansion on too fast a scale has its dangers. The American cooperative move ment has seen many cooperative ventures which, started on a big scale and expanded too rapidly, go down as suddenly as they appeared. The C. C. E. has expanded its activities a line at a time. After enough preparatory work has been done and previously adopted lines of merchandise have become estab lished and recognized, only then have new fields been entered. This cautious course has been necessary on the one hand because of lack of capital and, on the other, on account of the lack of experience in solving the different problems coming up with expansion. The functionaries have grown up with the growth of the business. Some of the Old Difficulties Lack of capital and experience are not the only difficulties a cooperative wholesale must face. From the beginning the Cooperative Central Exchange has been forced to fight private business interests that have tried everything to hinder the progress of the cooperative wholesale. First the C. C. E. was boycotted. It was not able to secure a place on a direct list with manufacturers. Nationally advertised goods especially presented a serious problem. However, this boycott could not prevent the cooperatives from fighting their way forward. The biggest part of the problem was solved by resorting to our own cooperative label. Perhaps the cooperaters' best brand would not have been such a success as it is today without this boycott by the private interests. Most of the merchandise handled by the C. C. E. now carries the cooperators' own label. Our own label has been a powerful factor not only in building the whole sale, but also in helping the local societies in their fight against the competition of chain and private stores. Cooperators now know what they buy. The price question becomes clearly a question of quality. Standardization under our own brands helps to lower the expenses and in many other respects makes the cooperatives different from private stores. WAREHOTJSE AND OFFICES OF COOPEEATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE. A few years ago there was so mucli room to spare in tliis building, that many apartments were rented, out to private famili.es, and the Exchange bakery was operated on the -first -floor. Now the balcery is housed in another building and oil apartments have been, converted into warerooms or offices. Naturally the fight is not yet ended. Continuous attacks are being directed at the cooperative wholesale as well as against the movement as a whole. Where an open attack is doomed to failure, all kinds of underhand methods are resorted to by the private business interests. Burners, misrepresentations and outrageous lies are spread among the members of local cooperatives. Thus bitter factional fights are frequently instigated among the membership in some places. So far all these attempts have failed to prevent the cooperative move ment in the Northwest from steadily strengthening itself organizationally and directing its efforts towards better centralized activity. Educational Work Last year the C. C. E. used over $5,000 in educational work in addition to sums paid directly by the affiliated societies for the same purpose. The educational work consisted mostly of speaking and lecturing, visiting local societies, holding conferences with local Boards of Directors and employees, and by holding several successful district cooperative conferences. The monthly magazine, The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, has been of great help to the stores in expanding among the non-Finnish elements. During the year five branch stores were opened. Ten new members were accepted, bringing the num ber of affiliated share-holding societies to 84. COOPERATION COOPERATION 85 The question of changing the local stores from the credit basis to a cash- trade basis has been one of our biggest problems. The Educational Department of the C. C. E. is helping to solve this problem by furnishing speakers and localized circulars. As a result of this propaganda against credit business, the majority of the member stores are now on a cash basis. Auditing Department The income of the auditing department was a little over $10,000 during the year. Accounts are now kept in a first class manner in the majority of the stores. Having an auditing department connected with the wholesale has proven of great benefit not only to the local societies themselves but to the wholesale as well, since it has been a very practical connecting link between the central organization and the local cooperatives. Merchandise Policy As already stated, the merchandise policy has been to expand along our own label line, based on quality. A few figures showing the extent of certain annual sales might be interesting. Thus, Cooperators' Best flour and feed were sold to the amount of 562 carloads; own label coffee, 342,568 pounds; Bed Star matches, 1,498 cases; own label canned goods to a total of 1,555 cases of fruits and 5,294 cases of vegetables; Bed Star canned milk, 2,060 cases; Bed Star rolled oats, 7 carloads; Eed Star oil, 9 carloads, etc. Employees The total number of employees of the C. C. E. is 46 at present, with 15 in the bakery department, 8 in the warehouse, auditing department 5, general office 15, and with 3 traveling salesmen. The activities of the C. C. E. in 1928 merely give further proof that the cooperative movement has possibilities of success. The road is, indeed, difficult, with the profit system obstructing the way with all sorts of obstacles. However, by connecting itself in a practical way with the working masses, educating them to understand the class character of the present system of society, the movement is bound to go forward. ——————————— G. H. This is not a garage. It is one of the branch stores of the Miikek oy ai-Kobai- Knmiai, largest of Japan's coopera- t i v e societies. There are 21,000 members and about 19,000 of them are coal miners. Even the Japanese workers demand a certain amonnt of deliv ery service, and bicycles are nsed for carrying the smaller bundles. There are now more than 130 con sumers' coopera tive societies in this small country, with a total mem bership of 120,000. Thirty-six per cent of these members are industrial workers, 42 per cent are other kinds of employes, 1 per cent are 9 per cent are merchants, 5 per cent manufacturers, 7 per cent miscellaneous. Editorial peasants. MURDER AND ROBBERY We have all heard of the cooperative store manager who consistently reports to the members year after year that the business cannot be made a success, who finally undertakes to buy up the store personally, and who thereafter makes it highly successful as a private concern. We have also heard about the coopera tive which accumulates such a large re serve fund that the members finally vote to dissolve the association and divide up among themselves the proceeds—each winning a return of four or five hundred per cent on his investment. In each case the cooperative is murdered in order that robbery may be committed. East ern Pennsylvania has one small town where the manager and the members to gether committed the murder, robbery being the motive of the accomplices in crime. The workers and farmers in this com munity organized their store soon after the war and made it a success from the start. Within six years the reserve fund was several times the paid-in capital, and still the consumer-members were getting a neat little purchase rebate every six months. At the close of the eighth year the officers and manager, particularly the manager, were boasting that "each original $5 share of stock is worth $25." The member who put in S200 began taking an eager interest in the lines of cars that can be purchased for $1,000. The woman who held $10 worth of stock revived her old hopes of the fur coat she had so many times grasped at and lost. And the consid erate manager sympathetically encour aged them both—and by a good deal of tactful but persistent questioning dis covered that many other members also hungered after costly necessities or lux- u.ries, some of which seemed so fantas tically out of reach of the poor workers that they spoke only jokingly of their desires—until the thoughtful manager showed them how through the thrift of the community, the dream of yesterday might become the reality of tomorrow. And then the business began to slip. The chain stores were proving sharp competitors. Somehow the wholesalers' bills were not discounted as regularly as they had once been and wholesalers' service fell down while their prices went up. "Wages in the store had to be raised, new repair bills met out of earn ings, retail prices must be cut to meet competition. The next year showed a substantial net loss—and the manager reported that future prospects were not at all bright. Other cooperative stores in the state had kept up the fight against losing odds year after year until all the orig inal investment was dissipated and bank ruptcy descended upon them. Would it not be better to get out while the getting out was easy and profitable? There could be only one answer to such a question. The thousand dollar car is now two years old and about ripe to turn in for a 1929 model. That fine coat has weathered the storms of two severe winters and is a trifle shabby. And, alas, there is no other such financial windfall in sight, for the Cooperative is long since dead and buried. The good workers and farmers are chasing the chain stores, or trying vainly to drive sharp bargains with their old friend who formerly managed the Co-op. There's a new coat of paint adorning the build ing that once belonged to the consumers, and business is brisk behind the painted front. In fact, it is reported that the proprietor is pulling down some eight or ten thousand dollars a year—which is really not half bad for a business of only $120,000 a year gross, and having to compete with these bothersome chain stores which put up such a stiff fight for the town's trade. C. L. 86 COOPERATION COOPERATION 87 Which Should We Use? Nationally Advertised or Cooperatively Labelled Package Goods (Continued from COOPERATION for April) KIDDED BY EXPERTS By ESKEL RONN Cooperative Central 'Exchange, Superior, Wisconsin Ain't it the berries, how the Ameri can people love to be kidded? The best trained talent among writers, paint ers, and cartoonists is employed to kid the public. But the saddest part of it is that, despite our reputed American sense of humor, very few realize that they are being kidded. Take this advertising game for exam ple. Can you think of any bigger hoax? By advertising we are made to buy cer tain styles of clothes, eat certain foods, yes—and even chew gum. There isn't a human emotion or instinct that the ex pert advertiser doesn't appeal to. The purpose of all this advertising is to sell products to the consumer for a profit. The most extravagant claims are made, in fact anything is fair as long as it creates a demand and thus brings a profit. The consumer is constantly taught to think of a certain brand name when he wants a certain commodity. Be cause of this endless repetition of a certain name, and the extravagant claims made for it, the consumer be lieves the brand name is synonymous with quality. Such however is far from being the case. With the aid of ad vertising, a demand can be created for very mediocre products. The purpose of the cooperative store is not to make profit, but to serve its members, to get quality goods as eco nomically as possible. Therefore, we must first learn what it is that con stitutes quality in the merchandise we sell in our cooperative stores. How many times do you hear well meaning managers of cooperative stores saying, "We mvist give the people what they want." These managers never take into consideration that the people do not really know what they want. When they specify certain brands, it is with no more reason or knowledge than the lady who inquires at the post office if they have 2 cent stamps, and when the clerk produces a sheet of a 100 stamps, she looks intently at them, and finally points at one in the middle, and says, "I want that one." It is the duty of every manager to teach his customers the value of mer chandise and to build confidence in the products handled by the store. But this of course presupposes that the manager is familiar with merchandise and knows what constitutes quality. And if we are honest with ourselves, the most of our knowledge is based on the advertis ing we have read, and not on facts that we have learned by study, examination and laboratory analysis. We can serve our customers much more economically if we can get them products that do not bear the tremen dous cost of national advertising. Just keep in mind that the advertising ap propriation for 1929 "Lucky Strike Cigarette" alone is $12,000,000. The consumer pays for it. With hundreds, yes thousands of articles to be sold in a store, it is im possible for any one manager to know all the merchandise he is called on to buy, no matter how he may pride him self as a buyer. It can't be did! Well, then, how are we going to solve this problem? First of all we must remember that no matter how strong a cooperative store may be alone, it has not the buying power to dictate to manufacturers as to the qaulity of the merchandise. It would be too expen sive a proposition for them to have chemical analyses made of the small quantities they buy. Our only hope lies jn centralizing and forming strong wholesales, which again will centralize among themselves and finally go into manufacturing. They can afford to hire experts to buy for the needs of all coop eratives. All this so far has been more or less theorizing, but very sound and tested theories they are. The Cooperative Central Exchange has put these theories into practice. The 86 stores affiliated with it to-day form- erlv bandied tons of different brands of the" same merchandise. This was un economical, and in order to standardize the stocks of merchandise in these stores, it was decided to eliminate some of the brands. But which ones? And why? That's where the rub came. After conducting tests of the different mer chandise sold in the stores, it was found that the same class of merchandise could be bought at much lower figures if it did not bear the cost of national advertising. So on the market again appeared a new brand, " Cooperaters' Best." Each store immediately started to acquaint its members with this new brand, and to gradually eliminate the nationally advertised brands. In picking out merchandise for a "Cooperators' Best" brand, the first thing considered is quality. This means that a study of each article must be made. The manufacture and prepara tion of some food products are governed by Government Standards, such as the California Canned Fruits, but the vast majority have no such regulations, and thus must be tested and chemically analyzed. The results so far achieved however amply prove the correctness of this policy. The savings the cooperators are able to make by the vise of their own labeled Roods is from 5 per cent to 31 per cent with an average of 12.8 per cent on the following examples alone. Rolled Oats..... Corn Flakes..... Wheat Cereal. . .. Pork & Beans— large ........ Apricots — choice No. 2y?...... Sliced Pineapple —stand. No. 2. Strawberries No. 2—40% ..... Soup . . ........ Raisin s—1 Ib. pkg. ......... Malt Syrup...... Macaroni . . .... Gelatine Dessert. Medium Motor Oil . . ....... Mustard ....... Catsup—pints . . . Cooperators' Best 2.20 per case 2.60 " " 2.90 " " 1.95 " doz. S.28 " " 2.55 " " 3:75 " " .95 " " .08 5.50 1.80 .75 Ib. doz. case doz. .47 " gal. 1.16 " doz. 2.25 " " Nationally Advertised 21.65 2.80 3.90 2.30 3..80 2.80 4,10 1.16 .10' 6.00 1.90 .95 .68 1.35 2.40 The above prices are those prevailing in the Cooperative Central Exchange territory. In every case listed above the "Cooperators1 Best" merchandise hag beeii tested and found to be equal or BETTER, than the most widely used corresponding nationally advertised product. Then there is the added advantage that no one manufacturer can dictate prices and commissions, for it is pos sible to get competitive prices from dif ferent manufacturers when you control the label and formula. From the retail point of view the "Cooperators' Best" goods also elimi nate competition, to a great extent, be cause they are only sold by cooperative stores. It is possible for the coopera tive stores to build a reputation for quality goods. But when they handle nationally advertised products, they cannot offer anything that their com petitors cannot offer. There are of course a lot of other savings made by standardizing stocks, such as smaller inventory, lower inter est and insurance costs, dead stock, etc. The purpose of the cooperative move ment is to get a more equitable and economical distribution of the neces sities of life, and surely in achieving that aim we shouldn't allow these advertising experts with their bally-hoo methods to fool us with pretty labels and tinsel paper. COOPERATION COOPERATION 89 h. \ News and Comment SCO'S BIGGEST YEAR The Soo Cooperative Mercantile Asso ciation at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., in spite of the increased competition by the big chain stores, continues to show that cooperative chain stores can make prog ress also. Sales of $646,000 in 1928 mark an advance of $43,000 over the figures for the previous year. Thirty- eight thousand dollars is the net gain, this also being an advance of $2,000 over 1927.gain. Thirty-seven thousand dol lars went back to stockholders, customers and employees and $1,000 was placed in the reserve fund. Five hundred eighty- five members are now enrolled on the books and their paid-in capital is more than $49,000. The reserve fund is $38,000. Two-thirds of the business is done with non-members. The Soo Association is unique in the fact that it operates a cash-and-carry store next door to the main building, thus enabling people who want to get all the advantages of low prices to get service from the cooperative which is equivalent to that offered by the chain stores. Meanwhile anyone who wants delivery and credit can get that also. The Association is operating ten delivery trucks for the benefit of the latter. Two proposals are now on foot for expansion of this business: The first is for the organization of a savings and loan association, approved by the mem bership and to be operating this spring. The second suggestion is for the opening of a gasoline and oil station. Farmers throughout Michigan and adjoining states have organized hundreds of these cooperative oil companies and there is no reason why city workers can not do the same. AMERICAN INDIANS AS COOPERATORS The Indians of North America were probably better cooperators than any white men have ever been, way back in the days before our ancestors of Eu rope knew there existed any country farther West than Ireland. But the im migrant whites in America broke up that old Indian civilization and forced the red men into a machine made capitalist way of life, from which there seemed no escape. Thousands of white Americans now are themselves seeking an escape from capitalism by way of the cooperative movement, and although many of the Indians in the central and far west have as individuals taken out member ship in white men's cooperative societies, it is the Indians of the St. Eegis Reserva- tion, near Malone, N. Y., who claim to be the pioneers in starting the first all- Indian cooperative society for market ing and purchasing of agricultural products and supplies. The group first organized as milk producers and became a branch of the Dairymen's League. Later they will market cooperatively their other crops. The Cornell Agricul tural College is helping them get started. The leaders in the new movement are descendants of historical characters. Chief Albert Shenandoah of the Oneidas, champion corn grower of the six nations, is the great grandson of the man who took 600 bags of corn to Valley Forge to feed "Washington's army. La Fayette White is grandson of the noted chief for whose son LaFayette acted as god father at baptism. Walter Kennedy is president of the Cornell-Indian board. " COOPERATIVE SOCIETY OF AMERICA" ACTIVE The "Cooperative Society of Amer ica, '' organized ten years or more ago by Harrison Parker, obtained from con sumers in various states, thirty million dollars worth of subscriptions to stock and actually took in thirteen million dollars in cash before the notorious bank ruptcy debacle. Not only was this society quite uncooperative in structure but almost entirely so in spirit, and after the bankruptcy proceedings there were widespread suspicions that Mr. and Mrs. Parker had gotten away with a very large amount of money. Four or five years ago Seymour Stedman and two other trustees under took the task of rehabilitating the Society. Ninety thousand people had originally joined, and 30,000 of these continued to stand by the plan for reorganization either voluntarily or because they had no method of repudiat ing their contracts to buy stock. The only properties left after the collapse were the City-State Bank of Chicago, the People's Life Insurance Company, and an equity in the People's Life Build ing which had been erected on leased land in the loop district of Chicago. The Bank was small with deposits totalling less than $300,000 and the Life Insurance Company had approxi mately $6,000,000 of insurance in force. The equity in the building was approxi mately $400,000. The new trustees immediately launched a program of expansion for these three properties. To-day the bank has deposits of nearly $5,000,000, there being ap proximately 17,000 savings accounts, 3,000 commercial accounts, and 1,300 Christmas Club accounts. The insur ance company has made corresponding progress. Of the overwhelming indebt edness which the society had five years ago, the trustees claim now to have, cleared away everything except $25,000, and a refinancing scheme is being planned which will eliminate that debt also. The latest development is the or ganization of another subsidiary known as the "Randolph Drug Company" vrhich handles not only drugs but a large line of groceries, and acts as a central purchasing office for all kinds of house hold commodities from jewelry and toilet articles to clothing, furniture and electric refrigerators. The Randolph Drug Company is housed in the City- State Bank Building. Prom the information obtained in the magazine^ published by the society, it appears evident that this organization is to-day no more cooperative than it ^as in the days of Harrison Parker. The affairs are still administered by a Board of Trustees, which automatically limits the control of the general mem bership. I WOMELSDORF, PENNSYLVANIA The Womelsdorf Cooperative Associa tion started in 1919 in a small town, with a small membership doing a small business. The town and the membership are still small, the latter only 92, but the business has been growing steadily until today only the new chain store of the American Stores Co., pretends to match the volume of trade of the coop erative. For the first few weeks after that "yellow front" opened many of the cooperators experimented with the penny bargains, but the speculative fever did not last long and they are now back at the Co-op better than ever. In fact, 1928 sales show an increase of $10,000 over those of 1927. These people are Pennsylvania Dutch folk who after living in America for hundreds of years still speak the pecu liar German-English dialect. And they do know how to work together. The store carries not only groceries, but all lines of general merchandise from rattles for the baby up through drugs, shoes, clothing and linoleum to card tables and fishing tackle. On sales of $55,202 last year they paid 2 per cent purchase re bates each quarter and still had left $2,163 to go into the reserve fund. The land and buildings, valued at more than $11,000, stand clear of all indebtedness except a small mortgage loan of $3,000 procured last year to make extensive improvements possible. The balance sheet shows no accounts receivable and none payable. The business is run on strict cash and carry principles. Some "financial advisor" induced these folks to return