The source of this uncorrected OCR text may be viewed in the DjVu format at: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/HD2951xC776/co41 or http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/ugafax/HD2951xC776/co41 CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL ORGAN Of The Consumers' Cooperative Movement in the U. S. A. VOLUME XXVII January—December 1941 Published by The Cooperative League of U. S. A. 167 West 12th Street, New York City „ INDEX CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OF GtC A PAGE Accountants Recommend Program to Meet Crisis ..................................................................... 155 Act Now or Regret Later .............................................................................................................................. 16< AE's Letters to Minanlabain, a review ............................................................................................. 240 Aiken, Senator George D. .................................................................................................................. 70, 126 Alanne, V. S. ......................................................................................................................._ 55 Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments ............................................................................................. 142 American Cooperative Crusade ................................................................................................................... 163 Annual All-American Tour of Cooperatives .................................................................. 120, 183 Architectural Modernization, Plans Laid For .............................................................................. 158 Arnold, Mary E. .................................................................................................................................................. 51 Arnold, Thurman ................................................................................................................................................ 70 Articles on Cooperatives, Recent ............................................................................................................ 28 As I Remember ................................................................................................................................................... 50 Augustus, E. K. ................................................................................................................................................... 234 B Baker, Jacob ............................................................................................................................................................ 80 Belloc, Hilaire ......................................................................................................................................................... 127 Bennett, J. L. ..........................................................................................................._ 200 Bergengren, Roy F. .......................................................................................................................................... 223 Bingham, Alfred ................................................................................................................................................... 71 Bolin, J. H. ............................................................................................................................................................... 69 Bowen, E. R. ............................................................................................................................................. 102, 230 Bowman, LeRoy E. ............................................................................................................................................. 19 Boyle, George ......................................................................................................................................................... 191 Brandies, Louis D. .................................................................................................................................... 98, 214 Brouckere, Professor Louis de .................................................................................................................. 134 Buy in Co-ops ......................................................................................................................................................... 201 Calkins, Gilman ................................................................................................................................................... 202 Call to Peace and Plenty ................................................................................................................................. 200 Campbell, Wallace J. .............................................................................................................................. 10, 175 Campus Cooperative, The Evolution of a .......................................................................................... 84 Capitol Letters ........................................................................... 57, 92, 141, 153, 172, 189, 236 Carson, John ....................................... 57, 92, 141, 153, 172, 189, 206, 214, 223, 236 Central Cooperative Wholesale ............................................................... 31, 54, 125, 142, 220 Central States Cooperatives ........................................................................................................................... 125 Challenge to Cooperative Accountants ................................................................................................ 208 Character Building and Cooperatives ................................................................................................... 19 Cheel, Mabel ......................................................................... 50 Church and Cooperatives .............................................................................................................................. 222 Circle Pines Center ........................................................................................................................ 9, 122, 219 Coady, Dr. M. M. ........................................................................................................................ 16, 71, 129 Coerr, Janet ...........................................................................................................:.................................................. 119 Cohn, Hyman ........................................................................................................................................ 117, 129 Consumer Distribution Corporation ...................................................................................................... 31 INDEX PAGE Consumers Book Cooperative ......................................................................................................... 62, 94 Consumers Cannot Depend on Government Price Controls ............................................. 149 Consumers Cooperative Association ......................................................... 24, 62, 87, 124, 220 Consumers Cooperatives Associated .......................................................................................... 62, 220 Consumers Cooperatives in the North Central States, a review ....................................... 190 Consumers Cooperative Services ............................................................................................................ 142 Consumers Cooperative Stations .............................................................................................................. 62 Consumers Incarnate the Public Welfare ....................................................................................... 206 Cooperative Distributors ................................................................................................................................ 125 Cooperative Plenty, a review ..................................................................................................................... 239 Cooperative Terminal, Inc. ........................................................................................................................... 166 Cooperation, a Christian Mode of Industry, a review ............................................................ 223 Cooperation at Home and Abroad, a review ................................................................................. 144 Co-ops are Co min', The, a review ......................................................................................................... 218 Co-ops in the Crisis .......................................................................................................................................... 220 Co-op Week .....*..........................„............................................................................................................ 31, 6l Council for Cooperative Business Training ................................................................................. 126 Covey, Esther ......................................................................................................................................................... 218 Cowden, Howard A. ........................................................................................................................... 182, 201 Credit Union National Association ...................................................................................................... 223 Curry, James ................................................................_........................................................................................ 191 D Debt and Disaster ................................................................................................................................................ 73 Declaration of Cooperation ........................................................................................................................ 210 Democracy's Second Chance, a review ................................................................................................ 191 Douthit, Davis ...................................................................................................................................................... 5 Drury, James C. ................................................................................................................................................... 144 Eastern Cooperative Recreation School ............................................................................. 122, 187 Eastern Cooperative Wholesale ...................................................................................................... 31, 221 Economic Organization of Freedom, The ....................................................................................... 134 Educate for Democratic Economic Action ....................................................................................... 203 Education-Recreation-Publicity Institute ............................................................................................. 123 Edwards, Ellen .......................................................................................... 29, 59, 156, 187, 205, 238 Emporia Cooperative Association, The Down and Up Of ............................................. 216 Estes Park Co-op Camp ................................................................................................................................. 188 Farnsworth, Ruth Broan ................................................................................................................................. 117 Fay, C. R. ....................................................................... 144 Films ................................................................................................................._ 13, 218, 222 Film Cooperative Society, Timmins ...................................................................................................... 91 Finland Solved the Farm Tenancy Problem, How ..................................................................... 105 Form Letters, Here's an Idea on ............................................................................................................... 27 Foundation of Civilization ........................................................................................................................... 226 Fowler, Bertram B. ............................................................................................................................................. 175 INDEX INDEX PAGE Fox, Glenn S. ................._...._................-...._ 170 Friends of Rochdale Institute ..................................................................................................................... 208 From Consumer to Crude ....................................................................................................................... 24 K PAGE Kagawa, Toyohiko ............................................................................................................................................. 131 Kenyon, Dorothy ..............................................;................................................................................................. 14 Kreiner, Viola Jo .......................................................................................................................................... 9, 219 Kress, Andrew J. ................................................................................................................................................ 143 Getting Your News Across—Here's an Idea for ........................................................................ 140 Giles, Richard ......................................................................................^ 224 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins ........................................................................................................................... 148 Give Cooperation the Radiance It Deserves .................................................................................... 202 Gjores, Axel .._......._......._...............