to stockholders each year out of earnings, not only the 6 per cent to which they were entitled but also a stock dividend of one $5 share to each, regardless of what previous in vestment each of these members might have. The reason for such advice was "that it is illegal to accumulate a large reserve." The directors are wiser this year and are going to put the larger share of the 1928 earnings into the re serve fund. The President is Ralph Anderson, the Recording Secretary, Harry Heist, the Financial Secretary, George Rabold. The hustling young manager and treas- 90 COOPERATION COOPERATION 91 j urer who is in such large measure re sponsible for the continued progress of the business during his five years in office is Stanley Dissinger. The Coop erative has for many years been a direct member of the National League, but this year the Eastern States League is urging the superior advantages of membership in that district federation. NEWMANSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA The Newmanstowii Cooperative Asso ciation, only a mile and a half distant from the Womelsdorf Cooperative, is similar to it in many ways. Organized two years earlier, it operated at first as a buying club and opened its full-sized store in 1919. There are 314 members— three and one-half times as many coop erators as in the larger town of Womels dorf ; but sales are about the same: $54,000 last year, with a net gain of $2,800. All customers, whether stock holders or not, received a 3 per cent rebate each half year in cash. Sales are made strictly for cash and there is no delivery service. All bills to wholesalers are discounted and the quarterly report of the auditor usually shows no accounts payable. The building is owned free and clear of all incumbrances. Curtis Kail is the President, William Eitmoyer Secretary, and Howard Wolf Treasurer. John H. Crist, the good coop- erator who has been manager for five years past, like Stanley Dissinger, man ager at Womelsdorf, is a wide-awake business executive. Strangely enough, the only chain store in the two towns, lo cated almost directly across the street from the Womelsdorf Cooperative, seems to get more trade away from the New- manstown Association than from its closer competitor. Perhaps it is the greater distance which in the eyes of Newmanstown cooperators lends en chantment to the "Asco" store, while the greater familiarity of those nearer home only breeds contempt. AMENDMENTS TO NEW YORK STATE CREDIT UNION LAW Several proposals are offered in the legislature at Albany for modifying the Credit Union Law of the State. One proposal is that in addition to th present requirement for placing ten per cent of the net earnings in a re serve fund, an additional amount shall be placed to reserves equal to the amount of losses sustained during the year. Another change would make it illegal for any union to pay more than six per cent dividend during the first two years of its life. A third requires that any officer or member of commit tees borrowing from the credit union shall give collateral security in addi tion to his note. Another change would forbid paying any wages or salaries to committee members or officers (except ing the manager) unless for attendance at meetings. This rule may be abro gated only when net earnings exceed six per cent of the capital stock. An other significant change would permit the credit union to invest its undivided profits in any "mutual undertaking car ried on by the membership." A final change would restrict the membership of credit unions "to persons having a common employer or to persons who are members of the same trade, pro fession, club, union, society or associa tion or to persons who are residents of a town, village or other political sub division of the state having a popula tion of not over ten thousand persons." KEYSTONE OF READING The Keystone Cooperative Associa tion, purveyor of men's furnishings in the Socialist City of Beading; Pa., has 'fallen upon bad times during the past three or four years and annual sales in men's suits, shirts, collars, ties, under wear, hats and gloves dwindled to the $13,000 mark. Of the 216 stockholders of this cooperative 156 are union locals and only 60 are individuals. A cam paign is being organized this spring to •revive interest in the cooperative and bring it back to its former successful status. Andrew P. Bower, a Vice-president of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor and for several years Vice-presi dent of the Cooperative League, is President and Manager of the Keystone Cooperative Association, and M. L- Wolfskill, Secretary-Treasurer. Northern States Cooperative League 2100 WASHINGTON AVE. No. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. OUR INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN Our individual membership campaign for 1929 received a great push during the month of March. Up to April 10 we had received dues from 535 individual members. This is the highest figure so far in the history of our League. We have never before reached the 500 mark. And the campaign is still going on, so that at this writing it looks certain that we will reach at least the 600 aiark, if not the coveted 1000 mark, before we are through for this year. These brilliant results are due to the efforts of a dozen or more enthusiastic co- operators who have put their shoulder to the wheel and helped us in the campaign. Below we publish an honor list giving the names of those who have turned in ten or more individual memberships each. This list now contains ten names as against four published in the April issue of Cooperation. K. A. Nurmi, Superior, Wis. 12|0 Toivo Tenhunen, Superior, Wis. 120 W. A. Harju, Superior, Wis. 97 F. P. Burandt, Minneapolis, Minn. 57 D. Leuchovius, Minneapolis, Minn. 54 A. N. Rivers, Rock, Mich. 21 V. S. Alanne, League Office, Mpls. 18 Walter Jacobson, Minneapolis, Minn. 10 Emi] Bakken, Minneapolis, Minn. 10 Guy Lansdale, Superior, Wis. 10 Total 517 The League office expects to send out a circular letter to the boards of directors of all affiliated societies in our district remind ing them of the fact that the Seventh Annual Convention of the League, held at Ironwood, Mich., in August, 1928, urged all directors of the affiliated societies to take an individual membership in the League. If this wish of our last annual convention can be carried out, there will be no difficulty in raising the total number of individual mem bers to 1000, as there are now a hundred affiliated societies in our League and the m°st common number of directors in each society is seven. The League office wishes to thank cor dially all those cooperators who have as- S]sted us in getting these splendid results. ANNUAL MEETING OF FARMERS' UNION TERMINAL ASS'N The annual meeting of the Farmers' Union Terminal Ass'n of St. Paul was held in that city the 26th of March. As the territory covered by this organization ex tends not only to Minnesota but also to North Dakota and Montana, there were shareholders present from these three states, the bulk of them hailing from North Dakota. There were altogether about 70 people in attendance. The Farmers' Union Terminal Ass'n which is organized under the cooperative laws of Minnesota, did a large business during its past fiscal year, considering the youth of the organization. During the last "crop year," extending from August, 1928, to February 28, 1929, the association han dled 16,000,000 bushels of grain, its volume of business during this period running up to the very respectable figure of nearly $20,000,000. Its total operating income during the period was $174,506.09 and its operating expenses amounted to $75,179.23. The paid-in capital stock of the organiza tion is $176,000 and its total assets at the end of February were $878,832.04. The fact that the current assets of the Farmers' Union Terminal Ass'n are somewhat larger than its current liabilities and that during- the last "crop year" its business showed a net gain of about $100,000, indicate that this young organization has got a very good start in the business way and has rapidly conquered a great deal of field. So far only individuals are owning shares in the organization and its capital stock is divided into common (voting) stock and preferred stock. It is planned for the future that local and county organizations of the Farmers' Union in the northwestern states should take shares in the Terminal Association. A new board of directors of nine mem bers was elected at the meeting, five of these directors representing shareholders in North Dakota, while two directors come from Minnesota, one from Montana and one from Iowa. This board of directors will also serve as the board for the Farmers' Union Exchange of St. Paul, as all the 92 COOPERATION COOPERATION 93 shares of stock in the Exchange are now held by the Farmers' Union Terminal Ass'n. The business of the Farmers' Union Terminal Ass'n is being managed by Wil liam Thatcher. WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE N. S. C. L. DISTRICT The Cooperative Central Exchange is the largest dues-paying affiliated society of the Northern States' Coop League. And, it is not only that but it is also the livest co operative group affiliated with us. In 1928 the Exchange added ten new cooperative societies to its membership. Six of these new societies are from Minnesota, two from Michigan, one from Wisconsin and one from Canada. The newly affiliated Minnesota soci eties are: Biwabik Co-op. Merc. Co., Biwa- bik; Crosby Workers' Co-op. Ass'n, Crosby; Farmers' Co-op. Co. of Max, Squaw Lake; Farmers' Co-op. Produce Ass'n, Moose Lake (previously affiliated with the N. S. C. L.); Farmers' Co-op. Trading Co., East Lake; and Sax Co-op. Co., Sax (a buying club). The two Michigan societies are: Amasa Co-op. Society, Amasa (this society was affiliated with the Central Exchange some years ago but later withdrew and has now reaffiliated); and Farmers' Co-op. Trading Co., Pelkie. The newly affiliated Wisconsin society is the Farmers' Co-op. Store of Owen (opened in February, 1929), and the Canadian society is the Workers' Co-operative of New Ontario, Timmons. Two societies have been stricken off the membership roll of the Central Exchange in 1928. These are the Balkan Farmers' Co-op. Ass'n of Chisholm, Minn., which has amalgamated with the Chisholm Workers' and Farmers' Co-op. Ass'n and the Wright Co-operative Buying Club, Wright, Minn., which has amalgamated with the Farmers' Co-operative Company of Wright. This leaves a net gain of eight societies for the Central Exchange for the year 1928, mak ing the total of its affiliated societies at the end of last year 84. At present the Co-op. Central Exchange is the only group of organized consumers in whose territory new cooperative stores are being opened. Outside of their territory the condition, for instance in Minnesota, is such that the total number of cooperative stores is gradually being reduced, some of the isolated stores having gone out of exist ence within the last three or four years. This is a very forceful object-lesson of the necessity of the isolated stores' cooperating with each other through a central buying association. It is deplorable that, one after another these isolated cooperative store societies are now joining the Independent Grocers' Alii- ance or other similar buying organizations promoted by private jobbers and wholesale houses, instead of being jealous of retain, ing their cooperative identity and giving support to the efforts of the N. S. C. L. to form a joint buying organization, with the Twin Cities as the trading center. That the consumers' cooperative move ment in the Northern States' League dis trict is making actual headway and con quering new fields is proved, among other things, by the fact that within the last three months several new consumers' co operatives have been organized in Minne sota. On March 19 there was held at Kettle River an organization meeting which re sulted in organizing a new district cooper ative oil association, for which the unique name of "Cap" was selected. The first letter in this word stands for Carlton, the second for Aitkin, and the third for Pine. There were cooperative societies represented from these three counties. Delegates from five cooperative stores and one farmers' co operative creamery voted each to take $500 worth of shares in the new oil association which is going to erect its first bulk station at Kettle River. Later on two or three more cooperative societies in the district are expected to join the new organization which has an authorized-capital of $15,000. The Czecho-Slovakian workers at Kee- watin, Minn., have recently opened a co operative store in that town. They have decided to join the Central Exchange and on the recommendation of the Exchange Paul Voimala, formerly from the Interna tional Work People's Store at Gilbert, Minn., has been elected their manager. The name of the new organization is Workers' Co-operative Association. We wish the Czecho-Slovakian workers of Keewatin suc cess in their co-operative venture. As far as we know this is the only cooperative store in existence in our district formed by this nationality group. The Orr Farmers' Co-op. Trading Co., of Orr, Minn., expects to open a branch store at Gheen in the very near future. The Northern Farmers' Society, of Angora, Minn., has already opened its second branch store in the Sturgeon township with Andrew Santa as manager, and the Cherry Farmers Co-op. Ass'n of Iron, Minn., has also opened a branch store at Forbes. Cooperative store societies in the Mesaba Range, Cloquet and New York Mills dis tricts are also busy taking steps to organize district oil associations. Committees are already working on the preliminaries. This may mean the formation of three other district oil associations this spring or sum mer, besides the one already organized at Kettle River. All these oil associations expect to join the Minnesota Co-op. Oil Co and buy their gasoline through them. George W. Jacobson, our League's new rleldman, has been engaged jointly by the Virginia Work People's Trading Co. and the Mesaba Range Co-op. Cr'y Ass'n of Virginia, Minn., for a period of four weeks, to do local work for the purpose of solicit ing more trade and stirring up more inter est in these two cooperative enterprises among the local people. His work at Vir- oinia is also educational, as he is expected to increase the number of loyal cooperators in the locality. Loyalty comes only with a clear knowledge of the aims and objects of the Cooperative Movement. From Virginia, Brother Jacobson is ex pected to go to Northern Wisconsin where the District Committee of the Northern Wisconsin societies (Superior, Wentworth, Maple, Brule and Iron River) plans to engage him for one month. Later on, in June and July, Brother Jacobson is scheduled to do educational and organiza tion work for several Upper Peninsula societies. * * * The League office is now working to ar range a district conference of Central Wis consin store societies which will be held at Meclforcl, Wis., May 22d. Provided that the local society agrees to help the League in arranging the meeting, it will undoubt edly prove to be a decided success, and will be an instrument of bringing together the cooperative store societies in that district, most of which have so far had no contact with each other. The work on the First National Yearbook is in full swing at this writing. Circulars have been sent out to all societies in the N. S. C. L. district asking them to take space in the yearbook. The New Era Life Ass'n was the first affiliated society of the Northern States' League this year to send in its contract for space. We expect from the Northern States' League district a large participation in this firstling of the Con sumers' Co-operative Movement in U. S. * * * Several of our active cooperators have been stricken by illness recently, which naturally has tended to retard the move ment. H. I. Nordby, president of the Northern States' League and general manager of the Franklin Co-op. Cr'y Ass'n, has been con fined for several weeks to a sanitarium at Milwaukee which city he was visiting when he fell ill with rheumatism. However, Brother Nordby is again back in Minne apolis and is expected to assume his duties shortly. We wish Brother Nordby a speedy and complete recovery. Eskel Bonn, general manager of the Co operative Central Exchange and a director of our League, was detained at an Isolation Hospital in Superior, Wis., for a period of two weeks the first part of March on ac count of an attack of diphtheria. Fortu nately the vicious germs were soon subdued and Brother Ronn is back on the job with unabated vigor. We are very glad to report that Gideon Edberg, also a director of our League and formerly chairman of the Educational Com mittee of the Franklin Co-op. Cr'y Ass'n, has been released from the hospital where he has been confined since the early part of November, as a result of a very serious accident. While it will take Brother Ed- berg possibly a few months yet before he is restored to his normal condition, he is already taking part in cooperative doings in Minneapolis. You can't keep a good co- operator down very long! JUST A FAIR DEAL The relief that farmers need is relief from exploitation. Most of this relief— perhaps all of it—we shall have to get for ourselves, through cooperative marketing and cooperation in obtaining our farm and household equipment and supplies. The best relief the government could give would be to quit aiding the exploiters. Price disparity started this farm relief agitation. Since 1920, farm products have been exchanging for much less of other commodities than before the war. This is largely because exploiters are entrenched behind law-made privileges, especially out landish tariff duties. The logical course would be to remove those privileges. But the farm-relief discussion has gotten clear away from anything so logical. The schemes now offered contemplate leaving the exploiters in full possession of their privileges, or even giving them more. ' 'Relief" legislation that does not interfere with privilege will do nothing to take the exploiters off farmers' backs. L. S. HERRON (Nebraska Union Farmer) 94 COOPERATION COOPERATION 95 My Livest News Item of the Month A BLOW TO THE MOVEMENT SUCCESSFULLY THWARTED Farmers' Exchange of Duluth, Miim., is a retail store organization started in 3919 under the cooperative laws of the state. They are located in West Duluth, three blocks from the store of the Union Consumers' Co-op Society. The Farm ers' Exchange has over 400 members, all farmers from the southern part of St. Louis County. Due to a recent change in manage ment and perhaps to certain unfavor able external conditions, the sales of the Exchange dropped considerably during the first two months of this year and its financial condition became such as to make the new manager pessimistic about the possibilities of continuing the operations of the Exchange without heavy losses. But instead of thinking of using cooperative methods to correct the situation, Mr. Larson, the manager, began to confer with a local feed mer chant who naturally was interested in seeing the Exchange discontinue its op erations as a cooperative. The feed mer chant made an offer to put in $35,000 of his money, on condition that the Ex change be changed into a stock company, he to assume its management and to have the majority of stock in his own hands. Fortunately the board of directors had no legal power to effect such a thorough change of organization without consult ing the membership, so a special mem bership meeting was called, and held in Duluth, March 28th. The relative merits of a cooperative organization, as contrasted with those of a stock com pany, were thoroughly discussed from the floor, and afterward the membership proceeded to vote on the proposition. The proposition of the hoard of directors to make the Farmers' Exchange a stock company was overwhelmingly voted down. The vote stood 61 to 16. The Farmers' Exchange has now put one of its employees temporarily in charge and has requested the Northern States' Co-op League and the Co-op Cen tral Exchange of Superior, Wis., f0 recommend a cooperative manager. '{jn_ der this new management, it is hoped the Farmers' Exchange will again be brought upon its feet and steady progress made in the future. V. S. A. PERMANENT TAX EXEMPTION FOR ONE WHOLESALE The Farmers Union State Exchange Omaha, Nebr., the cooperative whole sale associated with the Farmers Union of Nebraska, has been notified by the Internal Revenue Department in Wash ington that it is exempt from income taxes for the years 1925, 1926, 1927, a.nd 1928, and that it will continue to be exempt, even from filing income-tax reports, so long as it is operated on the present basis. Based on the 1928 net savings of the State Exchange, this ex emption will mean a saving of about $2,500 a year. This exemption was obtained under the provisions of the revenue act of 1926 and the regulations made there under applying to farmers' coopera tives. Briefly, the requirements for exemption are as follows: 1. Sub stantially all of the shareholders must be producers. 2. Interest on share capital must not exceed 8 per cent. 3. Patronage dividends must be paid or credited to shareholders and non- shareholders alike. 4. Business 'with non-shareholders must not exceed 54 per cent of the total. 