^ 212 Get Grocery Minded ....................................................................................................................................... 17 Go Into Groceries Faster ................................................................................................................................. 227 GOSS, A. S. .............................................................................^ 52 Group Health Association, Minneapolis .......................................................................................... 62 Group Health Association, D. of C. ................................................................................................... 124 Group Health Cooperative ..................................................................................................................... 94 Groves, Harold M. ............................................................................................................................................. 190 Grundtvig of Denmark ................................................................................................................................. 89 H Hackman, Vera R. ......................................................................................................................................... 151 Halonen, George ......................................................................................................................................... 166 Hamilton, Peter ..................................................................................^ 50 Harris, Frank .........................._......._...™^^ 159 Hedberg, Anders ............................................................................................................................................ 212 Highlights of 1940, Cooperative ............................................................................................................ 10 Hill, Gladys ...,,.......................................................................^ 151 Holmes, John Haynes ................................................................................................................................... 71 How Balance Prices and Income ............................................................................................................ 230 How Co-ops Grow ............................................................................................................................................. 87 Hull, I. H. ............................................................................^ 52 Hutchinson, Carl „........................_......._.................................._...............................-........-............-..-........••• 168 Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association ............................................................... 94, 221 I.L.O. Carries On, Cooperative Division Of .............................................................................. 119 Introduction to the Cooperative Movement, a review ............................................................ 143 Insurance, Cooperative, Should be Organized How ............................................................... 102 Invest in Co-ops ......................._................-..........-..........-................-..........-............•-.-----—-•••--— 203 Invest your Money in Cooperative Properties .............................................................................. 80 J Jackson, J. Hampden ........_......................._......_.............-..........-...............................-.—.-.....-..--»...... 105 Join a Co-op ........................................................................................................-...............—....-.............-.-.... 200 Jones, E. Stanley ............................................................................................................... 66, 70, 129, 1= I Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Counsel for the Consumer ......................................................... 214 Labor and Cooperatives ................................................................................. 30, 61, 126, 142, 223 Lau1 of the Organization and Operation of Cooperatives, a review ........................ 190 Let's Drive for Modern Co-ops ............................................................................................................... 207 Let's Get the Cooperative Movement Together ........................................................................... 5 Lehner, Anthony ....................................................................................................................................... 31, 204 Lehtin, Laurie L. ................................................................................................................................................... 155 Lincoln, Murray D. ................................................................................................................................. 93, 200 Ligutti, Msgr. Luigi .......................................................................................................................................... 66 Local Cooperative Organization Managers .................................................................................... 168 Locke, John ^^.f^^^..^..^..^....^.....^..^^^^^....^^^^.^^^^...^^^^^..^^..^^..........^...^^. 99 Long, Mary Coover ............................................................................................................................................. 51 Lull, Dr. H. G. ....._......._.................._......._ 216 M MacMillan, Mary ................................................................................................................................................ 183 Marketing, Consumer Co-ops Go Into ................................................................................................ 166 Maurin, Peter ,......................................................................................................................_................................ 66 McGowan, Rev. R. A. ....................................................................................................................................... 5 3 McLanahan, Jack .................................................................................................................. 8, 27, 140, 186 Measuring Stick for a Cooperative Oil Co. .................................................................................... 170 Metzger, T. Warren .......................................................................................................................................... 15 Midland Cooperative Wholesale ................................................................................................... 31, 142 Miller, Joseph Dana .......................................................................................................................................... 67 Morale of Democracy, a review ............................................................................................................... 175 Morgan, Joy Elmer ............................................................................................................................................. 