5. Business with non-shareholders who are not producers (farmers) must not exceed 15 per cent of the total. Patronage dividends to iioii-share- holders need not be paid in cash or commodities, but may be set up as a credit and held in payment for shares. The State Exchange will follow this plan as a mean to bring in new shareholders. L. S. H. My Point of View By J. P. WABBASSE ON TAKING CARE OF CAPITAL Some people sneer at the capitalist be cause he not only lays stress upon the accumulation of capital but emphasizes taking care of it after it is acquired. Working people have never taken to heart seriously or practically enough the lessons they might learn from the capitalist in what is really his specialty. It is always the part of wisdom to re spect the specialist, the person who knows the most about any subject. The way people learn how to take care of capital is by taking care of it. And the most competent are those who have the experience. It is the same with everything. Many a man from the East goes to the plains of the West to be come a ranchman. He gets a flock of sheep. But if he has never before had any sheep to take care of, his sheep die, are stolen, run away, and disappear. Presently he is bankrupt of sheep. A man who has had large experience in taldng care of large herds of sheep gets along best taking care of sheep. Black guarding him by calling him a sheep capitalist does not detract one jot from his ability to take care of sheep. During a big strike, I once visited the strike headquarters, and asked to see the treasurer of the strike committee. I went into his office, into which some $30,000 had flowed from all parts of the country in the course of three weeks. He sat behind a table with a female secretary by his side. With one hand he was smoking a cigarette; the other arm was around the neck of the secre tary. He was leaning back in his chair full of responsibility, nicotine, and endocrines. The lady secretary was opening envelopes and taking out the money. There was no authentic record available of how much money had been received, its source, or its distribution. The poor workers outside were starving, %htiiig, and suffering hell. Their strike in due time was lost, as strikes usually are. There was justice 011 its side. Will ingness on the part of the workers to make every imaginable sacrifice to win success. There were enthusiasm, man power, and funds — everything but ability, in a businesslike way, to take care of the funds which were the back bone of the strike. And these were the people who had nothing but scorn for the capitalist and all of his ways. The Brotherhood of the Common wealth represented as good a cause as any enterprise ever organized. It was a cooperative method, available for the poorest worker, of protecting old age against want. It was a well-thought out scheme for saving and insuring an in come for the period of old age inca pacity. Every detail had apparently been given attention to make the organi zation perfect. Charles Frederick Adams, its founder, is dead and cannot know the tragedy that befell the Brotherhood of the Com monwealth. He was a man of affairs and knew the importance of applying the capitalistic checks to the control of capital. He naturally thought that it went without saying that trustees ap pointed for the specific purpose of car- iiig for funds would have the care of the funds. That was the most im portant function in the whole system. It was its heart and soul. For such a body not to take care of the funds would be the same as for a man, ap pointed to protect a powder magazine against fire, to throw burning matches into the magazine. Any capitalist could have told the Brotherhood that funds would not take care of themselves; if they were not taken care of, they would get away. The constitution provided that this Board of Trustees, of three men, should be responsible to the Executive Com mittee and the members for the care of the $57,000 invested in securities. But these Trustees were false to their trust. They went to the movie shows and left the'charge of $57,000 worth of gilt- edged securities in the hands of the Secretary-Treasurer of the Brotherhood. COOPERATION COOPERATION 97 III He Lad complete control over these funds. He kept all the books. He acted as secretary of the Executive Committee and wrote up all the minutes of meet ings. He acted as secretary of the Board of Trustees and virtually told that Board what powers it should con fer upon himself. He alone had access to the safe deposit box. This man was one Walter Danforth, an insurance agent, and hardly the sort of man to be accorded such trust. In fact the man does not live whom a decent capi talist organization would have given such confidence. Nor did the Trustees protect the funds by having a properly executed surety bond. Without complete auditing, the Brotherhood went on, year after year, collecting money from its members. It made application to The Cooperative League for membership. The League agreed to accept it, but only after its accounts had been audited by the Accounting Bureau of The League. When everything had been done by The League except this final auditing, the Secretary of the Brotherhood be gan to put obstacles in the way. He saw that The League audit meant busi ness. It not only meant examination of the books but examination of the securi ties. Befusal to permit The League's auditor to have access to the books and securities was finally met by legal steps to compel placing them in the auditor's hands. The next morning Mr. Danforth, the Secretary of the Brotherhood, was found dead in his home. Suicide. The League's auditor then went ahead, got access to the books and records, and found the safe deposit box of the Brotherhood empty of securities. Dan forth for years had had the secretary ship. He had used the $57,000 of funds for his own speculative purposes. The Trustees, for whom he acted, had not seen the securities for many years, nor required an audit to show that they were on hand. When they had made a critical examination seems doubtful. Just a case of people, intrusted with the care of sheep, who did not know the first principle about their care While the wolves were eating the sheen they thought of course that the cries of the lambs were the songs of larks and the howling of the wolves was the joyful bleating of the sheep gambolin^ in the clover. Thev did not, look to see. They did not think it necessarv A wolf had come and told them everv year that the sheep were all right What more could they ask? Why should they go look at the sheep? Thpv went to church instead. The officers of the Brotherhood had told the officers of The Cooperative League that the auditing had been done. It was unthinkable that it had not been done. When we came to make the final test, before admitting the Brotherhood to The League, the unexpected and astonishing truth was found. Naturally, the Brotherhood was not admitted. Any people, however, who have joined the Brotherhood as a result of the article in COOPERATION, of February, 1929, will have their money returned. The League was deceived by men who were untrue to a great trust and oppor tunity. It will do everything possible to protect others from further losses. The application of this organization for membership in The League was a most fortunate circumstance. Just that step made us aware of the splendid possibilities of the Brotherhood's general plan of organization. The League's auditor woke up a sleeping1 and stupid lot of Brotherhood officials, . smoked out a thieving secretary, and brought to an end the flow of funds into a treasury that was bankrupt, un sound, and utterly incompetent to be trusted with a penny. I myself should not have published the Point of View article on tlie Brotherhood in the February number of COOPERATION. It was premature and should have been deferred till the com pletion of the audit. But had that been done, the article would never have been written. Now we know. And the readers of that article, and of this, now have more respect for auditing than they ever had before. THE READER WRITES THE JAPANESE COOPERATIVE CONGRESS \Ve are glad that we can inform you that the 95th National Congress of Cooperative Soci- ties in Japan under the auspices of Sangio- Tttuniai Chuokai will be held on the 26th and 97th of April at Shiroyama, Matsue-shi, Shi- jjjgjne-en. More than 12,000 Societies will assemble from all the parts of Japan in which the co operative veterans of our country are also contained. Many important questions shall be introduced, and we believe enthusiastic dis cussions shall be contended about the coopera tive problems. On this occasion Cooperative Propaganda and Educational Exhibitions and other works will be successfully held. It is very regretful to us owing to the reason that the situation of our country is very far from America, the difficulty to invite you to our country is very great. But we are very obliged if you will send us your congratulatory address for the 25th Annual Congress. K. SENJOKTTS General Secretary Sangiokumiai Chuokai Central Union of Cooperative Societies of Japan. HOW MANY COOPERATIVES THERE ARE JUST LIKE THAT? We have finished our Inventory and have had a very satisfactory year: we have handled 10 cars of flour, sugar, potatoes etc., besides our regular groceries. What is lacking here and I am of the opinion that the same trouble elsewhere is education among the masses (our customers). We need more leaflets for general distribution. ELLIS L. FOX, Manager Cresco Cooperators Cresco, Iowa. ANOTHER COOPERATIVE CALENDAR In spite of the lateness of the season at which the first notice of a cooperative calender was sent out from The League office in the autumn of 1928, the response in the form of orders was so immediate and satisfactory that another calendar is to be issued for the year 1930. The same artist, Henry Askeli, has just finished the new painting and complete description will be mailed to all affiliated societies in the near future. The office of The League requests managers of all cooperatives to refrain from ordering calendars elsewhere until they hear further from The Coopera tive League. CHINESE COOPERATORS IN AMERICA DEAR COOPERATORS : Upon application for the cooperative infor mation of the United States at International Labor Office Geneva, I was told to write to you for the said information. I am, being the editor of the Chinese World, planning to introduce the Cooperation to our Chinese people and will organize a cooperative society here at the near future. Hoping to get your aid and sending the said information to me at your earliest convenience. D. M. LEE, The Chinese World, San Francisco, Calif. ANOTHER CALIFORNIAN HEARD FROM The January number of Cooperation is full of good information. I am very grateful for it. I am tremendously in sympathy with the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, and think that the principles can be applied in all direc tions. I am interested in the idea of the Pacific Coast organizing a Consumers Cooperative Educational League. Will you please send me the complete infor mation of the New Correspondence Course entitled "Organization and Administration of Cooperative Societies.'' LAWRENCE F. McCBAY Oakland, Cal. CHAIN STORES CANNOT SCARE THESE PEOPLE I am enclosing you herewith our annual statement, which we think is a pretty fine state ment, considering the fact that we have had stronger competition during 192.8 than any time since our organization. We now have six chain stores doing business in this City, three of which handle groceries, and arrangements are now being made for an establishment of Sears-Roebuck and Company. I wish to draw your particular attention to the increase in business over last year in spite of all this competition, also to the fact that we have paid back to the people since organiza tion, over four times our original capital stock, and have at the present time $3)8,102.31 in the reserve fund. While we had no outside speakers at our annual meeting we had a good attendance and much interest was shown. W. H. CLOSSER The Soo Co-operatives Merc. Ass'n Sault Ste. Marie, Midi, *i 98 COOPERATION COOPERATION 99 HERE'S ENTHUSIASM FOR THE INSTITUTE Your letter of the 6tli instant [about the Cooperative Institute at Brookwood] was re ceived and acted upon. The Board of Trustees has been fired with enthusiasm, and will, no doubt, send its representatives to the Institute, in July. However, in order that all may be cleared effectively, please send us further particulars, as soon as possible. JOSEPH R. SALERNO, Manager, Workers Cooperative Union, Lawrence, Mass. A GOOD CHRISTMAS PRESENT, TOO EDITOE COOPERATION: We just gave Mr. Alanne an order for one hundred copies of each of the December and January issues of '' Cooperation." It is our plan to use these specimen copies to build up a subscription list among the directors of the cooperative oil associations in our territory. In as much as we have no publication of our own, I feel that "Cooperation" comes the nearest to any publication that we want in the hands of our members. I believe that we need such articles as you wrote in the Decem ber issue. Most of our members do not realize the importance of a cooperative wholesale as their source of .supply, and anything in the editorial policy of "Cooperation" along this line is very acceptable to us. I believe that there is a great opportunity for consumers' cooperatives in the northwest as we already have the ground work laid to a certain extent in the producers' cooperatives which have their central selling agencies like the Land O' Lakes and the Central Livestock Commission Association. I intend to work in J close harmony with Mr. Alanne in forwarding j the consumers cooperative movement out here. * We are presenting each of our member asso- The MONTHLY PROPAGANDA POSTER SERVICE issued by the CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE enables you to utilize the display space around the cooperative's premises for the most effective sort of cooperative propaganda, at a very moderate cost. For samples, prices and information, address: CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 1303 N. Park "St., Bloomington, 111. ciations with a copy of "What is Cooperation" as our Christinas gift for this year. MINNESOTA CO-OP OIL COMPANY Minneapolis, Minn. E. G. CORT, Manager STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MENT, CIBCUIATION, ETC., KEQUIREn THE ACT OF CONGKESS OF AUGUST "4 OF COOPEKATIOK, published monthly at NP, York, N. Y., for April 1, 1929. ' lsen State of New York, County of New Y'ork, ss.: Before me, a notary public in and for the State and County aforesaid, personally appeared T N. Pel'kins, who, having been duly sworn accofaimf to law, deposes and says that she is the businra? manager of COOPERATION and that the follow ing is, to the best of her knowedge and belief a true statement of the ownership, management (and if a daily paper, the circulation) etc of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of AuKurt 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 pub lisher, editor, managing editor, and business man ager are: Publisher, The Cooperative Leacue 167 West 12th Street, N. Y. C.; Editor. Cearip Long, 167 West 12th Street, N. Y. C.: Managinc Editor, none: Business Manager, J. N PevUins 167 West 12th Street, N. Y. C. 2. That the owner is: (If owned by a corpora tion, its name and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given. If owned by a firm, company, or other unincorporated con cern, its name and address, as well as those of each individual member, must be given.) The Cooperative League. 167 West 12th Street, N. Y. C.: President, J. P. Warbasse, 167 West 12th Street. N. Y. C.; Vice-President, H. I. Nordby, 2801 Washington Avenue. N. Mpls.. Minn.; Sec. retary, Cedric Long, 167 West 12th Street, N. 3. That > the known bondholders, morte-agees. and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mort gages or other securities are: (If there are none. so state.) None. 4. That the two paragraphs next above. Rivinf the names of the owners, stockholders, and secur ity 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 where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the per son or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that the said two paragraphs con tain statements 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 company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona tide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association, or corporation has any inter est, direct or indirect, in the said stock, bonds, or other securities than as so stated by her. 5. That the average number of copies of each issue of this publication sold or distributed, through the mails or otherwise, to paid suB- scribers during the six months preceding the date shown above is .......... (This information is required from daily publications only.) J. N. PERKINS. Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 28th clay of March. 1929. (Seal) SIDNEY BENJAMIN. My commission expires March 30. 1030.) 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 Di0cu0slon of the Conaumera' Cooperative Movement In It* Relation to the Political State, to the Profit System, t* tabor, to Agriculture And to the Art* and Sciences " We hope Dr. Warbaaae'a book will find reader* throughout the world"—G. J. D. O. Ooedhardt, ex-President International Coop erative Alliance The Macmillan Co., New York, Publishers Order from The Cooperative League, 167 West 12th St., New York, U. S. A. Price, $1.50. The Cooperative Union, Holyoake House, Han over St., Manchester, England. Price 6 sh. German Edition: Verlagsgesellschaft deutscher Konsumvereine, Strohhause 38, Hamburg, Germany. Price, 6 marks. IS YOUR FURNITURE INSURED IN A COOPERATIVE COMPANY? This Company is 55 years old It has 50,000 members Its rates are the lowest Is there a branch in your town? If not, why not? WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY Care of Cooperative League, 167 W. 12 St. NEW YORK CITY STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence Courses prepared and con ducted 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 l®th Street New York City The Canadian Cooperator Brant ford, Ontario, Canada The orffan of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and eon- ducted under the auspices of The Cooperative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum ''The Cooperative Pyramid Builder" Official Organ of Cooperative Central Exchange is a snappy, live cooperative magazine. Get in line! Subscribe NOW Subscription price 50c a year. COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE Superior, Wis. COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPERATION for one year to Name. .................................... Address.................................. $1.00 a year 100 COOPERATION ,k PUBLICATIONS —OF— THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL 3. Story of Cooperation.............! 7. British Cooperative Movement..... 38. Consumers' Cooperative Movement in U. S., 1926................... 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe.. 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States . . .................... 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart Chase). ..................... TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative Society ............ 6. A Model Constitution and By-Laws for a Cooperative Society....... 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Denned.. 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole sale . . . ..................... 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail...... 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild . . . . ................... 15. How to Organize a District Coopera tive League ................... 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson). . . . . .............. 43. Cooperative Housing ............. 50. A B C of Cooperative Housing.... 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apart ment House .................. MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law........... 46. Producers' Cooperative Industries.. 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Cooperative Movement 12. Credit Union and Cooperative Store. 13. The Place of Cooperation Among Other Movements ............. 34. Cooperative Movement (Yiddish) .. 30. " When the Whistle Blew " (Story, by Bruce Calvert) ............. 66. International Directory of Coopera tive Organizations ............. 41. Social Aspects of Farmers' Coopera tive Marketing (By Benson Y. Landis). . . . . ................ 42. Co-op Homes for Europe's Homeless 49. A Way Out .................... 55. A Better World to Live In........ 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Dif fers from Ordinary Business.... 60. The " Moral Equivalent " of Jazz.. 62. Buttons (League emblem), 34 inch diameter . . . . . ............... 63. Sign or Transparency of League Em blem. Green and gold, 8 in. diam.. 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250. 68. To Mothers ..................... Per Copy Per 100 ..$ .10 $6.00 10 6.00 .10 .05 .05 .05 .10 .05 .10 .10 .02 .02 .10 .50 .10 .10 .10 .10 .10 .10 .05 .25 .02 .06 .60 .25 .10 .02 .05 .02 .02 .25 .02 6.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 2.50 1.00 1.75 1.25 .75 .60 2.00 15.00 1.00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.50 per 500; $4.00 per 1,000.) (1) Principles and Aims of The Cooperative League; (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 Committee on Education and Recreation?; (451 c_i,,.a and Stores; (47) A Man's Right to a Job. ocn°°ls MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred) Subscription, per year.............. . 41 nn REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION (Pub. by the I. C. A.)...........Per Year, $1 50 $1.65 if paid by check. ' * 5L BOOKS The following books are recommended as containing the best discussions of the modern Cooperative Move ment. They may be ordered through The League: Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement in Russia . . . . ........................... Brightwill, L. R.: Animal "Co-op" Book—For Children . . . . ......................... Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers..................... Flanagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 . . . . ................... Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth.. Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Co operative Committees ................... Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound........ Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers................. Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products .................... Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold......... Hears and Tobriner: Principles and Prac ices of Cooperative Marketing............ Nicholson, Isa: Our Story............... Oerne, Andres: Cooperative Ideals and Prob Owen, Robert: Autobiography............ Poisson, E.: The Cooperative Republic.... Potter, B.: Cooperative Movement in Great Eedfern, Percy:' The Story'of 'the' C.' W. '&'.'.'.'. Redfern, Percy: The Consumers' Place in So ciety, 1920 ............................ Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918........................ Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark . . . . ......................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920...................... Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound . . . . . .......................... Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish). . . . ......................... Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927). . . . . ........................... Warbasse, J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927... Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ........................ Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board, $2.00; cloth..... Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1928 inclusive, each ......................... Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each............. Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper...... The People's Year Book, 1929. Cloth, $1.25; paper bound .........................<• $2.50 .15 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 .60 1.00 2.50 .50 3.20 .25 1.25 .50 1.75 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 .75 1.00 1.50 .50 3.50 5.00 1.50 1.25 1.00 • .60 .75 (Ten cents postage should be added for all books.) fc COfFC RATION A. magazine to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, 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 CEDRIC LONG, Editor P*tpred as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. VOL. XV, No. 6 JUNE, 1929 10 CENTS AUTOMOBILE RIDING is one of America's most popular sports. And within the coopera tive movement cooperative buying of gas and, oil is becoming the most popular form of expression. The Freeborn Comity Cooperative Oil Company, Albert Lea, Minn., has 900 shareholders, 2,000 patrons, and maintains several stations like the one pictured above. Organised in 1925 by farmers, its gross sales in 11928 laere $257,879. Net gains for the past 3 years have been 12y2 per cent, 9% and 4.7 per cent respectively. This is but one of the associations affiliated with the Minnesota Coop Oil Company described on the following Pages. 