71 Myers, James ..........................o................................................................................................................................ 14 N Nationwide Co-op Drive .............................................................................................................................. 194 National Cooperatives ................................................................................................... 61, 93, 124, 221 National Cooperative Recreation School ..................................................................... 60, 90, 156 National Cooperative Womens Guild Notes ................................................................................. 56 New Books and Pamphlets Received ................................................... 15, 63, 127, 160, 224 Niemela, Waldemar .......................................................................................................................................... 53 Northwest Cooperative Society ............................................................................................................... 125 o '"'•Her' in College Co-op ................................................................................................................................... 8 5 <~'e~re, Anders ...................................................................................................................................................... 66 C^'-io Farm Bureau Cooperative Association ......................................................... 93, 142, 221 ^bio Farm Bureau Insurance Services ........................................................................... 11, 61, 124 Ohio O^'ers Complete Cooperative Investment Program ................................................... 234 INDEX INDEX PAGE One Day in the Life of a Cooperator ................................................................................................... 182 Organized Labor and Consumer Cooperation, a review ...................................................... 14 Organization of the Nationwide Co-op Drive ........................................................................... 196 Ownership, Three Forms of ........................................................................................................................ 100 PAGE Southeastern Cooperative Education Association ......................................................... 124, 142 Spencer, Anne ......................................................................................................................................................... 56 State, Cooperation and the ........................................................................................................................... 137 Summer Opportunities in Cooperatives ............................................................................................. 143 Swedish Cooperator in the Government, A .................................................................................... 212 Packel, Israel ........................................................................................................................................................ 190 Pacific Supply Cooperative ........................................................................................................................... 31 Palo Alto Cooperative .................................................................................................................................... 126 Paying Patronage Returns—Here's an Idea for ........................................................................ 58 Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Association ............................................................ 94 Pioneer Cooperator, A .................................................................................................................................... 70 Price Boom Is On ................................................................................................................................................ 72 Profit Motive and the Common Good ............................................................................................... 136 Progressive Education Association ......................................................................................................... 62 Publicity and Education Committee .......................................................................................... 93, 158 Publicity—Here's an Idea on ..........................:......................................................................................... 8 Quotations ..... 146 R Rawe, Rev. John C. .............................................................................................................................. 130, 191 Recreation—A Vital Part of the Nationwide Co-op Drive ............................................. 205 Recreation Notes ................................................................................................... 29, 59, 91, 123, 238 Recreation Training Opportunities ......................................................................................................... 122 Refinery, Cooperative ........................................................................................................................... 10, 30 Refineries, Consumers Cooperative ......................................................................................................... 142 Rees, Albert ..........................„.........._ 85 Restoration of Property, a review ............................................................................................................ 127 Review of International Cooperation ................................................................................................... 133 Reviews .............................................................................. 14, 31, 126, 143, 174, 190, 223, 239 Rochdale Institute ................................................................................................... 30, 39, 62, 126, 208 Roosevelt, Eleanor ............................................................................................................................................. 70 Ross, Rev. J. Elliot .........................................................................................................:................................... 239 Ruf, Dr. _.................................................._..„ 136 Rural Electric Cooperatives ........................................................................................................................... 11 Russell, George ............................................................................................................................... 101, 180 Schmiedeier, Rev. Edgar J. ..........................................................................,.............:..................... 71, 223 Selvig, E. F. ............................................................................................................................................................... 