102 COOPERATION COOPERATION 103 Cooperative Distribution of Oil The Cooperative plan of buying gasoline and lubricating oils by farmers has become firmly established in Minnesota and surrounding states. Over ninety cooperative oil associations are now in operation in this territory. The movement had its beginning in Western Minnesota, Lyon County in the village of Cottonwood, where a number of farmers organized the Cotton- wood Oil Company on the cooperative plan, July 7, 1921. This company has been a success from the start, paying back in patronage dividends to the farmers of that community several times original investment. The following year a group of Steele County farmers after learning of the success of the Cottonwood Company organized the Central Cooperative Oil Company of Owatonna. This association has been an outstanding success. The 1926 sales were $222,927.71, with a net profit of $37,278.77. The patronage dividend in that year, which has always been paid on sales to patrons, was 14.4 per cent of the sales and amounted to $33,050.89. When a cooperative association can save this amount of money to the farmers of a community there is no question as to the service it has rendered. The principle back of the movement is the well known Rochdale Cooperative method in which a limited rate of interest is paid upon the capital stock and, after setting aside a sinking fund, the balance of the net profit prorated to the members and patrons on the basis of patronage; The amount of stock held by each member is usually limited to 'two or four shares, with always only one vote per member regardless of the number of shares held. The most suc cessful companies have their stock widely distributed, each share having a par value of $25. In most companies all the stockholders are farmers. Farmers have learned, in their cooperative creameries, elevators, and live stock shipping associations, to work together in a cooperative way in market ing their farm products; but the cooperative oil associations constitute the most successful general move on the part of the farmers to seek to obtain for themselves a part of the profits to be had in the purchasing end of the farm business. The amount spent by the average farmer for petroleum products has become an important factor on the modern farm. The purchasing power of the farmer's dollar can be stretched by cooperative buying to equal the saving made to the farmer by any cooperative marketing organization. The buying dollar is just as important as the selling dollar. The oil business readily lends itself to the cooperative plan. Gasoline, kerosene and lubricating oils are used in large quantities by practically all farmers. Gasoline and kerosene are bought on government specifications in tank cars and the oil in drums. Sales are usually made on the commission basis which makes the selling- expense proportionate to the size of the business. The customers of the cooperative associations are mostly farmers to whom sales are made by truck tank deliveries. In most associations the truck drivers are responsible for the collections. The distribution of petroleum products is a comparatively simple business. But few items are handled, two grades of gasoline, one of kerosene, about fifteen grades of lubricating oil and four grades of grease. The cost of sales is small in comparison to the volrme of business. An inventory of the average bulk station can be taken in half an hour. Nothing becomes out of date or shop worn. Evaporation in a well managed company should not be over two per cent. Every sale is recorded, and, at the end of each month, with the amount of the inventory, the purchases, sales and expenses for the month, it is a simple matter to arrive at the net profit for each thirty day period. Most of the companies follow the plan of having a directors' meeting each month, and have the secretary give them a profit and loss statement of the previous month together with a list of all THE CENTKAL BUSINESS PREMISES of the Freeborn County Cooperative Oil Company of Albert Lea. The farmers of the surrounding country have $217,600 invested in the capital of tMs company. In addition to its capital stock, there is a mrplus of $28,720 and undis tributed purchase relates of $23,730. checks issued. In this manner a close check is kept on the business, and the directors become familiar with the details of the organization. In a survey conducted by the Wisconsin State Bureau of Markets of eleven cooperative associations in Minnesota and eight in Wisconsin that had complete operating" statements for 1926, some interesting figures were secured. The operating statements of these nineteen companies showed .an average net profit of 11.7 per cent of Sales; 33.6 per cent of Assets; and 69.9 per cent of Owner's Net Worth at the beginning of the year. The report said : '' We do not believe that a sound cooperative oil association, exercising due care in keeping expenses down, can be put out of business by anything short of a long, con tinued price war that would drive all the private independent oil companies to the wall also. The whole history of oil marketing down to the present demonstrates that this will not take place for many years to come, if ever." One of the valuable features of the cooperative oil associations is that when the competing companies cut the prices and even sell below cost the members of the cooperatives will benefit even though they close their plant, as all they are seeking is to get their petroleum products at cost. There is not a farmer but who can afford to lose the interest on his $25 investment in order to get his gasoline and oil at cost. However, the cooperative oil associations have successfully met all competition and have still been able to show a nice patronage dividend. In the fall of 1926 the directors of a number of the cooperative oil associa tions held several informal meetings to discuss their problems and exchange experiences. As a result of these meetings the Minnesota Co-op Oil Company was organized and incorporated to serve as the purchasing agent of the cooperative oil associations and to protect and defend the cooperative oil associa tion system. The Minnesota Co-op Oil Company is a .cooperative organization incorporated under Chapter 326, Laws of Minnesota of 1923. An office has been established at 3011 Como Ave. S. E., Minneapolis, Minn., with E. G. Cort as general manager. Only associations organized on the cooperative plan are eligible to member ship. Each member association has one vote and all profits are prorated on the patronage basis. It is a service organization and is seeking to assist the cooperative associations in the set-up and bookkeeping methods that other cooperative oil associations have found profitable, and to act as a purchasing agent for the member associations. An auditing service for the members was added in the fall of 1928. A detailed audit by an experienced cooperative rl 104 COOPERATION COOPERATION 105 I! auditor is very essential in maintaining the confidence of the members in the organization and as a protection to the directors against errors. No charge has ever been made for organization work, although twenty-five associations have been given assistance. The sales of the Minnesota Co-op Oil Company for 1927, the first year, were over $260,000 and for 1928 over $400,000. The cooperative purchasing of petroleum products is an excellent illustra tion of the advantages of one phase of the consumers' cooperative movement. By their own efforts the cooperative associations of the northwest have increased their purchasing power of petroleum products from five to fifteen per cent. These results have not been obtained, however, without a struggle. In nearly every association there are a few broad minded, public spirited men who as leaders are doing much work for which they are never adequately paid. Shares must be sold, confidence must be built up and above all the membership must have an understanding of the principles of cooperation and a loyalty that will not be shaken by a few pennies lost. A list of 90 cooperative oil association in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas was compiled in the summer of 1928 and fairly accurate statistics gathered for 27 of these. The 27 had total sales in 1927 of almost two million dollars and a net gain of one quarter of a million. The con solidated balance sheet of 40 associations shows total assets in excess of one million dollars and capital stock of $385,000. Reserves and surplus are $442,- 500 or an average of $11,0,00 per society. A check of a few of the older oil associations show customers' patronage rebates running all the way from 5 to 14% per cent, non-members having their rebates credited to the purchase of stock. At the annual meeting of the Minnesota Co-op Oil Company_held in June, 1928, 24 societies were entitled to a vote, having paid the membership fee in the Central Company. The manager's report to that meeting was most comprehensive, covering the purchase and sale of gasoline, kerosene, lubricat ing oil, and miscellaneous equipment; the special organizing work carried on; the work of the educational department; the visit of the manager to annual meetings of the various local associations; the centralized insurance feature and security bonds offered by the Company; and the development of the cooperative brand of oil products. At the close of 1928, the net worth of the Company was $7,363. Total sales during the year were $418,000 and the net profit $3,926. The officers of the Company are C. D. Clipfell, Redwood Falls, President; W. G. Boyle, Mora, vice-president; F. H. Osborne, Albert Lea, secretary- treasurer; and E. G. Cort, Minneapolis, manager. Interesting Facts About Cooperative Oil Associations in the North Central States Average number of members in 19 cooperative oil associations furnishing us data about their membership at the end of 1927................................................ 360 Total membership of 52 oil associations in Minnesota as estimated on the basis of the above average.............. 18,720 Average paid-in capital per each oil association (average of 40 .associations) ..................................... $9,611.07 Average paid-in capital per each oil association (average (average of 40 associations) ......................... .$20,673.39 Average number of employees in 17 oil associations furnish ing data ....."....................................... 5.4 Estimated total number of employees of 52 cooperative oil associations in Minnesota (figured on the basis of the above average) . . . . . ..................................... 280 Editorial WHAT A BIG DIFFERENCE THERE CAN BE! What a big difference there may be sometimes between the results obtained in two cooperative stores by two coop erative managers operating under very much the same conditions! It is the financial statement that tells the story. Here we have before us the financial statement, as of December 31, 1928, of a farmers' cooperative store located in southwestern Minnesota. Let us call that "Store A." We also have a simi lar statement from "Store B," located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Store A has for the last three years been managed by a highly individualistic person who knows very little about the principles or ideals of the Cooperative Movement and who cares less. He thinks that he is a first-class manager as far as efficiency is concerned. He thinks that, he should have "free hands" at the store. He does not think that his board of directors, consisting of lo cal farmers, can contribute anything through supervision of the affairs of the business. He considers democracy in business a foolish notion or at least an impractical scheme which won't work. He believes firmly in the old-fashioned methods of advertising, in "leaders," premium sales, etc. He spends $800 a year for ordinary advertising but not a cent for cooperative educational work. He is in the habit of publishing his financial statement in such a manner as to reflect how wonderful a manager he is and has his own name printed in capital letters and heavy type under the statement. He claims so and so much net profit each year but his accounts have never been audited by a competent auditor. To make his profits show big ger, he makes no yearly depreciations, and takes his inventory at unduly high values. His bookkeeping methods are antiquated and he does not care to have his books audited as that would involve unnecessary expense." Let us now turn to Store B. That store has for the last three years been managed by a man of an entirely dif ferent type. He is quiet and unassum ing. He never flaunts his name on the financial statements. He believes in cooperative methods, instead of old busi ness methods, and practices these new methods at his store. He willingly sub mits to the supervision of his board of directors and actually helps this board to get a firmer hold on the business. He believes in cooperative education and knows that democracy in business can be realized only to the extent the mem bers of the organization become educated in cooperation and business. He is a staunch supporter of cooperative cen tral organizations because he realizes the necessity for such organizations. He realizes the great importance of up-to- date accounting and competent auditing in the control of cooperative business. He never tries -to represent the condition of the business in a better light than it really is. Therefore, he makes his annual depreciations as heavy as he pos sibly can and believes in making ample reservations for future contingencies. He is a really efficient, progressive and far-seeing manager, but he is also an unselfish idealist. And what condition of the business does the financial statement disclose in each case? Here is Store B, doing business to the amount of $65,000 in 1928 with a paid-in capital of $3,300, while the sales of Store A, with a paid-in capital of $49,000, were only $2,000 more in 1928. The total operating expenses at Store B, for 1928, were only slightly over $5,000 (more exactly 7.75 per cent of the net sales) while in the case of Store A they were more than twice as much ($11,300), making 16.8 per cent of the net sales. At Store B the manager sold merchandise at such low prices that his gross profit amounted only to 11.64 per cent of his sales while the manager at Store A, in order to show profit in spite of his high expenses, had to charge much higher prices, bringing him a gross profit of 19.7 per cent. If the manager 106 COOPERATION COOPERATION 107 of Store A had charged off the usual depreciations on his buildings and store fixtures, his net gain for 1928 would have been less than $2,000, in spite of the unduly high prices charged at the store; while manager B, in spite of his low gross profit and after making heavy depreciations on the buildings and! equipment, still was able to show a net gain of $2,500 for the year. Had Store A been managed as efficiently as Store B was, their net gain for 1928 would have been $8,000 or more than four times as large as it was under the pres-: ent management. The manager at B turned his merchandise stock over seven times during the year while the turn over at A was only a little better than two. No wonder then, that the sales of Store A decreased during the last year by $13,500 while at Store B they in creased by $10,300. No wonder that while the book value of the shares of Store B is now 290 per cent, as compared with 100 per cent at the start, the shares at A are worth only 67 per cent of their original value. And while the manager at A in his printed statements claims that he has made a net gain at the store during the last three years of over $10,000, his "outside" liabilities have actually in creased by $3,000. In spite of the fact that the sales at A dropped from $98,- 500 in 1926 to $67,300 in 1928, his mer chandise inventory has increased from $14,000 to $27,400 (and goodness knows now much "water" there is in this latter-mentioned inventory value!). By comparing the financial statements of these two stores one gets a very elo quent lesson of what benefits can really be obtained by true cooperation and what heavy penalties the farmers and workers are called upon to pay in locali ties where true cooperative methods are not practiced. In the little rural community at A alone, it has been $6,000 a year. And many of these farmers still believe that they have a wonderful manager and are paying him some $700 a year on top of a good- sized salary for his alleged "services" to the store and the community. V. S. A. ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE CON SUMERS OF AMERICA A new tariff schedule presented to Congress in April increases the penalties imposed upon consumers for the crime of being unorganized in a country where all the other economic forces are banded together. We shall without doubt be cause of these increases in the tariff pay more for our daily supply of sugar butter, milk, cream, cheese and eggs' beef, pork, bacon, ham and lard, corn and buckweat, woolen manufactures building materials, and much else! Incidentally, one gifted with a sense of humor might wonder why we are also paying a tariff tax on such items as trouser buttons, grindstones, umbrella ribs, doll clothes, corset steels, ox shoes swords, baseballs, dice and canary birds! That the industrial interests and the bankers who are behind them should have taken part in this raid upon the householders of America is understand able. That the organized industrial workers should increase the penalties imposed upon consumers in the country and that the organized farmers should seek to better their conditions at the expense of the consumers of food throughout the land, is a sad com mentary upon their understanding of elementary economic laws. When the workers of city and country start such a tariff war upon each other, both are the losers. The time will inevitably come when our consumers cooperative movement will be strong enough to raise an effec tive voice in behalf of free trade be tween the peoples of the world, as it does already in England, Denmark, and many other countries. Perhaps these very increases now being imposed will hasten in small measure the develop ment of consumers' cooperatives. Our protest to Washington to-day may be utterly ineffective. Let us then take our protest to the consumers in every com munity where our voices may be heard, that cooperation may gain in power and hasten the day when these tariff walls may be levelled. C. L- Which Should We Use? Nationally Advertised or Cooperatively Labelled Package Goods (Continued from COOPERATION for May) By W. O. DICKENSON, Manager Grange Cooperative Wholesale Seattle, Washington In deciding which policy a Con sumer Cooperative should adopt with reference to Nationally advertised brands vs. Cooperative brands, all factors should be carefully considered as each have certain apparent advantages upon which to base a sound argument. As in any proposition of interest to a large number of people, we should ex amine not only the cause or reason for certain actions and policies but the pos sible and probable effect and results. Naturally any one going into the busi ness of retail distribution of food prod ucts desires to attract as many people to his store as possible. It follows that one will advertise, display and other wise feature commodities that are best known and have the greatest drawing power. This is the argument for the Nationally Advertised Package Goods. Prior to widespread chain store dis tribution of food products, many of the largest and most successful service food stores built and held their trade by reason of quality, dependability and service; price and brand were not the all important consideration so long as the management knew what to buy and where to buy it and had a knowledge of Products other than that gained by reading advertisements and labels. During the rush and hysteria of the early war period when wages were doubled and trebled, the Cash & Carry Chain Stores obtained a start; self- service and inexperienced, untrained help forced consumers to select only such brands as they personally knew to be good; and the chains, following the lines of least resistance, featured and cut the price on well known popular brands. That condition has obtained up to the present time and will continue. However, the dealer who discontinued the more profitable lines and concen trated on popular brands on which the chains were cutting prices found he could not make a profit, and therefore either he was forced out or through his merchandising ability he redeveloped his business on profitable lines by gradually adding good values in vari ous commodities and eliminating most of the so-called "loss leaders" or brands constantly featured at cut prices. In a large center it is impossible to meet the requirements of all customers, as many regularly make the rounds picking off the bargains wherever found. Naturally this class of business is un profitable for the honest dealer who will not permit short weights, short change and other sharp practices. In building a truly Cooperative busi ness, logically there should be at all times and without variation or change just two outstanding principles. 108 COOPERATION COOPERATION 109 First: The best possible values and service must be rendered the membership, and by competent employees. Second: There must be loyalty and a will ingness on the customer's part to cooperate in every way with the management. This will permit rendering such values and service. A cooperative organization cannot survive by reason of its name only. It must not be at a disadvantage in buy ing, accounting or management and should make possible a return to its members either in stock or dividends as well as interest on invested capital. It should not be asked or expected to meet cut-throat competition by unscrupulous dealers who adopt questionable methods of making their profit. Therefore, if the Consumers Co operative Movement is being built for to-day only, then we must go after all the business possible with the easiest selling products obtainable regardless of comparative value and the effect on the products of many producer con sumers. But if we of the Cooperative Movement are sincere and in reality trying to build a truly cooperative method of distribution to replace the profit system we cannot consistently throw most of our support to controlled private local or national brands. We may lend our purchasing and selling power to a private jobber or manufacturer and temporarily do more business; but we cannot escape the fact that the future success of our move ment will be largely determined by education of the consumers so that they will buy value instead of advertised brands. And this education must start from within the movement. I fully realize the impossibility of re placing for many years to come certain well known nationally distributed prod ucts with Cooperative brands; still there are many other staple commodities under private brands now being sold in Cooperative stores which could be replaced either by Cooperative brands or at least by brands representing con cerns that are not openly and actively fighting both consumer and producer Cooperation. SOME PRODUCERS' "COOPER ATORS' BEST" BRANDS By GORDON H. WARD Cooperative stores want to suppi- their patrons with high quality mer. chaiidise at reasonable prices, fh Cooperative Central Exchange is helri ing its affiliated stores do this bv supplying them goods of tested quality under the brand of "CooperatoiV Best." Many farmers' cooperative marketing associations are merchandis ing their standardized high quality products under their own brands which some day may be as familiar to con sumers purchasing through cooperative stores as the Cooperators' Best brand is in the Central Exchange territory. Cooperators will find it to their owii advantage to get acquainted with these brands, some of the better known of which are:— Jim Hill Apples Jim Dandy Apples Skookum Apples Silver Seal, Pure Gold, Sunkist Oranges, Lemons, Grapefruit Sealdsweet Oranges, Lemons, Grapefruit. (Florida) Sun-Maid Kaisins, Prunes, Apricots Diamond Walnuts Nulaid Eggs, Washington Coop. Eggs Nulade Eggs, Sunland Eggs PEP Eggs, Sunrise Eggs Seaside Lima Beans Pool Brand Pinto Beans Sowega Watermelons Petosky Potatoes (Michigan) Land O 'Lakes Butter, Eggs Gold Mine Butter Equity Union Ice Cream Dairylea Ice Cream Dairylea Evaporated Milk Federation Cheese Consumers' Cooperative stores cannot very well own farms to produce all these products, so why not do the next best thing and buy from the cooperating farmers and develop a cooperative system of distributing crops direct from producers to consumers? News and Comment WTNTH INTERNATIONAL CO- OPERATIVE SCHOOL The Hague, Holland, has been selected the home of the Ninth Annual Sum mer School of the International Co- nnerative Alliance, to be held from July ]3 to 27. G. J- D. C. Goodhart, former president of the I. C. A., is the honor ary president of the School. Many in teresting subjects are up for discussion, including "International Economic Policy," "Installment Buying and Credit' Trading," "The Cooperative Movement in Relation to State Trading Activities," etc. The charge to the students, including tuition, lodgings, meals and special excurisoiis will be $20 per week, plus a registration fee of $2.50,. A special feature of the School will be the organization of a Coopera tive Press Conference to which various national Unions are invited to send the editors of their journals. BRITISH COOPERATIVES BUY SUNDAY NEWSPAPER "Reynolds' Illustrated News," a British Sunday newspaper with a record of 84 years, has recently been purchased hy the National Cooperative Publishing Company and will become an organ of the British cooperative movement. Under the title 011 the front page it will he described as "An Independent News paper Outside the Big Combine." On the editorial page it will carry the motto of the cooperative movement: "In thing's essential, Unity; in things doubt ful, Liberty; in all things, Charity." DO THE FARMERS EMULATE THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE? Leaders of several of the larger com modity marketing associations are form ing a National Chamber of Agricultural Cooperatives to have its headquarters m Washington and represent the organ ized farmers at the national capital. It is planned formally to launch the Cham ber at the meeting of the American Institute of Cooperation which takes Place in Louisiana, late in July. THREE-QUARTER MILLION MARK FOR WORKMEN'S FIRE INSUR ANCE SOCIETY The Workmen's Furniture Fire In surance Society, with headquarters in New York and branches throughout the country, reports another big advance for' 1928. The membership increased by nearly 2,000 to a* total of 52,127. Assets are $785,000; the guarantee fund is $587,300; the reserve fund $147,000, and the net surplus for the year was $30,360, thus bringing the net worth up to a total of $765,000. One remarkable feature of this cooperative is that there are only four people employed in the office to handle all the bookkeeping and carry 011 the correspondence with more than fifty branches throughout the United States. The President for the current year is Rudolph Modest and the Financial Secretary and Manager, New- man Marquer. The society, from the point of view of membership, is the largest constituent member of The League. BIG INCREASE FOR COOPERATIVE GRANGE LEAGUE FEDERA TION EXCHANGE This organization having headquar ters in Ithaca and several thousand members scattered throughout nearly one hundred counties of New York and adjoining States, increased its business last year by nearly nine million dollars over that of the year previous. The fol lowing table portrays the remarkable development of the Exchange: 1921-22.......... $1,725,439 1922-23.......... 4,352,164 1923-24.......... 6,840,726 1924-25.......... 6,635,364 1925-26.......... 8,284,158 1926-27....'...... 10,284,158 1927-28.......... 19,177,907 The quantity of seed handled during the past three years has increased from 150,000 tons a year to 320,000 tons. This Cooperative, popularly known as "G.L.F." is not strictly a consumers' cooperative as it handles almost ex- 110 COOPERATION COOPERATION 111 clusively supplies which the farmers use in their own business. Neverthe less, it is closely allied to the consumers' movement. ANALYSIS OP BORROWING AND EXPENDITURES IN CREDIT UNIONS The secretary of the New York State Credit Union League recently completed a most interesting and valuable statis tical study of twenty-five of the largest credit unions in New York. This stud shows for each of the institutions e/ amined the Gross Income, the Expense" and the Net Earnings in percentage of total assets. It also shows the p'er centage of earnings on shares and the percentage of dividends paid. The latter part of the study shows the per centage of Gross Earnings which go to salaries, rent, interest, printing, ac_ counting, miscellaneous and total ex penses. Northern States Cooperative League 2100 WASHINGTON AVB. No. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. LEAGUE'S CONVENTION TO BE HELD IN JULY The eighth annual convention of the Northern States' Cooperative League will be held at Superior, Wis., July 21-22. If necessary for finishing the business before the convention, there will be a morning session on July 23. The convention will open Sunday morning, July 21, at 10 o'clock. Educational features (discussion of vari- • ous cooperative topics, addresses by coopera-' tors active in different branches of the movement, etc.) will be given more time at the Superior convention than has been the case with previous conventions. The Cooperative Central Exchange will be the host of the convention, the sessions of which will be held at the local Workers' Hall, corner of Tower Avenue and Fifth Street Sunday evening the local coopera- tors will arrange an entertainment and pro gram meeting in connection with the con vention and Monday evening the Central Exchange will banquet the delegates and guests at the Workers' Hall. It is to be expected that this eighth an nual convention of our League will have a much larger attendance than any of our previous conventions. We already have as surance of the presence of distinguished guests and fraternal delegates from such or ganizations as the Nebraska Farmers' Union, the Cooperative Union of Canada, the Manitoba Wheat Pool, the Agricultural Department of the State of Minnesota, etc. THE LEAGUE'S INDIVIDUAL MEM BERSHIP NOW 612 Our individual membership campaign has brought very encouraging results this year. May 12 the membership figure stood at 612, with good prospects of a considerable in crease before our eighth annual convention which comes in July. We publish here the attainments of the three cooperators who have obtained most individual members for us up to date. Toivo Tenhunen, Superior, Wis.. 145 K. A. Nurmi, Superior, Wis..... 138 Walter A. Harju, Superior, Wis.. 105 These three cooperators are traveling salesmen for the Cooperative Central Ex change. Next on the list come our two Minneapolis directors, F. F. Burandt and D. Leuchovius, with an aggregate total of 111 individual members to their credit. MEETING OP THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OP THE N. S. C. L. A very important and successful meeting of the board of directors of the N. S. Coop. League was held in Minneapolis, May 12. Perhaps of first consequence was the de cision to conduct a training school in Minneapolis next fall. The fixing of the exact date for the school as well as other details were left to the Executive Committee. It is planned to be held on a more elaborate scale than ever before. Besides setting the date for the eighth annual convention, the board considered ch questions as the finances of the League, three new applications for constituent and fraternal membership, applications from on cooperative societies for a certificate of rit etc. The board also listened to re ports'from the League's executive secretary about field work, progress of the 1929 year- .ok results obtained in the individual membership campaign, etc. Geo. W. Jacob- son the League's fieldman, rendered a very interesting account of work done during the month of April in Virginia, Minnesota. The advisability of putting the League's auditor on the regular payroll of the League was discussed at some length and finally tabled till the next meeting of the board, to be held at Superior, Wis., July 20. E. B. Branch, president of the New Era Life Association and vice-president of the League, reported progress for his organiza tion? The reorganization of the New Era is now virtually completed and its financial condition considerably improved. Plans are being laid to organize the New Era Life Association of Minnesota and the New Era Life Association of Wisconsin as auxiliaries of the parent organization which is char tered to do business in Michigan. "HONOR ROLL" SOCIETIES IN THE N. S. C. L. DISTRICT The board of directors of the N. S. C. L., at their meeting of May 12, decided to recommend to the Executive Committee of the Cooperative League of U. S. A. that their Certificate of Merit for the year of 1928 be granted to the following societies in the Northern States' League district which have so far applied for it: Cooperative Central Exchange, Superior, Wis. Franklin Coop. Creamery Ass'n, Minne apolis, Minn. Franklin Coop. Credit Union, Minne apolis, Minn. Cloqnet Coop. Society, Cloquet, Minn. Orr Farmers' Coop. Trading Co., Orr, Minn. Floodwood Coop. Ass'n, Floodwood, Minn. Watton Coop. Store, Watton, Mich. Farmers' Coop. Merc. Ass'n, Kettle River, Minn. Farmers' Coop. Merc. Ass'n, Iron River, Wis. Newherry Coop. Ass'n, Newberry, Mich. Elanto Coop. Co., Nashwauk, Minn. Embarrass Farmers' Coop. Merc. Ass'n, Embarrass, Minn. Virginia Work People's Trading Co., Virginia, Minn. Rock Coop. Co., Rock, Mich. Farmers' Coop. Co., Wright, Minn. Trenary Farmers' Coop. Store, Trenary, Mich. Of these 16 societies, 10 are from Minne sota, 4 from Michigan and 2 from Wiscon sin. The applications of six societies were turned down as they did not come up to the required standards set by the national organization. It is expected that societies receiving the Certificate of Merit will exhibit it conspicu ously at their store, office or plant. The certificate is granted for only one year at a time. ANNUAL MEETING OP THE COOP. CENTRAL EXCHANGE The 12th annual meeting of the Coopera tive Central Exchange was held at the Workers' Hall, Superior, Wis., April 23-24, 1929. The meeting was the best attended in the history of the Exchange. There were 111 regular voting delegates present from 53 affiliated societies. As usual, the annual meeting was preceded by a two-day conference of co operative managers and directors. This conference also enjoyed a larger attendance than any of the previous similar conferences, there being 300 to 400 people present on Sunday. The discussions at the conference were very intensive and highly educational, both in the cooperative and the business sense. The Northern States' Coop. League was represented at the Exchange meetings by the League's executive secretary. Telegraphic greetings were sent by the meeting to J. P. Warbasse, president of the Cooperative League and H. I. Nordby, president of the Northern States' League, who both have been on the sick list lately. THREE NEW SOCIETIES JOIN THE LEAGUE The Minot Cooperative Co. of Minot, N. Dak., previously affiliated directly with the Cooperative League of U. S. A., recently notified the N. S. Coop. League office that they had decided to affiliate with our League. Illllll I'M I t II 112 COOPERATION COOPERATION 113 The Board of Directors has formally ac cepted this company as a member of our District League. We welcome the Minot society into our midst. Two farmers' cooperative creameries, the Kettle River Coop. Cr'y Ass'n and the Mesaba Range Coop. Cr'y Ass'n of Virginia, Minn., have both been admitted as fraternal members of the League. We now have 12 organizations in fraternal membership. WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE N. S. C. L. DISTRICT? The annual meeting of the Minnesota Coop. Oil Co. will be held Tuesday, June 11, in St. Paul. The most important matter coming up at this meeting is the reorganization of the com pany into a capital stock association. The par value of the shares will be $1.00 and every affiliated cooperative association is expected to take as many shares in the central organization as there are individual shareholders in their own local association. The name proposed is " Cooperative Wholesale Association." It is also proposed to incorporate the new central organi zation under the cooperative laws of Wisconsin as the present cooperative law of Minnesota has not been developed as far as is the corresponding law of its neighbor state. The Minnesota Coop. Oil Co. now employs two fieldmen, one auditor and one office assistant, besides the manager. A year ago the manager and the office assistant were the only employees Since the first of the year the Minnesota Coop. Oil Co. has assisted in organizing eight new local cooperative gasoline and oil associations in the state of Minnesota. Unexpected complications have compelled the N. S. Coop. League to postpone the proposed conference of Central Wisconsin societies till June. It is now planned to hold the conference at Dorchester instead of Medford as was origi nally planned. Dorchester is located eight miles south of Medford and has a live and prosperous cooperative store society of which an account was given in the April issue of our magazine. Our League's Executive Secretary, on his recent trip to Central Wisconsin, discovered four new cooperative stores in the Medford district with which we had had no connections before. The Secretary visited one of these four societies, namely the Harmony Coop. Produce Co. of Colby, Wis., which last year did a business of about $140,000. The Colby society handles, exclusively, fiour, feed, seeds, fertilizers and farm machinery. Its business is managed by Claude Whitney. Albin Brehm is president of the organization. The other three cooperative stores discovered on our Secretary's trip are located at Edgar, Spencer and Marshfield, all within 30 miles of Medford and Dorchester. These three are all feed stores of the same type as the Colby store. They operate more in the warehouse fashion than as regular stores. The cooperative feed association at Marshfield is said to be doing a big business. All these four newly-discovered organizations will be invited to take part in the district conference. That centralization and consolidation, is " in the air " among the cooperatives also, is demon strated by the fact that the Brantwood Coopera tive Supply Co. of Brantwood, Wis., and the Clifford Cooperative Association of Tripoli, Wis., are seriously considering amalgamation. The stores of the two societies are located only three- quarters of a mile from each other. Their com bined sales exceed $100,000 a year. The boards of the two societies met May 10 to give prelimi nary consideration to this matter. The member ships of both societies have been called to a joint meeting to be held June 1. Our Secretary will be present at this rueetimrUets explain the advantages of amalgamation anrt t suggest methods as to how such an amale-irn tion best can be carried out. s-una- ***** Walter Jacobson, auditor of the League the Executive Secretary attended, on Mav' 't meeting of a committee appointed by the vw-? of directors of District No. 11 of the La a O'Lakes Creameries. The purpose of the mpS- ing, which was held at Wadena, Minn., was t discuss plans of putting the auditing in Distri t No. 11 on a permanent basis and to make E quarterly for all creameries in the district An agreement was reached with the Co to have them take the Northern States' Juca. auditing for all their creameries, with certain provisions which will be incorporated in a writ ten agreement to be drawn between the Leaeup and District No. 11. The district comprises ar present, 27 creameries. ' ***** The League Office has learned from a reliable source that the Minnesota Department of Aeri culture has been asked by some members of the Farmers' Union to investigate certain business organizations promoted by the so-called North west Committee and incorporated under the cor poration acts of Delaware. According to infor mation obtained by us, there have been formed three such business corporations under the aus pices of the Farmers' Union and the articles of incorporation of all these three corporations contain the most autocratic and uncooperative features thinkable. Just what the investigation will lead to is yet hard to say. ***** George W. Jacobson, the recently appointed fieldman of the N.S.C.L., will be kept busy doing co-operative educational and organization work in the three states forming our League's terri tory proper. The League office had, up to May 12, received bookings for Jacobson's work from 6 Minnesota societies, one district federation and one local society in Wisconsin, and 4 local co operatives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Besides this, Jacobson has been requested to do several weeks' work at Waukegan, 111., for the Cooperative Trading Company there. Present bookings cover 19 weeks. It is gratifying to see how the need lor an educator-organizer to arouse greater interest in the locality in the affairs of the local cooperative, and to deepen the understanding of cooperative principles and ideals, among its members and patrons, is becoming more and more apparent to many of our societies. ***** The Mesaba Range Cooperative Federation- consisting of cooperative stores in that district, with Virginia, Minn., as the center of their activi ties—is now busy organizing a district oil associ ation of the same type as the Cooperative Oil Ass'n of Northern Wiscensin and the Cooperative Oil Ass'n " Cap " of Kettle River, Minn. The Range stores have decided to start the district oil association with a paid-up capital of ¥3,OUU and have only one bulk station. The name selected is the " Range Cooperative Oil Associ ation." ***** The Franklin Cooperative Creamery Ass'n will hold its annual picnic this year on June 30 at Riverside Park. Minneapolis. Arrangements tor the picnic will be in charge of the Franklin Edu cational Committee. The picnic will likewise be in celebration of the International Cooperators Week which starts July 1. * * * * * • Two Cooperative Central Exchange societf&s have recently changed their name. The Farmer? Industrial Ass'n of Clifford, Wis., some time ago became the Clifford Coop. Ass'n. Its post omce address now is Tripoli, Wis., instead of ««""•- wood. The name of the Marengo Farmers ' Merc. Ass'n of Marengo, Wis. has been chang to Marengo Cooperative Society. My Point of View By J. P. WAEBASSE RELIEVING THE FARMERS The political parties at the election last fall all promised to do something for the farmers. Air Hoover has taken a personal interest in the promotion of a measure for farm relief; and this Congress will enact such a measure into a law. The question now is: How much will such bills as are before Congress relieve "the farmers? In order to understand the matter let us look at some historic economic facts. This country was once an agricultural land. Farming was the predominant occu pation of the great majority of the popula tion. Gradually the people have left the farms and have engaged in trade and indus try. More money could be made seculating in land than in farming it. Speculation has become more profitable than working. Now, speculation—called business—buy ing at the lowest price and selling at the highest price—has become the prevalent occupation. So long as people were busied with hus bandry they did not need much money. But when speculative business became predomi nant, much capital and credit were needed; and slowly banking, or financing, has become the controlling business. The Government has given to financiers rights in the issuing of credit that have grown to be a monopoly. The center of economic influence has shifted from the farms to the banks, and the banks make their huge turnover in the speculations of commerce. The farmer is out of the picture, except as he can supply products for speculation and trade and except as he needs and can pay for credit. At the center sits the banker, with his government-given monopoly. He controls credit—and, therefore, the whole situation. •The first man to study intelligently, to propose, and work for measures for the relief of the same agricultural depression which still distresses the farmers in the United States was David Lubin, who ap peared upon the scene in Washington thirty odd years ago. He was a man of great wealth, executive ability, high character and earnestness in the pursuit of an ideal. He brought so much pressure upon the Govern ment that something had to be done. It will be remembered how President Roosevelt dodged the issue by appointing a commission to make the farm more senti mental, so that the boys and girls would stay at the old homestead; but he avoided interfering with the privileges of the bank ers and produce speculators. Then David Lubin went at President Taft. He made himself such a spur to action that Mr. Taft appointed a commis sion to go to Europe to study rural credit. This commission, of some sixty members, went and discovered cooperative banking in Europe. The commission had to report favorably upon the cooperative method of credit as a means of solving the farmers' problem. No sane men could study it with out being overwhelmed by its possibilities for good. But about five members of the commission, including a farmer-banker, a farmer-lawyer, and a farmer-cottonbroker, put in a minority statement, opposing the commission's report. Mr. Taft, apparently liked the minority report better, for the country really never got to hear of rural co operative credit through Mr. Taft's adminis tration. The publication of the commission's report was delayed for more than a year, and then appeared as Senate Document No. 967, hidden behind this smoke-screen title: " Pre liminary Report on Land and Agricultural Credit in Europe, including the letter of President William H. Taft to the Governors of States and the recommendation of Am bassador Myron T. Herrick in connection with the proposal of President Taft to 114 COOPERATION COOPERATION 115 • introduce Cooperative Credit in the United States." This pretty piece of business of Mr. Taft would be amusing were it not tragic. So, David Lubin, saddened and repulsed by his own country, established the Inter-1 national Institute of Agriculture in Rome, where he developed an organization to show the fanners of all countries how to better their economic condition. Rome gave wel come to the international institution of agri cultural producers, which found America inhospitable. Things continued bad in our agrarian world. Something always needed to be done. The Congress of 1916 gave the farm ers the Federal Farm Act. This was based on a plan to provide the farmers with con trol of their credit and to place in their hands the power to expand rural cooperative banking. Out of this Act grew the Federal Farm Loan system in 1917. Now we have the Federal Farm Loan Board, controlling the Federal Land Banks. Theoretically this is a model organization. The bill creating it is the same sort of bill as that which Con gress is now about to pass to give the farmers more relief. But how does the law work when in operation? The Federal Farm Loan act in operation is a colossal fraud upon the farmers. This is because the administration of the law is1 entirely in the hands of an autocratic Board appointed by the President. Here is a machinery for farm relief dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars. It is ad ministered wholly' by political appointees without Civil Service safeguards. An army of political office holders control the job of allocating thirteen hundred million dollars to finance the farmers. A syndicate of New York bankers sells the bonds. This system parcels out from one to two hundred million dollars a year to farmers in loans, and the farmers have no control, little voice, and are permitted but meager information -of the whole system. The offices are loaded with political favorites and incompetents. Members of the Board appoint their rela tives. President Harding put in his cousin, a retired minister, as Reviewing Appraiser of property. One Commissioner appointed his two sons, a cousin, an old friend, his wife's former dressmaker, and the dress maker's nephew. Democrats as well as Republicans are appointed in the army of over a thousand employees under this act so that neither side is in a position to com plain or investigate. Here is bureaucracy, autocracy, and scan dalous corruption in the administration of the last measure for farmers' relief. For twelve years Presidents have seen to it th t the membership of the Board was so co structed that the majority and the contr^ lay, not with the farmers, but with rt, bankers. And so this institution for ara ers' relief has proved to be an instrument for bankers' relief instead. American farmers will never forget th administrations of President Wilson an^ President Harding. The "deflation" sus tained by agriculture after the war, in th'e interest of the bankers, was the hardest blow ever suffered by the farmers of this country No drought, no pestilence, no ravages of any of the forces of nature ever hit the farmers so hard. The exodus from the farms goes on steadily. Now comes Mr. Hoover. The present modification of the McNary-Haugen bill which will become a law, provides for governmental control of the marketing of farm crops and a subsidy of $500,000,000 to smooth the way. The administration and control of the whole business is to be vested in a Federal Farm Board with six members, all to be appointed by the President. The bill will be passed with modifications. There is much fuss being made over