208 Shipe, J. Orrin .............................................................................. 31 Skillin, Edward ..................................................................................................................................._.............. 127 Skomorowsky, Boris .......................................................................................................................................... 71 Smith, Robert L. ................................................................................................................................................... 203 Snyder, Ralph ......................................................................................................................................................... 66 Social Reconstruction and Cooperation ............................................................................................. 133 Socialist Trend as Affecting the Cooperative Movement, a review ........................... 14 Song Book, Cooperative, a review ......................................................................................................... 16 Teaching Cooperation at Pine Mountain .......................................................................................... 151 The Cooperative Consumer, reprint of May, 1914 issue ...................................................... 41 The Cooperative League, First Twenty-five Years Of ......................................................... 37 Tichenor, George ................................................................................................................................................ 175 Times, New York ................................................................................................................................................ 70 Torma, William J. ............................................................................................................................................. 207 Trail to Co-op Fun, The .............................................................................................................................. 138 Train Employes to be Practical Idealists .......................................................................................... 204 Training Lay Leaders—Here's an Idea for .................................................................................... 186 Twenty-fifth Anniversary Celebrations ............................................................................................. 9 5 Twenty-five Years Ago and Now ............................................................................................................ 48 U United Cooperative Society, Maynard ................................................................................................ 61 V Voorhis, Congressman Jerry ........................................................................................................................ 130 W Wallace, Henry A. ............................................................................................................................................. 163 Warbasse, Dr. James P. ........................................................................ 14, 37, 95, 124, 144, 175 War Time Conditions, What Cooperatives Should Do Under ....................................... 26 Warne, Colston E. ............................................................................................................................................. 52 Webb, Mrs. Beatrice .......................................................................................................................................... 164 What's News with the Co-ops .............................................................................. 30, 61, 124, 142 What We Ought to Know About Credit Unions, a review ............................................. 31 Whitney, E. A. ,.............,,.............................,........................,......^ 203 Who is Responsible in a Co-op ............................................................................................................... 82 With the Co-op Caravan .............................................................................................................................. 183 Womens Guilds Plan Greater Activity ................................................................................................ 157 Wright, Frank Lloyd ........................................................................................................................... 143, 146 Youth Councils, Farm Bureau .................................................................................................................. 91 Youth League, Northern States Cooperative ....................................................:............................ 142 Your Work is Prized ....................................................................................................................................... 117 A \ Build Cooperatives Stronger and Faster Follow These Successful Examples Let's Get The Cooperative Movement Together Here's An Idea on Publicity Circle Pines Center Davis Douthit Jack McLanahan Viola Jo Kreïner Cooperative Highlights of 1 940 Wallace J. Campbell Reviews: Dorothy Kenyan and T. Warren Metzger January 1941 lATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE LEADERS "THE CONGRESS ISSUE IS A MASTERPIECE' So said a prominent educator after reading the November-December Special Congress Issue of Consumers' Cooperation. "I want fifteen copies to give to members of the board of our co-op" said the president of a nourishing midwest co-op food store. "In our opinion every cooperator should study the Congress Issue of Con sumers' Cooperation, for it gives a clear concise picture of the four cornerstones of cooperation and the major problems and accomplishments of the American coop eratives today." This was the unsolicited advice of a New York Cooperator. The Eastern Cooperative League has prepared an advisory council study out line based on the Congress issue which will be used by a hundred co-op study clubs in the East as the basis for their January discussions. Order your extra copies today while they are still available. This 64-page report of the 12th Biennial Congress of The Cooperative League of the U.S.A. is a bargain at 25c. Five copies for a dollar. Special prices on larger quantities. Mail your order to: THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street, New York City THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 608 South Dearborn, Chicago 167 West 12th Street, New York City 726 Jackson Place N.W., Washington, D. C. DIVISIONS: Auditing Bureau, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Design Service, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Medical Bureau, 1790 Broadway, N. Y. C. Rochdale Institute, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. AFFILIATED REGIONAL COOPERATIVES Address Publication Superior, Wisconsin Cooperative Builder 2301 S. Millard, Chicago The Round Table Name Central Cooperative Wholesale Central States Cooperatives, Inc. Consumers' Cooperatives Associated Consumers Cooperative Association Consumers Book Cooperative Cooperative Distributors Cooperative Recreation Service Eastern Cooperative Wholesale Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n Farm Bureau Mutual Auto Insurance Co. Columbus, Ohio Farm Bureau Services Lansing, Michigan Farmers' Union Central Exchange St. Paul, Minn. Grange Cooperative Wholesale Seattle, Washington Indiana Farm Bureau Coop. Association Indianapolis, Ind. Midland Cooperative Wholesale Minneapolis, Minn. National Cooperatives, Inc. Pacific Supply Cooperative Amarillo, Texas N. Kansas City, Mo. 118E. 28St,N. Y. 116E. l6St.,N.Y. Delaware, Ohio 135 Kent Ave., Bklyn Columbus, Ohio Chicago, 111. Walla Walla, Wash. A "*-""- ~"i-r-j ~__r — Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Coop. Ass'n Hitrfrsburg, Penn. United Cooperatives, Inc. Indianapolis, Ind. Workmen's Mutual Fire Ins. Society 227 E. 84th St., N. Y. The Producer-Consumer Cooperative Consumer Readers Observer Consumers Defender The Recreation Kit E.C.L. Cooperator Ohio Farm Bureau News Ohio Farm Bureau News Michigan Farm News Farmers' Union Herald Grange Cooperative News Hoosier Farmer Midland Cooperator Pacific N.W. Cooperator Penn. Co-op Review DISTRICT LEAGUES 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y. 7218 So. Hoover St., Los Angeles, Cal. 372—40th Street, Oakland, Cal. 608 South Dearborn, Chicago Carrollton, Georgia Eastern Cooperative League Associated Cooperatives, So. Cal. Associated Cooperatives, N. Cal. National Cooperative Women's Guild Southeastern Cooperative Education Ass'n FRATERNAL MEMBERS Credit Union National Association Madison, Wisconsin The Bridge CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT Volume XXVII. No. I PEACE • PLENTY • DEMOCRACY JANUARY. 1941 Ten Cents BUILD COOPERATIVES STRONGER AND FASTER This is an enduring cooperative slogan for 1941 and the future. It summarizes the double challenge of Cooperation to members and employees. It is expressed by Dr. G. Fauquet, member of the Executive Committee of the International Coopera tive Alliance and former Director of the Cooperative Division of the International Labor Office, in these words: "Two tasks are imperative: within the Movement—to administer the enterprises with diligence and also some inventive spirit, at the same time to train and instruct cooperators and to instill in them a sense of individual and collective responsibility; outside the Movement—to give Cooperation the radiance that it deserves, and to manifest to those who are ignorant about it—what are its principles and methods, and the goal towards which it leads mankind." No greater or more permanent goal was ever set before the Cooperative Movement. Build Cooperatives Stronger! Stronger recreationally, so that every cooperative association will mean to its members a pleasurable place to play together, as well as to learn together, buy together, and bank together. Stronger educationally, by member discussion groups and employee and directors schools. Stronger commer cially, by greater efficiency of operations and diversity of lines. Stronger financially, by the elimination of credit and by increased capital and reserves. Build Cooperatives Faster! Cooperators hold the key to the door of economic democracy. We must persuade others faster to become active members. We must "give Cooperation the radiance it deserves" as Dr. Fauquet urges. It is the Economic American Dream—it is economic liberty; it is economic equality; it is economic fraternity. Every Cooperative and every Cooperator should adopt this as their principal motto, "BUILD COOPERATIVES STRONGER AND FASTER." An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond 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. FOLLOW THESE SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES! The Consumers' Cooperative Purchasing Movement in the United States has now reached the place where successful illustrations have been developed in many fields. Further rapid development of the movement is primarily a matter of other groups patterning after these examples. Much pioneering has been done during the past two decades in both the rural and urban fields. However, there is still too much time lag in adopting successful methods elsewhere after the initial pioneering has been done, even though we are speeding up the process through increasing national contacts between regional and local representatives. Every local and regional cooperative Board of Directors should divide itself into three major committees: Education, Business, and Finance, whose duties should be not only to supervise the present activities of the cooperative in each of these fields, but also to constantly investigate other projects which might be adopted. By subdividing the work, more rapid progress can be made. There is no necessary limit until the members both distribute and produce for themselves cooperatively every thing they desire in the fields of recreation, education, business and finance. To help every local and regional cooperative to profit by the successful examples of other cooperatives and to speed up the process of duplication everywhere, we are listing here some of the major examples of successful cooperative pioneering in the fields of Education, Business and Finance. It goes without saying that no such list can be altogether complete and we are only including illustrations of some of the better known examples to stimulate investigation in each field by every other cooperative. Follow These Successful Examples in EDUCATIONAL Activities Central Cooperative Wholesale, Superior, Wise, has an Architectural Depart ment which is modernizing store buildings and equipment. Write them for their folder "Trends in Cooperative Architecture." Consumers Cooperative Association, North Kansas City, has developed it; second Five Year Plan by democratic discussion. Write them for their foldei "Second Five Year Plan." Local cooperatives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Schenectady, New York, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and others have modernized their stores into Self-Service Food Markets. Write Consumer Distribution Corporation, 420 Lexington Avenue, New York, for illustrations and information. The State of Wisconsin has a Co-op Week officially designated by the State Administration. During the week more than 100 radio broadcasts are made and hundreds of cooperative meetings are held. Contact your State Administration. The States of Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota have developed prc grams to Teach Cooperation in the Schools. Write the State Departments of Public Instruction. The Michigan State Federation of Labor has appointed a Committee on Co operatives. Write the Co-op and Labor Committee of the Cooperative League. Cooperative Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Racine Consumers Coopera tive, Racine, Wisconsin ; Konsum, Washington, D. C., and others have Union Contracts with their employees. Write the Co-op and Labor Committee of the Cooperative League. Minneapolis and St. Paul have a Twin-City Co-op-Labor Council. Write the1 Co-op and Labor Committee of the Cooperative League. 