the question of " debentures " and other minor matters. The big thing is the Board. The rest is red herring. When all is said and done and the Farm Relief machine is ready to start, one signifi cant thing will be noticed. The Board will be seen to be the big element, but they will not be farmers. In all the long history of this country's essays at farm relief, reliev ing the farmers has always been delegated to those who were interested in making money out of it. Let us not be confused in our study of this situation. Whatever may be the provi sions finally approved by Congress in this farm relief bill, however good or bad for the farmers the provisions may seem, the one significant provision of the bill, and the only really significant provision of the Ml, is the Board. This Board will be appointed by the President, who himself has been ap pointed by the central financial hierarchy. And this Board will possess autocratic power, answerable, of course, to the Presi dent. And with this autocratic power, some provisions of the bill will be observed and •some will not, and all will be given the interpretation the Board sees fit. Here we have an historic sequence of measures for farm relief. Much was ex pected of each. The farmers and the public have always been optimistic and hopeful of these measures. Perhaps the best thing that cs out of them is that the needs of the erg are discussed and the deficiencies of *^r economic system are revealed. gut there is one fact still to be driven ^ ^e That is that the farmers themselves list participate in any movement for real kelp for the farmers. Tt is to be hoped that they will not lose ight of the historic facts and expect too much from the political machinery of gov ernment. It is to be hoped that the farmers will not be so blind to our history and tra ditions as to believe that a Federal Farm Board would encourage the development ef real cooperative marketing, buying, or bank ing among the farmers, taking that function out of the hands of the bankers and leading to the emancipation of the farmers. Agriculture is in the position of labor. It is not effectively organized. It is not inter locked with the bankers and the political leaders. It has nothing comparable to the chambers of commerce, manufacturers asso ciations, and bankers associations. Agricul ture is out of the fold, along with labor. It is to be used, but not fraternized with. " The policy of the administration " will be " to place agriculture on a basis of eco nomic equality with other industries " when agriculture becomes big business, when the farms are run by large corporations or aggregations of wealth, and the owners are absentee stockholders, or administrators at the most; but not while the owner is a working man, performing manual labor. I will not say that this is undesirable, nor impossible. I will only say that it is not the status of American agriculture at the pres ent time. In the meanwhile the fanner's problem is the same as the worker's problem. He can give himself relief. And that relief can be attained by organizing his marketing associ ations or pools, to control the pay for his labor; and the creation of consumers' co operative societies to control his purchasing power to get commodities, services, credit, and all the other things he needs to make life complete. Eastern States Cooperative League FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE EASTERN STATES LEAGUE On Sunday, April 28, in Maynard, Mass., home of the largest consumers' cooperative in New England, 105 dele gates and visitors assembled for the largest and most animated conven tion yet held in the Bast. The report of the Credentials Committee showed 42 voting delegates, representing 21 of the societies affiliated with the Eastern League. In addition to the routine reports of the officers and the spirited contests for positions on the Board of Directors and the Educational Commit tee, there were several other features to enliven the convention. The Secretary read a long report containing, in survey form, a bird's eye view of the Eastern Cooperative Movement, the strength and weaknesses of its best known societies and recommendations for bettering consumers' cooperation in the territory. This report will be published in abbre viated form in the Cooperative Year Book for 1929. A lengthy controversy ensued over the seating of delegates from the United Workers Cooperative Association, whose dues were not fully paid for 1928. A compromise was finally effected under which the delegates were seated on the pledge of two other organizations who guaranteed the payment of the dues within three days. L. E. Woodcock, treasurer of the newly organized Eastern Cooperative Wholesale, reported for that organiza tion. Henry Askeli related in detail the progress of the Joint Educational Com mittee and Barrow Lyons presented the enlarged "Eastern Cooperator" under its new name, '' The Cooperative News,'' which was received most favorably. The Committee was instructed to publish this paper, in its larger form, quarterly hereafter and to send fifty copies to each society and such additional copies as they may wish to purchase. The pro- •1! 116 COOPERATION COOPERATION 117 posed Cooperative Institute was also presented. A telegram received from the Hotel, Restaurant and Cafeteria Workers Union, reported that the main branch of the Consumers Cooperative Services was being picketed and employees were on strike. The manager of the C.C.S. denied that a single worker was striking but said that a picket had been placed in front of the cafeteria after an organizer had issued peremptory demands for organization of all employees within 24 hours. A special sub-committee was appointed by the Board to meet with' directors of the Consumers Cooperative Services and also with representatives of the Union to see what could be done to effect harmony. The most animated discussion took place regarding the election of officers and the report of the Resolutions Com mittee. Of the eight or ten resolutions turned over to the Committee, only four were presented to the Convention offi cially and the others were offered in person by E. Wattenberg of the United Workers Association. These four cov ered the relation of the Cooperative Movement to Youth; the relation of Cooperatives to their employees; the re lation of the Cooperative Movement to Women; and the relation of the Move ment to Negroes; in all instances calling for aggressive action in favor of more active organization. The discussions on these resolutions were more frankly and openly of a political character than ever before in the history of the Eastern League. In fact, the entire Convention was con stantly being divided on political issues which, while they may have enlivened the various sessions, at the same time re tarded the development of constructive work. A delegate from the Workers International Relief collected $30.26 for the textile strikers and the Convention passed a resolution endorsing all kinds of relief work among the Southern mill strikers. The newly elected Board contains the following names: Waldemar Niemela, Maynard; John Nummivuori, Spencer; Alex. Trutneff, Brooklyn; A. E. Kazan, New York City; and Raymond Neri, Stafford Springs. The six hold-over directors are Mary E. Arnold NPI» York; E. Wattenberg, New York; Nid Kruth, Brooklyn; M. Rubinson, Brook lyn; Otto Endres, Utica; K. E Gran" dahl, Fitchburg. The newly elected Joint-Educational Committee for Greater New York is made up of Edward Cohen, Brooklyn Bakery; H. Forbes and Barrow Lyons Consumers Cooperative Services; Mark Rosenberg and Philip Amron of United Workers Association; Sarah Singer of the Amalgamated Services, and Henrv Askeli of Cooperative Trading Associ ation. A similar Committee elected for New England includes K. E. Grandahl of Fitchburg; Raymond Neri of Stafford Springs; Andrew Anderson of May nard; 0. E. Saari of Norwood; A. B. Oliva of Winchendon, and A. Politella of Lawrence. FIEST MEETING OF THE EASTERN WHOLESALE The first Annual Meeting of the newly organized Eastern Cooperative Whole sale was held in Boston on Monday, April 29. There were present 19 regu lar delegates from 9 stockholder socie ties and in addition 12 representatives from other cooperatives in the East, as fraternal delegates. The only share holder society not represented was the United Cooperative Society of Norwood. After reports by the officers and an extended report from the Manager, Adolph Wirkkula, a highly interesting and constructive discussion took place over the question of "Relations of Co operatives to Chains of Independent Grocers." Two or three of the Eastern societies had joined such independent chains and were heartily in favor of such action on the part of any societies which are too far distant from our own Wholesale to benefit much from it. Other delegates took a stand in sharp opposition to all contractual relations with private wholesalers or chains of private grocers, maintaining that this was in direet violation of all cooperative principles and a direct blow at our own Cooperative Wholesale. The most active support for such relations, when prop erly safeguarded, came from the coop- tives of Maynard and Fitchburg. B m ,« • ?rom delegates from Stafford Springs, and New York. A special sub- was finally appointed to rt t dv the entire question and to make form recommendations to all mem- iTrs of the Eastern League and Whole- 1 regarding contractual relations with private chains. During the afternoon the question of "Cash Versus Credit Trading" both by wholesale and retail cooperatives was discussed. The By-Laws tentatively drawn up by the Wholesale were adopted and the fol lowing directors elected: A. E. Kazan, Amalgamated Cooperative Services; L. E. Woodcock, Consumers Cooperative Services; Chas. Nemeroff, United Workers Cooperative Association; M. Rubinson, Brownsville Bakery; Waino ONE WEEK COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE IN THE FOOTHILLS OF THE BEEKSHIEE MOUNTAINS At Brookwood Labor College KATONAH, NEW YORK The Eastern States Cooperative League is arranging, exclusively for coop- erators, an opportunity for combining study and play in the beautiful hill country 40 miles north of New York City. Open to directors, employees, plain rank-and-file shareholders, or miscellaneous enthusiasts for the cooperative movement. . Mornings will be devoted to study and class work in the History and Theory of Cooperation; Practical Problems of Administration and Organiza tion; Questions That Bother Directors, Managers and Employees; Relation of Cooperation to Other Radical or Progressive Movements. Afternoons will be left open for tennis, baseball, basketball, hiking, swim ming, and miscellaneous social recreation. Evenings will be divided between more formal lectures by visiting leaders from the cooperative, labor or political movements, and informal debates or round-table discussions among the cooperators themselves. Some of the foremost cooperative leaders of the country will be present to eive special lectures and to take part in discussions. *********** Katonah is on the Harlem Division of the New York Central R. K. Single fare one way from New York City is $1.4,9. The Institute runs from Sunday morning, July 28th to Saturday night, August 3rd. Those attending will sleep in the dormitories or bungalows belonging to Brookwood Labor College. Twenty dollars covers entire cost of tuition, room and board for the week. Those who come to the Institute will bring camping clothes, bathing suits, hiking shoes and tennis rackets and balls, if this game sounds interesting. Towels, bedding, etc., are provided by the College. Reservations must be made immediately. The books will soon be closed. Five dollars should accompany application for registration. MEN OR WOMEN, YOUNG OR OLD, FROM ANY PART OF THE COUNTRY, COOPERATIVE OFFICIAL, ORDINARY SHAREHOLDER, OR UNATTACHED ENTHUSIAST—ALL ARE WELCOME. THE ONLY KEQUIREMENT IS A GENUINE INTEREST IN THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT. For further information, write to THE EASTERN STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE, 167 West 12th St., New York City 118 COOPERATION COOPERATION 119 Linna, Cooperative Trading Association. The first four served on the temporary Board of Directors previous to the Convention. Mr. Linna takes the place of Adolph Wirkkula, newly appointed Manager. DIRECTORS OF EASTERN WHOLE SALE MEET The newly elected Board of the East ern Cooperative Wholesale held its first meeting on Wednesday, May 8, all the old officers being reelected, namely, A. B. Kazan, President; M. Rubinson, Vice-President; Cedric Long, Secre tary; L. B. Woodcock, Treasurer. The manager reported progress toward get ting malt syrup, spices, jelly powder and canned soups under our own label. A detailed discussion on the question of establishing a coal purchasing depart ment brought out the fact that orders for six thousand tons can already be counted upon. An agreement will be made with some large distributor under which the Wholesale will receive a com mission, until the business is well enough established so that we may buy in barge lots. One candidate for position of or ganizer of the coal department, Max Pustell, formerly manager of the Coop erative Book Store in Kansas City, was present. Mr. Wirkkula, the general manager, was authorized to employ an office secretary. The manager's report The MONTHLY PROPAGANDA POSTER SERVICE issued by the CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE enables you to utilize the display space around the cooperative's premises for the most effective sort of cooperative propaganda, at a very moderate cost. For samples, prices and information, address: CENTRAL STATES COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 1303 N. Park St., Bloomington, 111. showed increased sales of butter, and general groceries. The' Stores in the Bronx offered temporarily the services of their buyer in the early morning produce market, to buy frujj. and vegetables for several other societies in the Harlem and Bronx district and this offer was accepted. The Secretary reported an interview with the head of the Westfield Testing Laboratories of Massachusetts, one of the few well- known and soundly established impar tial institutions for making chemical analyses of foodstuffs. The manager has already sent several samples to these laboratories for analysis. A sub-com mittee was appointed to study the ques tion of printing advertising signs and posters. AWARDED CERTIFICATE OP MERIT More than a year ago, the Board of Directors of The League voted to pre pare a special Certificate of Merit to be given every year to the societies in affiliation with the League which meas ured up to the highest standards of cooperative principle and business prac tice. The Eastern States League was the first District League to present recommendations for this Certificate. Those recommendations were passed upon by the National Office and the Certificates were actually awarded at the time of the Eastern Convention, the latter part of April. The following are the societies in the East which received this award: Consumers Cooperative Services, New York City. Spencer Cooperative Society, Spencer, N. Y. United Cooperative Society, Fitchburg, Mass. United Cooperative Society, Maynard. Mass. Workers Credit Union, Fitchburg, Mass. Workers Cooperative Union, Stafford Springs. Conn. 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 IntertMtional Cooperative Alliance . r>;ern«sion of the Consumers' Cooperative Mowment In Us Relation to the Political S«le to the Profit System, to Labor, to Airicuiture and to the Arts and Sciences •• «'*» hope !>r. Warhasse's book wili find reader* throughout the world "—G. J. D. C. rV^dhardt, ex-President International Coop- erative Alliance The Macmillan Co., New York, Publishers Order from The Cooperative League, 167 West 12tli St., New Ycrk, U. S. A. Price, $1.50. The Cooperative Union, Holyoake House, Han over St., Manchester, England. Price C sh. German Edition: Verlagsgesellscliaft deutscher Konsumvereine, Strohhause 38, Hamburg, Germany. Price, 6 marks. IS YOUR FURNITURE INSURED IN A COOPERATIVE COMPANY? This Company is 55 years old It has 50,000 members Its rates are the lowest Is there a branch in your town? If not, why not? WORKMEN'S FURNITURE FIRE INSURANCE SOCIETY Care of Cooperative League, 167 W. 12 St. NEW YORK CITY STUDY COOPERATION AT HOME Correspondence Courses prepared and con ducted 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 Canadian Cooperator Brantford, Ontario, Canada • The organ of the Canadian Coopera tive Movement, owned by and con ducted under Hie auspicen of Th* Cooperative Union of Canada. Published monthly 75c per annum "The Cooperative Pyramid Builder" Official Organ of Cooperative Central Exchange is a snappy, live cooperative magazine. Get in line! Subscribe NOW Subscription price 50c a year. COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE Superior, Wis. COOPERATION, 167 West 12th Street, New York. Please send COOPEEATION for one year to Name. ................-..-••••••••••••••-• Address .............-.-••••••••••-••••••• $1.00 a year I ' 120 COOPERATION PUBLICATIONS THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE HISTORICAL Per Copy Per itio 3. Story of Cooperation.............f .10 $6.tSO 7. British Cooperative Movement..-.. .10 6.00 38. Consumers' Cooperative Movement in U. S., 1926................... .10 6.60 59. Cooperative Movement in Europe.. .05 4.00 64. Progress of Cooperation in United States ...................... .05 4.60 69. Story of Toad Lane (By Stuart . Chase). ..................... .05 4.00 About Cooperation in Europe ?; (40) Have Y Committee on Education and Recreation?; (45 * c ^ ,a and Stores; (47) A Man's Right to a Job. ach°ols MONTHLY PUBLICATIONS Cooperation—(In bundle lots, $7.50 per hundred! Subscription, per year. ........... *inn REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATTrm (Pub. by the I. C. A.).......... .Per Yea? $50 $1.65 if paid by check. ' *1-3U A magazine to spread the knowledge of the Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, 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 CEDRIC LONG, Editor TECHNICAL 4. How to Start and Run a Rochdale Cooperative "Society ............ .10 4.00 6. A Model Constitution and By-Laws for a Cooperative Society....... .05 2.SO 8. Cooperative Education. Duties of Educational Committee Defined.. .10 9. How to Start a Cooperative Whole. sale ........................ .10 A 27. Why Cooperative Stores Fail...... .02 l.BO 14. How to Start and Run a Women's Guild ..................... .10 15. How to Organize a District Coopera tive League ................... .10 29. Credit Union Primer (By Ham and Robinson). .................. .50 43. Cooperative Housing ............. .10 50. A B C of Cooperative Housing.... .10 51. Model Lease for Cooperative Apart ment House ...........'....... .10 ,» MISCELLANEOUS 16. Model Co-op State Law........... .10 46. Producers' Cooperative Indusl ies.. .10 11. Control of Industry by the People through the Cooperative 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 1.35 30. " When the Whistle Blew " (Story, by Bruce Calvert) ............. .06 66. International Directory of Coopera tive Organizations ............. .60 41. Social Aspects of Farmers' Coopera tive Marketing (By Benson Y. Landis). .................... .25 42. Co-op Homes for Europe's Homeless .10 , 49. A Way Out .................... .02 .75 55. A Better World to Live In........ .05 57. How a Consumers' Cooperative Dif fers from Ordinary Business.... .02 .60 60. The "Moral Equivalent" of Jazz.. .02 62. Buttons (League emblem), % inch diameter .................... 2.00 63. Sign or Transparency of League Em blem. Green and gold, 8 in. diam.. .25 15.00 67. Stock certificates, engraved, with League Emblem. Bound in books of 100, 200, or 250. 68. To Mothers ..................... .02 1.00 ONE-PAGE LEAFLETS (One Cent each; 50 Cents per 100; $2.50 per 500; $4.00 per 1,000.) (1) Principles and Aims of The Cooperative League; (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 BOOKS as Second Class matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of v* March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. The following books are recommended as containing the best discussions of the modern Cooperative Move ment. They may be ordered through The League: Blanc, Elsie T.: Cooperative Movement . in Russia . . . . ........................... Brightwill, L. R.: Animal " Co-op " Book—For Children . . . . ......................... Chase and Schlink: Your Money's Worth, A Book for Consumers..................... Flanagan, J. A.: Wholesale Cooperation in Scotland, 1920 . . . . ................... Gide, C.: Consumers' Cooperative Societies American edition and notes, 1922. Cloth.. Hall, Prof. Fred: Handbook for Members of Co operative Committees ................... Harris, Emerson P.: Cooperation, The Hope of the Consumer, 1918. Paper bound........ Holyoake: Rochdale Pioneers................. Jessness, O. B.: Cooperative Marketing of Farm Products ........................ Madams, J. P.: The Story Retold............. Mears and Tobriner: Principles and Practices of Cooperative Marketing................ Nicholson, Isa: Our Story................... 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 So ciety, 1920 ............................ Smith-Gordon & Staples: Rural Reconstruction in Ireland, 1918........................ Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Denmark . . . . ......................... Smith-Gordon and O'Brien: Cooperation in Many Lands, 1920...................... Sonnichsen, A.: Consumers' Cooperation. Paper bound . . . . . .......................... Stolinsky, A.: The Cooperative Movement. (In Yiddish). . . . . ........................ Warbasse, J. P.: Cooperative Democracy, 1927). . . . . ........................... Warbasse, J. P.: What Is Cooperation, 1927... Warne, C. E.: Consumers' Cooperative Move ment in Illinois ........................ Webb, B. and S.: The Consumers' Cooperative Movement, 1921. Board $2.00; cloth..... Webb, Catherine: Industrial Cooperation, 1917.. COOPERATION, Bound Volumes, 1915 to 1928 inclusive, each ......................... Report of the American Cooperative Congresses, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926, each............. Northern States Year Book, 1928. Paper...... The People's Year Book, 1929. Cloth, $1.25; paper bound ........................... $2.50 .15 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 .60 1.00 2.50 .50 3.20 .25 1.25 .50 1.75 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.50 .75 1.00 1.50 .50 3.50 5.00 1.50 1.25 1.00 .60 .75 (Ten cents postage should be added for all books.) VOL. XV, No. 7 JULY, 1929 10 CENTS NORTH PLANT OF THE FRANKLIN COOPERATIVE CREAMERY ASSOCIATION of Minneapolis. It is the second and larger of the two milTc plants of this, the largest consumers' cooperative in America. Behind this building is another almost as large, housing the horses, wagons, automobiles, and repair shops. 122 COOPERATION Franklin Cooperative Creamery Association " A BUSINESS WITH A HEART " By H. S. BORMAN Information as to the record of this Association has been published from time to time and most of the readers are familiar with the progress of the Creamery but it might be well to briefly summarize this data here. The sales for 1928 were $3,410,396.74, or an increase of $68,656.66 over 1927. The net earnings for 1928 were $95,521.30, as compared to $67,499.29 in 1927. Our bonded indebtedness was reduced in 1928 by $100,000 (due in 1933) and an additional $65,000, also due in 1933, was called in on June 1, 1929. This has brought our bonded indebtedness down to the low sum of $75,000, payable at the rate of $25,000 per annum. Inasmuch as the re-sale of our products has never allowed for more than a very narrow margin of profit, this redemption of bonds, more than four years before the due date, is, to say the least, a very creditable showing and indicates sound and conservative management. At the present time the Franklin Creamery is serving approximately 40,000 patrons, including homes, schools, shops and stores; 165 milk routes and 10 ice cream routes are operated, covering every section in Minneapolis and outlying districts. ELECTRIC TRUCKS In delivery equipment, as well as in other fields, the Franklin Creamery is maintaining leadership. Our milk wagons and gas trucks are gradually being replaced with electric trucks. Several electrics are already in operation and a few more contracted for. EMPLOYEES Employees number at present about 415, all of whom are members of some labor organization and at the same time stockholders in the Association. In 1925 an insurance policy on the life of every employee was taken out by the Association. This policy started with a principal sum of $500, with an I , COOPERATION 123 'n . 3 *d» l i . § ~ 1 1 ^ ^ 5, S e» ^ -8 £ ID e e .h fe Js rS g O *> e * ^^ I'SI g 5= ^ -t-a si lit rS; (li f-f> r-i ;- % ~ Is O •§ rS "e ^"S ihi? tii ?3 •s; MI o fe H ^ e H v increase of $100 for each additional year of service until the full amount of $1,000 is reached. An additional policy of $1,000 was issued in 1928, the premium of which also is carried by the Association. The Franklin Creamery is also one of the few organizations carrying its own compensation insurance. This, of course, is under the supervision of the State Industrial Commission and the amount of compensation is set by state law, but the savings effected through not having to pay the premiums to an insurance company amounts to several thousand dollars annually. 124 COOPERATION COOPERATION 125 NEW FRANKLIN FILM The new Franklin film, "The Land of Health," has proven a valuable and effective medium in bringing the Association to the attention of the public This is a two-reel film portraying in detail the essential operations in all depart ments. The picture is in story form, featuring the healthfulness of the products together with the spirit of romance of the dairy industry and the cooperative movement, and makes an unusually interesting publicity medium, different from most commercial productions. BAND AND CHORUS The Creamery maintains both a Band and a Male Chorus. The Band consists of 33 members and the Chorus 32. Both of these organizations have played an important part in our organization. The Chorus, besides giving a large concert each year, usually to an audience of over 2,000, is requested to appear at many community gatherings, churches and lodges, and sings to thousands of people annually. The Band, like the Chorus, is kept busy continuously, especially during the summer months, in giving concerts in parks; community picnics and many other organizations, and is usually booked for several months in advance For the last three years the Franklin Band and Chorus have been honored in being requested to open the musical season in our municipal parks, usually playing to an audience of several thousand. BASEBALL TEAM For the last four years the Franklin has entered a Baseball Team in the Municipal Commercial Amateur League, and this team won the Minneapolis Amateur Baseball Championship for three successive years—1926, 1927 and 1928. It is too early to forecast what the success of the nine will be this year, but it is safe to say that it will making a showing creditable to the Association. EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE AND WOMEN'S GUILD The Educational Committee of 11 members are elected by the membership annually, and the activities of this committee, as well as of the Women's Guild, are covered in separate articles. R ard of Directors, the Educational Committee and individuals who are inter- ted in economics and who appreciate the value of educational work are beginning to bear fruit. The high esteem of the people of Minneapolis for the Franklin institution makes the work pleasant in many respects. The enormous growth, the clean lusiness methods, the harmony among the shareholders and employees, the rtesy of the employees who meet the public and their eagerness to serve and nlease everybody, are things that make people stop to think "what is at the bottom of all this 1 What is cooperation anyway ?'' The most important functions of the Educational Committee are: the dis tribution of cooperative literature, the arranging of meetings where cooperation i«j discussed, of programs and entertainment for societies, unions, clubs and lodges that are friendly towards the Franklin and cooperation, schools for einployees, entertainment at shareholders' meetings, the annual picnic, the securing of subscriptions for cooperative literature and of individual members for the district league. When the north plant was completed the Board and the members were so proud of the accomplishment that a Franklin Week was set aside for the people of the city to visit the plants and see the machinery in operation, and, in order to accommodate those who could not come, a "Franklin Film" of two reels was made and shown to thousands of people in the evenings at lodges and places of recreation. This film has just recently been modernized and brought up to date. It is at present being shown at local theatres in the city. It is novel, educational and entertaining. On the strength of the results obtained from the showing of this film, the Educational Committee last year conceived a plan whereby not only the Franklin institution, but other successful cooperatives all over the country, could be exhibited through a film and so pave the way for closer relationship between societies and also show to the world that the cooperative movement has gained a strong foothold even in this country. Such a film naturally would be circu lated all over the states. Eealizing that such an undertaking would be of immense service to the movement, the Committee is now laying the plans and has set aside a fund to further it, and has succeeded in getting it on the agenda for the Northern States Cooperative League convention in July. COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES MAINTAINED Most cooperators are familiar with the unusual growth of the Franklin Cream ery. The obstacles have been many and the task of keeping its members together and working harmoniously has been no easy one. The phenomenal success since its very beginning has been due in a large measure to the strict adherence to the principles of cooperation upon which the Franklin was founded. The fact that it has been possible to maintain these principles and still meet successfully the keenest kind of competition and opposition from many sources is tending to weld the membership more closely into one common bond. Franklin Educational Committee Activities By GIDEON EDBERG The methods of carrying on the educational activities by the Educational Committee of Franklin have been varied. On account of the large number of shareholders and employees it has been difficult to instill the spirit of "I know you, you know me, let us all work together for the cause of cooperation"—the idea that is so prevalent in smaller societies. But the consistent efforts of the Women's Cooperative Guild By MRS. C. R. NELSON The Women's Cooperative Guild of Minneapolis held its annual meeting on Wednesday, June 12th. A luncheon was served at noon with the presidents and secretaries of all the Trades Union auxiliaries of Minneapolis, the board of directors of the Franklin Cooperative Creamery, the editor of the Labor Review, and the secretary of the Northern States Cooperative League as guests. This was a celebration of the eighth birthday of the Guild, and it also marked the climax of a very profitable year educationally and cooperatively. At every meeting of the year it was the aim to present to the members some thing educational, yet interesting. Political leaders, charity workers, and cooperative speakers were included among the list of speakers. Entertainment has been in the form of card parties and a costume dance. The money obtained from the bazaar held in the fall has been used for charity work. Baskets of food and clothing were distributed at Christmas and throughout the winter. A complete report of the Women's Cooperative Guild for the year 1928 will be published in The Cooperative League Year Book. 126 COOPERATION COOPERATION 127 Editorial LABOR UNIONISM AND COOPERATION Every few years some wing or faction of the American Trade Union Movement comes out with a new statement about consumers cooperation, stimulates a cer tain amount of superficial interest in the subject among some union members, and arouses in the minds and hearts of the less experienced among cooperators a great deal of high hope that at last the labor movement has definitely become converted to an understanding of the economic importance of cooperation. Alas, how often have these hopeful co- operators been disillusioned! The last gesture of importance made by the American Federation of Labor was during the War. In 1916 the Con vention at Baltimore directed President Gompers to appoint a Committee on Co operation. This Committee brought into the 1917 Convention at Buffalo several excellent recommendations, one of which ruled out of consideration all coopera tives not organized on strictly Rochdale principles, another advising that the President appoint for one year a salaried lecturer and adviser on cooperation, and still another suggesting that all local trade unions contribute $1 to the financ ing of such an adviser and his office. As a result of this recommendation upward of $3,200 was actually raised from the unions, but what was ever done with it or with the various fine programs of ac tion we confess we do not know. Recently certain labor leaders and rank and file union members met in New York and organized the '' Conference for Progressive Labor Action," throwing down a direct challenge to what they called the reactionary policies of the A. F. of L. leadership, but at the same time disclaiming any sympathy with the Com munists. This Conference likewise passed an excellent resolution on the subject of consumers cooperation, found on another page of this magazine. A few cooperators who are at the same time trade unionists were present at that Conference. And now, in his "Reply to Progres sives, '' Matthew Well attempts to refute the charges brought against him and his fellow members of the Central Council of the Federation, and among other things says: "As for furthering gen- nine cooperative enterprises among the workers, no American authority on the cooperative movement has ever said or can say that American labor has ever neglected any possible effort to help their cause." We regret to differ rather sharply with Brother Well, but he is all wrong. And we believe that just about every cooperative authority in the country will back us up in that statement. True, there are individual unionists who have done their utmost for cooperation, but among trade union leaders we have found exceedingly small enthusiasm for the movement. At this moment we cau think of no well known official of higher rank in the A. F. of L. other than John Walker, President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, Andrew P. Bower, Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Fed eration, and Thomas J. Donnelly, Secre tary of the Illinois Federation, who has conscientiously and consistently worked for the establishment of consumers co operatives among the workers of the country. There are, fortunately, certain leaders among the Railroad Brother hoods and other independent unions like the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America who have a good record, but Mr. Woll is not referring to them. It yet remains to be seen whether the new C. P. L. A. will actually do any thing in behalf of the cooperative move ment. But it is evident that we are now in for another period of renewed interest in the subject at any rate on the part of many trade unionists. C. L. The Supreme Court Speaks By DOROTHY KENYON The Supreme Court of the United States has spoken.* Let all those who thought they understood the principles Of Rochdale cooperation hang their heads in shame. For the Court (all except that famous minority, Justices Holmes, Brandeis, and Stone) disagree with us. The Supreme Court is un able to see any difference between a cooperative stock corporation and an ordinary business one. Both are run, so it says, for profit. Not so a coopera tive non-stock corporation. The Court can understand that such a corporation is "not conducted for profit." But when it comes to a stock, as dis tinguished from a non-stock, coopera tive corporation, it finds a horse of an other color. According to the Supreme Court "It does business with the gen eral public for the sole purpose of mak ing money." "Its members . may be ... bankers or merchants or capitalists having no interest in the business differing in any respect from that of the members of an ordinary corporation." The limited dividend feature is treated as though it were of no consequence. The voting feature of one-man one-vote is dismissed without comment. The rebate system, based upon purchases, is brushed aside with im patience. "The provision for paying a portion of the profits to members or, if so determined, to non-members, based upon the amounts of their sales to or purchases from the corporation, is a device which, without special statutory authority, may be and often is resorted to by ordinary corporations for the pur- Pose of securing business." So we are ordinary corporations after all! In spite of ourselves, in spite of our best minds and our best efforts, we are discovered to be nothing but hard- headed business men on the lookout for profit. The Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin. If that were all there were to the Supreme Court decision, we might easily pack up and go back to England or Denmark or any one of the other countries that speak our cooperative language. It is clear that the Supreme Court does not. But fortunately for us, the Supreme Court is made up of nine men and each one of them has a separate voice. In this case three of them have joined in a dissenting chorus. Insofar as there is any comfort to be derived by us from this decision, we must seek it there. Justice Brandeis writes the dissent ing opinion. It is concurred in by Justices Holmes and Stone. It is one of the best expositions of cooperation that I have yet seen. Beginning by pointing out that stock and non-stock cooperatives "differ from one another in a few details which are without significance in this connection" he goes on to say that "both differ vitally from commercial corporations." "Their aim is economic democracy on lines of lib erty, equality, and fraternity. To ac complish these objectives, both types of cooperative corporations provide for excluding capitalist control. As means to this end, both provide for restriction of voting privileges, for curtailment of return on capital and for distribution of gains or savings through patronage dividends or equivalent devices." Jus tice Brandeis goes on to point out the various devices by which a "mere * Frost v. Corporation Commission of State of Oklahoma, 49 S. Ct. 235, decided February 18th, 1929. This case held that a proviso to a licensing statute whereby a cooperative stock, as distinguished from an ordinary stock, cotton ginning corporation might be licensed to operate its business on the mere petition of 100 citizens and taxpayers without more, whereas the ordinary stock variety must in addition make a satisfactory showing of public necessity, was unconstitutional and void, because based on an unreasonable and arbitrary classification of the two types of organizations into two separate categories, for which separate classification there was no basis in fact, the result of it being to deny to the less favored class that equal protection of the laws which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. 1 128 COOPERATION COOPERATION 129 capitalist" is dissuaded from buying stock, the one-man one-vote provision, control by the board of directors of in coming shareholders, limitation of the amount of individual stock ownership, establishment of educational and re serve funds, and limited dividends. When he refers to the need for working capital and the various ways by which it is secured, he comes to the heart of the difference between the stock and the non-stock cooperative. And he points out more clearly than I have seen it stated anywhere else that the so-called dividends on stock of the stock coopera tive are merely payments for the use of money in precisely the same sense that the interest paid by the non-stock cooperative on its loans is payment for the use of the money borrowed. "In the stock type there are both dividends on capital and patronage dividends. In the non-stock type the financial benefit is distributed by way of interest on loans and refunds of fees, dues and assess ments. . . . Thus for the purposes here relevant, there is no essential difference between the two types of co operatives." In other words dividends, in the sense of profits, is a misnomer. Being limited they are nothing more than payments for the use of money; rent or interest as we should call it in another connection. To call it dividends is to confuse it with profits, and this is presumably what the majority of the Supreme Court did. CHAIN STORES IN LARGE CITIES Studies made by the census bureau show that chain stores develop most rapidly in the large cities. Twenty per cent of the retail trade is handled by these concerns in cities of more than 250,000 inhabitants, Chicago gives 37 per cent of its business to them. In the grocery field alone the figures are much higher. Seventy per cent of the grocery business of New York and Philadelphia goes to the chain stores; 64 per cent in Atlanta, 52 per cent in Prom this exposition of cooperative economic theory, Justice Brandeis pro ceeds to a survey of the development and growth of cooperative corporations in this country. Most of them are of course farmer's cooperatives, some of them consisting of producers', others of consumers', groups. He shows that the great majority of them are stock cor porations for the reason that "the non stock type of cooperative is not adapted to enterprises which like gins (the busi ness under discussion) require lar^e investment in plant and hence con siderable fixed capital.'' He also touches on another one of the many sources of confusion as between the cooperative and the ordinary business corporation when he says "Experience has demon strated, also, that doing business for non-members is usually deemed essential to the success of a cooperative. More than five-sixths of all the farmers' co operative associations in the United States do business for non-members." And he winds up by saying "a denial of cooperative character to the stock co operatives is inconsistent also with the history of the movement in other states and countries. For the stock type of cooperative is not only the older form; but is the type more widely used among English speaking peoples.'' The oracle has spoken. The campaign of education is afoot in the high places. But that it still has a long way to go is evidenced with dramatic force by this regrettable six to three decision. Providence, 47 per cent in Baltimore, 42 per cent in Chicago. George L. Knapp, writing on this question recently, points out that the chain store business is still in the hands of its inventors, and he questions whether it will continue to expand at the present rate when the second or third generation takes control. He be lieves that in rural districts there may be developed consolidated stores similar to the consolidated schools now so com mon to all parts of the country; or failing that possibility, a development of cooperative stores such as has taken place in England. Manifesto International Cooperative Day fo the Cooperators of the World: The SEVENTH ANNUAL CELEBRATION of the INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE DAY will be held in all the countries of the Alliance on SATURDAY, 6th July, when it is expected that a larger manifestation of cooperative solidarity than has yet been displayed will be revealed. COOPERATION, national and international, continues to grow in membership, trade, enthusiasm, and economic force in practically every civilized country in the world. Its aim is to establish a new civilization based upon the principles of justice, equity, and fraternity, and the inalienable right of every citizen to work out his own emancipation from every social evil in voluntary association with his fellows. COOPERATION pursues its purpose by organizing, on a mutual basis, the pro duction and distribution of commodities of the highest quality and at a just price; by sharing the gains or savings of its enterprise amongst those who made them; by the exercise of a free and open democracy in the direction and control of all its undertakings; by the cultivation of the social virtues and the highest standard of citizenship. The COOPERATION OF CONSUMERS has definitely reduced the cost of living to its members; increased the real value of wages; reduced the hours of labor; raised the standard of education of the workers and has become a bulwark of defense of the liberties of the people. INTERNATIONALLY, the COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT stands for the removal of all economic barriers and other hindrances to the free intercourse of the peoples of every land; for the establishment of economic cooperation between the nations; and—as a natural corollary—UNIVERSAL PEACE. On the occasion of its SEVENTH FESTIVAL the International Cooperative Alli ance hails with satisfaction the steady advance of its principles and the progres sive realization of its aims; it calls upon its constituent members to demonstrate everywhere THE UNITY OF OUR MOVEMENT, CONFIDENCE IN ITS POWER TO EAISE THE STANDARD OF LIFE AND CIVILIZATION TO A STILL HIGHER PLANE AND, ULTI MATELY, TO REALIZE THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. On behalf of the International Cooperative Alliance, VAINO TANNER, HENRY J. MAY, President. General Secretary. UNITED STATES THE LARGEST COUNTRY IN MAN POWER Dr. David Friday, economist and author, in a recent speech before the Foreign Policy Association in New York, adopted a unique method of com paring the real wealth of the United States with that of several European countries. Due to the efficiency of management, intensive use of machinery, newer methods of production, and prevalance of fertile agricultural land, America can feed and clothe each 100 of its population out of the labor of 24 persons. This means that 76 per sons in every 100 are free for the pur poses of manufacturing, transportation and development of service or for leisure. By this scale of values, Germany re quires 40 workmen to produce food and clothing for every 100 persons; France requires 50; Italy 65; England 35; and Russia 70. If these figures are at all accurate, America has more than twice as much wealth measured in terms of labor power as France, Italy or Russia. 1 H 130 COOPERATION COOPERATION 131 Northern States Cooperative League 2108 WASHINGTON AVENUE, NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. I H I THE EIGHTH ANNUAL CONVEN TION OF THE N. S. C. L. With seven years of more or less inten sive activity accomplished in the field of cooperative education, the Northern States' Cooperative League is to hold its eighth annual convention in Superior, Wis., July 21, 22 and 23. This convention is expected to surpass all previous conventions as far as attend ance is concerned. The Cooperative Cen tral Exchange alone will be represented by 41 voting delegates, the Franklin Coopera tive Creamery Association by 15, the New Era Life Association by some 10 or 12, the Cloquet Cooperative Society by 4, and so on. Among guests, expected to attend but not appearing on the regular program, the fol lowing may be especially mentioned: F. G. Swoboda, Editor, "The Federation Guide," the organ of the National Cheese Pro ducers' Federation, Plymouth, Wisconsin; F. W. Eansom, Secy.