2 Consumers' Cooperatioi The Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Association issues a Weekly Neivs Service to local papers. Write them for a copy. Floodwood, Minnesota, conducts a 12 Weeks Co-op Forum sponsored by the Community Adult Evening School. Write Central Cooperative Wholesale, Superior, Wisconsin for a copy of their program. Eastern Cooperative Wholesale has a colored film "Consumers Serve Them selves." Write the Cooperative League for rental prices. Midland Co-op Wholesale, Central Co-op Wholesale and the Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n have Educational Fieldmen in every district, as well as commodity fieldmen. Write their Educational Departments as to their programs. The Ohio Farm Bureau Co-op Ass'n, Midland Co-op Wholesale, Consumers Cooperative Association, Eastern Co-op Wholesale and Central Co-op Wholesale are organizing their members into Study Circles. Write their Educational Depart ments for samples of their discussion outlines. Central Co-op Wholesale and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n conduct Directors and Employees Circuit Schools. Write their Educational Departments. Central Co-op Wholesale, Midland Co-op Wholesale, the Farmers Union Central Exchange, Consumers Cooperative Association, Eastern Co-op Wholesale and Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n hold regional Employee Training Schools. Write their Educational Departments. Central Co-op Wholesale, Midland Co-op Wholesale, Consumers Cooperative Association and Central States Cooperatives, have organized Women's Guilds. Write the National Women's Guild, care of The Cooperative League. Central Co-op Wholesale, Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n, Midland Co-op Wholesale, Central States Cooperatives and Eastern Co-op Wholesale have Youth Leagues. Write their Educational Departments. Central Co-op Wholesale and Farmers Union Cooperative Education Service have organized Junior Groups. Write their Educational Departments. Central Co-op Wholesale and Central States Cooperatives have Co-op Parks. Write their Education Departments. Central Co-op Wholesale and Farmers Union Cooperative Education Service conduct summer Cooperative Youth Courses. Write their Educational Departments. Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n, Midland and Eastern Co-op Wholesales are actively promoting Cooperative Recreation. Write the Cooperative Society for Recreational Education in care of The Cooperative League. Local co-ops in Washington, D.C., Evanston, 111., and Great Falls, Montana, have Co-op Book Stores. Write The Cooperative League. Some States have good Consumers' Cooperative Incorporation Laws. Write the Cooperative League for a copy of the Department of Labor Bulletin with the text of all State Laws and for a copy of the new District of Columbia Cooperative Law. Follow These Successful Examples in BUSINESS Acti/j Central Co-op Wholesale, Eastern Co-op Wholesale, fives, Midland Co-op Wholesale and Consumers Cooper handling Groceries. Write them. Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, Consumers Coopei ciation and others are handling Building Materials and Coal. Write them. January, 1941 Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperatives and others own Fertilizer Factories. Write them. Consumers Cooperative Association and Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperatives own Petroleum Refineries. Write them. Consumers Cooperatives Association and United Cooperatives own Paint Plants. Write them. Consumers Cooperative Association owns a Grease Plant and Oil Wells. Write them. Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association owns Chick Hatcheries. Write them. The Range Cooperative Federation, Virginia, Minnesota, unites 18 local co operatives for recreation, education and business activities. Write them. The Cooperative Trading Company, Waukegan, 111., owns local Bakery, Creamery and Meat Packing Plants. Write them. Local cooperatives in Minneapolis, Madison, St. Paul and New York have Cooperative Housing Associations for individual homes and apartments. Write The Cooperative League. Iowa and Minnesota and other States have Cooperative Burial Associations. Write The Cooperative League. Group Medicine is developing in a number of places. Write the Bureau of Cooperative Medicine, 1790 Broadway, New York. New York City has eight Cooperative Cafeterias. Write Consumers Coopera tive Services, 433 West 21st Street, New York City. Follow These Successful Examples in FINANCE Activities Waukegan, Illinois; Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and other cooperatives require each member to own a minimum number of shares before receiving dividends. Write them. Consumers Cooperative Association is actively promoting Cash Terms on both farm and home supplies. Write them. Midland Co-op Wholesale is using a Condensed Comparative Balance Sheet to help build capital. Write them. Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, Central Co-op Wholesale and Midland Co-op Wholesale have organized Finance Associations. Write them. Consumers Cooperative Association and Farmers Union Central Exchange, are building up Loan Capital. Write them. Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative Association has a Co-op Bank. Write them. Central Co-op Wholesale and Midland Co-op Wholesale publish Year Books. Write them. Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. have organized Cooperative Properties to own and rent land and buildings. Write them. Learn from Others Experience There are just two ways to learn—from your own or others' experience. The more we can learn from others, and thereby avoid the trial and error method, the more rapid progress we can make. These are some suggestions for action. Their success should encourage others. Build Cooperatives Faster! Follow these Successful Examples. $ Consumers' Cooperatio. LET'S GET THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT TOGETHER! IF ever cooperative leaders received a mandate to set about collecting and tying together the various loose ends of the cooperative movement in this country, they got it at the 12th biennial congress of The Cooperative League in Chicago last October. "LET'S GET TOGETHER!" It was implied by some speakers, touched upon by others, and finally, it was shouted right out loud by the rank- and-file delegates themselves. It is becoming trite to say that the most effective brake on the consumer coopera tive movement has been the failure to get together, to cooperate. American coopera tion, despite local and regional headway, has yet to ring the bell as a genuinely na tional movement. It consists, in large part, of sprawling, provincial cooperatives, each a movement unto itself. True, these co operatives do associate together education ally in the League and for occasional joint buying purposes in National Cooperatives, but the association is somewhat polite and uneasy. The regional leaders (who are also national leaders) appear to find it advis able to keep a wary eye on each other to see that no tricks are pulled which might affect their own special provinces. "You Can Lead a Horse to Water" Important strides have been taken nev ertheless, toward getting the movement together. Uniform dues to support educa tional and legislative activities have been agreed upon; the