-Treasurer, Manitoba Wheat Pool, and J. T. Hull, Educational Director of the same organization. Guests and fraternal delegates from several other organizations not affiliated with the North ern States' Cooperative League, are also expected to attend. Unlike most of the previous conventions of the League, purely educational features are to be given a prominent place this year on the program of the convention. Not less than 11 men prominent in the American Consumers' Cooperative Movement and in the activities of the League will address the convention on various cooperative subjects. An interesting features at the convention will be the awarding of a Certificate of Merit from the National League to 16 or more cooperative societies in the North west which have complied with the require ments and qualifications set down as con ditions for receiving such a distinction. For the first time in the history of the League, the convention will be held for three days. The earlier conventions of the League have all been two-day affairs. This in itself reflects the growth of the activities of the League. We give below in full the agenda and program for the convention. THE DORCHESTER CONFERENCE A conference of cooperative stores in Central Wisconsin was held at Dorchester June 18. Thirteen cooperative stores hj the district sent forty-five delegates. \ District Federation was formed with an executive committee of six. The Northern States' Cooperative League was represented at the Conference by it§ president and its executive secretary and the Cooperative Central Exchange also by its president and its manager. WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE . N. S. C. L. DISTRICT The Women's Cooperative Guild of Minne apolis celebrated its eighth birthday on Wed nesday, June 12. The Guild had invited all its members and a number of its friends to an early afternoon dinner held in the Franklin Auditorium which was followed by the annual business meeting of the organization. Mrs. C. E. Nelson was re-elected president of the Guild. All the other officers were also re-elected, with the exception of Mrs. John A. Mattson who resigned as secretary of the or ganization. In her place Mrs. Paul Eoeber was elected secretary. Mrs. Mattson was elected fraternal delegate to the Eighth Annual Con vention of the Northern States' Coop. League. The Minneapolis Guild now has about 100 paid-up members and is quite active, holding regular monthly meetings, arranging picnics and socials, etc. * * * A well-attended joint meeting of the mem berships of the Brantwood Cooperative Supply Co. and the Clifford Coop. Assn. was held at Brantwood, Wis., June 1, to discuss problems of amalgamation and expansion. By an over whelming majority the members present voted in favor of amalgamation and instructed their boiards to work out the practical details of such a move. The meeting also declared in favor of cooperating with the Prentice Cooperative Sup ply Co. to establish a bulk gasoline and oil station in the district. * * * C-A-P Cooperative Oil Association of Kettle Kiver, Minn., is the latest consumers' coopera tive to apply for constituent membership in the Northern States' Coop. League. Their decision was made at the first annual meeting held June 8. * * # The cooperative stores of Cloquet, Brooks- ton, Gowan, Floodwood and Wawina, and (Continued on page 132) 10 A.M. 12-1 P.M. 1 P.M. 3 P.M. 3:15 P.M. 3:45 P.M. 4:15 P.M. 4:45 P.M. 5:15 P.M. 5:45 P.M. 8 P.M. 9 AM. 12-1 P.M. 1 P.M. 1:30 P.M. 2 P.M. 2:30 P.M. 3 P.M. 3:30 P.M. 3:45 P.M. 7 P.M. AGENDA AND PROGRAM for THE EIGHTH ANNUAL CONVENTION of the NORTHERN STATES' CO-OP LEAGUE Superior, Wis., July 21-23, 1929 FIRST CONVENTION DAY, JULY 21 Business Session: Opening of the Convention by President H. I. Nordby. Address of Welcome by Mayor George Dietrich. Address of Welcome by Oscar Corgan, President, Coop. Central Exchange. Reading of letters and telegrams of greeting by the Executive Secretary. Presentation of guests from TI. S. and Canada. Two-minute talks by delegates for the purpose of getting acquainted. Report of Committee on Credentials. One hour's recess for lunch. Roll call of delegates. Election of Committees (Committee on Resolutions; Committee on Constitution and By-Laws; Budget Committee; Tellers). Executive Secretary's Report. Treasurer's Report. Report of Auditing Department. Report of Field Department. 15 minutes recess for coffee. Educational Session: Address by J. H. Hay, Deputy Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Agriculture: "Cooperative Progress in Minnesota." Address by George Keen, Executive Secretary, Canadian Cooperative Union: "The Cooperative Movement in Canada." Address by L. S. Herron, Editor, Nebraska Union Farmer: " Is Business Management the Chief Factor in the Success of Cooperation?" Address by Eskel Ronn, Manager of Cooperative Central Exchange, Superior, Wis.: "What Type of Cooperative Manager Do We Need?" Address by C. McCarthy, Manager of Farmers' Union State Exchange, Omaha, Nebr.: " Consumers' Cooperation Among the Nebraska Farmers." Address by E. G. Cort, Manager, Minnesota Coop. Oil Co.: " Recent Developments in the Cooperative Oil Movement of the Northwest." Entertainment and program meeting in the Workers' Hall, arranged jointly by the Cooperative Central Exchange and the Northern States' Coop. League. (Stage play: " New Gala Day at the Cooperative Store." with vaudeville numbers given by the employees of the Cooperative Central Exchange: singing by the Franklin Cooperative Male Quartette of Minneapolis; other musical numbers, speeches, etc.) SECOND CONVENTION DAY, JULY 22 Business Session: Roll Call of Delegates. Training School in 1930. Auditing Department Other Activities of the League. Budget for the League for the fiscal year of 1929-30. Report of Budget Committee. Recommendations of Executive Committee as to financing the League's activities. Election of Board of Directors. Recess for lunch. Educational Session: Address by E. E. Branch, President, New Era Life Association, Grand Rapids, Mich.: " The Cooperative Aspect of Life Insurance." Address by Geo. Halonen, Educational Director, Coop. Central Exchange, Superior, Wis.: " Our Cooperative Training Schools, Their Purpose, Scope and Accomplish ments." Address by F. F. Burandt, Director, N.S.C.L., Minneapolis, Minn.: "What is to be Expected of an Efficient Educational Committee? " Address by H. V. Nurmi, Chief Accountant, Cooperative Central Exchange, Superior, Wis.: "What Should Cooperative Statistics Bring Out?" Address by C. B. Whitnall, Manager. Commonwealth Mutual Savings Bank, Milwaukee, Wis.: " The Role of Cooperative Banking in Our Movement." 15 minutes recess for coffee. Husiness Session: Report of Committee on Constitution. Report of Committee on Resolutions. Election of a permanent Legislative Committee. A banquet will be given at the Workers' Hall by the Cooperative Central Exchange to all constituent and fraternal delegates as well as guests and individual members of the League attending convention. Certificates of Merit will be awarded to model cooperative societies at the banquet. THIRD CONVENTION DAY, JULY «S Business Session Roll Call of Delegates. Joint Buying. District Conferences for Commercial and Educational Purposes. Promotion of Women's Cooperative Guilds. A national cooperative film. Unfinished business. New Business presented by delegates. Date and place for 1930 convention. Adjournment. The 1930 Yearbook. Fieldwork in 1929-30. 132 COOPERATION COOPERATION 133 (Continued from page 130) Farmers' Exchange of Duluth, Minn., have or ganized a district oil association for which they have selected the name Trico Cooperative Oil Association. This association has bought one bulk station at Floodwood and expects soon to establish another at Clo'quet. * * * The N. S. Ooop. League office has received information that the property of the Kiel Mere. Assn. of Kiel, Wis., has been sold to pri vate parties. This cooperative suffered greatly overstocking during the deflation years and never recovered from the heavy losses con tracted. * * * Our individual membership campaign has brought 654 paid-up members up to June 12. The latest additions are largely due to the efforts of D. Leuehovius, one of the League's directors in Minneapolis, and K. A. Nurmi, the veteran traveling salesman of the Cooperative Central Exchange. Oscar Kiltinen, manager of the Workers' Cooperative Society of Mar- quette, Mich., also sent in recently a bunch of 12 memberships. We wish to thank publicly all our frinds who have helped us to obtain such gratifying results in our campaign. Matt Nienii, formerly of Toimi, Miun., ila recently been elected manager of the Nations] Cooperative Company of Ironwood, Mich. Paul Muuttonen has been transferred fron East Lake to Wentworth where he is now niail aging the store of the Wentworth Farmers' Coop. Assn., after the resignation of Mr. wji gren, the former manager. The East Lake Store is now being managed by Hjahnar Mattson. Upon resignation of J. Wm. Halmekangas as manager of the Embarrass Farmers' Coop Mere. Assn., Walfred Kehus, former manager of their branch store at Peyla, has been elected general manager. The Border Coop. Assn. of International Falls now has a woman manager. She is Mrs Helga Eydberg, former manager of the Squaw Lake Store and a graduate of the Northern States' Coop. League training school. gui0 Harkonen, former manager at International Falls, has been transferred to Toimi, Minn. * * * Andrew Santa is managing the new branch store of the Northern Farmers' Coop Society of Angora, Minn., and Arthur Katka has been chosen to manage the newly established branch store of the Cherry Farmers' Coop. Assn. at Forbes, Minn. News and Comment PROGRESS OF THE COOPERATIVE CENTRAL EXCHANGE The Cooperative Central Exchange has recently sent out to its patrons a re port showing how their last year's net surplus, available for distribution and amounting to $17,296.10, has been di vided between the member and non- member societies. From this report we gather the following interesting facts about the progress of the Exchange dur ing 1928: 1. Six cooperative societies trading with the Exchange have automatically become members of the wholesale organ ization, their patronage dividends hav ing been issued in form of share credits. These new societies are: Aurora Co operative Mercantile Association, Au rora, Minn.; Farmers' Cooperative Sampo, Meimhga, Minn.; Farmers' Co operative Store, Nisula, Mich.; Finnish Cooperative Mercantile Association, Wakefield, Mich.; Frederick Cooperative Mercantile Co., Frederick, S. D., and Heinola Farmers' Cooperative Associa tion, New York Mills, Minn. This makes the total of cooperative organizations officially listed as shareholding members of the Exchange 90. However, eight of these (all buying clubs) were inactive during 1928 and most of them must be considered extinct. 2. The number of cooperative societies trading with the Exchange in 1928 was 114, or nine more than in 1927. 3. Trade or patronage rebates paid to 76 active member societies on their 1928 purchases totaled $16,445.46. Rebates due to 38 non-member societies (all pay able in shares only) amounted to $850.64. The Exchange formerly used to pay its non-member societies only one-half of what the member societies were getting in patronage refunds, but now both groups are paid on an equal basis, all refunds having so far always been paid in shares instead of cash. 4. Four member societies now have a share-capital investment in the Exchange iii excess of $3,000 each. The Cloquet Cooperative Society is the owner of 92 shares (of the par value of $100 each); 28 member societies own 10 shares or more, and 48 societies own not less than five shares each. 5. Interest paid (at 6 per cent) on hare capital owned by the 84 member societies amounted in 1928 to $3,680.91. The above figures prove conclusively, On the one hand, that the Exchange has continued to progress in 1928, and on the other, that the cooperative societies which are wise enough to give all pos sible patronage to their own wholesale are getting genuine benefits. PRENTICE CO-OP SUPPLY COMPANY The Prentice Coop. Supply Co. of Prentice, Wis., was organized in 1921. During the eight years of its existence the Prentice store has gradually but steadily been increasing its sales, as well as its membership. Whereas at the end of 1921 they had only 46 members, the membership figure December 31, 1928, was 204. In 1923 the sales of the Pren tice Coop. Supply Co. were $60,259.41; in 1928 they amounted to $84,176.80. Since 1921 the Prentice Coop. Supply Co. has distributed to its patrons in patronage rebates a total of $10,313.90, most of this having been wisely distrib uted to. nonmember customers in share credits, thus automatically making them shareholders. Besides this, the store has paid $3,043.80 in interest on the share capital. The Prentice organization affiliated with the Northern States' Coop. League in 1928. That they are not only a nom inal member, but really intend to work with the League, is indicated by the fact that they have taken the League's audit ing service, are taking space in the 1929 Yearbook, have ordered the magazine COOPERATION for all their directors, asked the League to furnish a speaker for their last annual meeting, made all their employees become individual mem bers in the League, etc. Prentice is a small village in Central Wisconsin, with a population of about 500. The store is largely patronized by the farmers of the vicinity. There is also a cooperative creamery in the locality. RAILWAY CLERKS AS COOPERA- TORS It is but a very short time since the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks under took the promotion of credit unions among its members, chiefly by means of its monthly magazine "The Railway Clerk." At the beginning of 1929 the magazine reports that more than sixty credit unions have been organized within various lodges of the Brother hood. No other labor organization in the country begins to show such an ex cellent record for the development of cooperative organizations of any kind. The Editor believes there would be many more credit unions were it not for the fact that there are still twenty- three states in which no credit union laws are on the statute books. FARMERS IN NEW YORK CITY The Amalgamated Cooperative Apart ments located in the most densely popu lated city in America is developing a group of farmers. Seventy children and adults have applied for the garden plots being allotted by the Association. There is a great cry for "farm relief" from these people who now have their land and seed but have no tools to work with; and a special collection is being taken among the tenants. These farmers have organized a '' Grange'' which meets on Sundays in one of the apartment buildings. All seeds are purchased through the Grange. Seed catologues are on file in the library. ROCK, MICHIGAN The Rock Cooperative Company is an other that is now publishing a neat little mimeographed news sheet for its mem bers. A recent number reports that the cooperators of Rock have now started a Credit Union, the first to be organized by a consumers cooperative of that state. Sales for the first five months of 1929 were $246,800, an increase of $26,650 over those of the corresponding period of 1928. ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT FOR COOPERATION A meeting was held in New York late in May by labor leaders who are at the 134 COOPERATION COOPERATION 135 \ same time out of sympathy with the official leadership of the American Fed eration of Labor and with the policy and program of the Communist Party. Out of this meeting developed the newly or ganized Conference for Progressive Labor Action, which will attempt to "wake up" the leaders of the A. F. of L. Among many other resolutions, the following on the subject of consumers cooperation was unanimously adopted: Resolution on Consumers' Cooperation Passed ~by the Conference for Progressive Labor Action. WHEREAS: One of the fundamental objectives of Progressive Labor everywhere is the re organization of industry, commerce and crefl't upon democratic, non-profit and non-exploit tive principles; and WHEREAS: It is imperative that the worker should get actual practical experience in «, administration of business and industry Jj organized; and WHEREAS : The Consumers' Cooperative move ment is based upon the principles above-men tioned, and at the same time does provide the workers such training in the administration of economic life; therefore BE IT RESOLVED: That this Conference for Progressive Labor Action urge active snpport to the organizations of cooperative credit housing, insurance and distributive societies wherever and whenever possible. District Leagues EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEES The New York Educational Committee has been busy during the past month with plans for forthcoming activities. The Cooperative Institute to be held at Brookwood from July 28th to August 3d is now an assured reality, with many enrollments already in hand before the middle of June. Two chief instructors are to be Edward Cohen, teacher in the Brooklyn High Schools, and Cedric Long, Secretary of The League. Occa sional lecturers are invited in for special evening discussions. Immediately at the close of the Insti tute, on August 3, the Fifth Week-End Conference will be held at Brookwood, with delegates from most of the societies of Greater New York in attendance. Subjects up for discussion: 1. -Eeports of educational activities of the various so cieties; 2. Cooperation and war; 3. An examination and criticism of the five largest societies in New York. International Cooperators' Day this year was observed earlier than usual, on June 23d, at the Amalgamated Coopera tive Apartments. Combined with the observance was a tour of inspection of this highly successful cooperative housing development with its many sub sidiary cooperative enterprises and ac tivities. Progressive labor leaders as well as cooperators were invited to attend. The newly elected Educational Com mittee for New England societies held its first meeting at Saima Park, Pitch- burg, during the Cooperative Festival at that place, on June 16th. EASTERN COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE At the^last Board meeting, on June 12, it was reported that more than 1,700 tons of coal have been handled during the first four weeks this department has been working. Malt syrup under the co operative label is now on the shelves of many of the stores. Labels for soups and gelatine powders have been ap proved. Manager has been instructed to get figures on costs of putting white and brown rice under similar labels. The auditor's report for the first three months of operation showed gross sales of $31,000, exclusive of coffee, coal and purchases from Wallace Brothers, job bers. If these items were to be added, the total would come nearer $50,000. Net earnings were $8, exclusive of in come from coal sales. Cooperative Trad ing Association is by far the largest purchaser, with more than $12,000 worth of goods bought. There are 10 stock holders and 23 purchasing societies. Capital paid in amounts to $1,150 and the reserve fund to $1,000. This was considered an excellent showing for the first three months of operation, particu larly when consideration is given to the fact that two persons are employed full time by the Wholesale. My Point of View By J. P. WAEBASSE DECIDING FIRST WHAT TO DO "The enormous toll taken from in dustry by the various classes of middle- men is now fully realized. The astonish- ino- difference between the price received by the producer and that paid by the consumer has become a scandal of our industrial system. The obvious and di rect means of reducing this discrepancy and abolishing unnecessary middlemen is the operation of retail and wholesale mercantile concerns under the ownership and management of the consumers. This is no Utopian scheme. It has been suc cessfully carried out in England and Scotland through the Eochdale system. Very few serious efforts of this kind have been made in this country because our people have not felt the need of these cooperative enterprises as keenly as the European working class, and because we have been too impatient and too indi vidualistic to make the necessary sacri fices and to be content with moderate benefits and gradual progress. "In addition to reducing the cost of living, the cooperative stores would train our working people and consumers gen erally in habits of saving, in careful ex penditure, in business methods, and in the capacity for cooperation." Here is a clear statement. It is the program issued by the Bishops of the Catholic Church of the United States through the National Catholic Welfare Conference, at Washington, D. C., which organization is making every effort to give this program wide publicity and to prepare the millions of Catholics in this country to put it into operation. It is the basis of cooperative action. It con tains sound reasons for the cooperative faith. The scandal of our industrial system is profit. The seeking after profits sets neighbor against neighbor and nation against nation. Profit is not only the cause of adulteration and short weights, it is the cause of placing upon the backs of the people an army of government officials made necessary by the profit system. To prevent some degree of .the cheat ing and poisoning of the public, an army of law makers and their laws, inspectors, courts, fines, and jails are required. All to bolster up and keep going the profit system of business. To say that it is a rule of business to give good value and service is nonsense. This rule in business applies to the small proportion of intelligent and discrim inating buyers, but most of the public is gullable and easily fooled. The govern ment, or some other paternalistic agency, has to stand between profit business and the consumers or the poor consumers would be cheated and poisoned to death. When we say middleman, we mean the profit-maker who stands between. the point of production and the point of consumption and takes all that he can get. To abolish the middleman and the profit motive in industry requires that distributive stores and wholesale con cerns shall be owned and controlled by the consumers. It does not suffice alone to say that we are in favor of "genuine farmer and labor cooperatives." This means little and is extremely vague. The labor lead ers probably had in mind "producers' cooperatives." Consumers' cooperation definitely states who should establish co operatives. "Cooperatives" established by producers, on the other hand, to sell 136 COOPERATION COOPERATION 137 their products to the public, are a part of the profit system. It is true that the people in this coun try have not felt the need of cooperative enterprises as keenly as have the work ing classes of Europe. It is also true that we have been impatient, not co operative in spirit, unwilling to make the slight sacrifices, and not satisfied with moderate benefits and gradual progress. How important it is not only to re duce the cost of living, but to train the working people and the consumers gen erally in careful business methods which can be learned only by carrying on their own business. Deciding definitely what to do before taking action is an essential to coopera tive success. For many years in this country co operative enterprises were started and run by people who had not taken the pains to find out some of these princi ples. Their efforts failed. Now we are learning that it is impor tant to have very definite ideas of the sort of cooperation we are going to estab lish; and, what is also important, the sort of people who are going to estab lish it. Clear understanding of what we want and how we are going to get it is a first essential. One great difficulty remains to be overcome. We have not yet enough trained executives who can put their hands to the job and make the dreams come true. But the cooperative trainino schools are helping. They are a step in the direction of creating experts in busi ness administration. When we have these, cooperation will be prepared to "o forward upon a sound basis. But first must come the clear state ment of what we want. The quotation at the beginning of this article shows that we are developing an understand ing. Next must come the trained execu tives who can put these ideas into operation. While such a program is apparently a bit too radical for our great labor organ izations, it is encouraging to know that the Catholic Bishops stand s