League and National Cooperatives, though still separate organi zations, now have the same address, in terlocking directorates and a common blueprint for the future. Cooperative leaders have, one might say, led them selves to the headwaters of a truly national stream. Will they drink, or will they kick up their heels and gallop each for his own pasture ? The answer to this question is tremendously important. It may deter- January, 1941 Davis Douthit, News Editor Midland Cooperator mine whether consumer cooperation ma tures in this country, or whether it is des tined to wind up in the barnyard, a sort of rural "dead-end kid." If the former, time's "a-wastin" ", for these are blitz krieg days, and the stream may, before long, be sucked dry by the whirl of events. A "truly national" movement is an all- together movement. It consists of parts or units, none of which is bigger or more important than the whole, and all of which are headed, like the cars of a train, for a common destination. Such a move ment must have, of course, democratic control from the bottom up. The pas sengers must have the right to decide where and how they want to go and what engineer they want to take them there. But this "truly national" movement also must have management coordination from the top down. The passengers, un less they're more interested in playing train than in getting somewhere, really ought to let their engineer run the train, and he really should have only one locomotive to attend to, not one for each car, going off in all directions at once. Gets Picture of Hen with Head Off Too many cooperators, saturated with literature based on 1844 theology—pre- chain and pre-monopoly—give all their attention to democratic control from the bottom up, none whatever to coordination from the top down. Yet, if the cooperative technique is to survive chains, trusts and monopoly fascism, such coordination is absolutely essential. A just-beheaded hen has plenty of democratic control from the bottom up, but no coordination from the top down. It is a temptation to say that this hen picture is much like the one ob tained by looking at what is known as the national cooperative movement today. Its top has no power to coordinate the some what spasmodic jerkings and twitchings down below. A similar weakness, it is now being re alized, afflicts the British movement. Carr- Saunders and other British economists, in their important research volume, "Con sumer Cooperation in Great Britain," put it this way: "A movement which consists of a large number of completely autonomous units, subject to no unifying authority, bound to no common policy even as trading units, cannot effectively work out a common will or apply that common will to the prosecu tion of its aims. ... A unified central authority, answerable to a united coop erative democracy, would become one of the most powerful influences in the state, capable of directing economic policy so as to ensure the widest distribution of those benefits which modern civilization and the modern technique of production should enable all to enjoy." Proposes Merger of Two Wholesales A most significant cooperative wartime development has been the increasing amount of agitation for drastic overhaul ing of the British cooperative machinery to give the movement a united front. W. Gallagher, a director of the Scottish whole sale, and president of the Congress of the Cooperative Union, proposes the merging of the chief factories of the English Co operative Wholesale and its Scottish coun terpart, and he urges coordinated manage ment of the British movement by "some body whose decision should be final and binding." In an important series of "Plan for the Future" articles in the English Coopera tive Neii's, Alfred Barnes, cooperative member of parliament, points out the clumsiness, weakness and inefficiency of the present set-up of separate national educational and business federations. And he proposes replacement of what he calls the present "happy-go-lucky" cooperative methods of operation and government with a genuine Cooperative Union having the authority (1) to enforce decisions of policy democratically arrived at, and (2) to "accomplish its economic purpose without becoming involved in a mass of sterile controversies about local parochial ism and the individual interests of persons and societies." These articles aroused such enthusiasm that they were followed up with two na tional conventions organized by the Co operative News to discuss and promote the proposals. One statement at the second convention in support of the Barnes plan is especially noteworthy, for it applies to the United States as well as to Britain. It was made by J. J. Worley of the Co operative Press. Co-ops Challenged by New Capitalism "This country," he said, "is passing through what I regard as another indus trial revolution which threatens to en trench the new capitalism, new because it marks a distinction between competitive capitalism and corporate capitalism. If the cooperative movement shrinks jrom the inescapable challenge of the new Cor porate State tendencies, its progress will be arrested and the movement will be gradually merged into statutory schemes O J O J for industrial rationalization and in thai process will lose its identity and au tonomy." The conventions, reported the Coop erative News, revealed a "unanimous recognition of the urgent need for co operative reconstitution." Now if a movement as huge and well- founded as the British is finding it urgent ly necessary to coordinate and centralize its government and operations to meet modern conditions, how much more im perative it is that cooperators in this country read the handwriting on the wall. Co-ops With No "M.A." Have Little Chance - American cooperatives have succeeded best so far in lines such as petroleum products and fertilizer and feed, where the retail margins have been large. Coop eratives in such fields required no great amount of efficient management or capital, and they saved their members money. They had "mass appeal." But cooperatives, in this country or elsewhere, have not been generated on a wide scale where margins were narrow and where considerable cap ital, purchasing power and efficient man agement were necessary to successful com petition. In such fields—and their num ber is increasing swiftly — cooperatives lacking those necessary qualities have been unable to develop mass appeal and they have not flourished. They never will until they, like their competitors, pool their money and brains, coordinate their opera tions and develop efficiency and expert- ness in serving the public. Poll members of Swedish or British co-ops, and it's ten to one a big majority will say they are cooperators, not because cooperation is a "new way of life" or "the label tells the whole truth," but simply because the co-op stores are nice looking, inside and out, they have good stuff, and you save money there. They have, in brief, "m.a." They have what lone wolf co operatives, going it more or less alone without enough capital, will never, never have. Most People Still Remain Folks The Sales Management survey, which found that most members of urban co-ops belong because the CO-OP label tells the whole truth, may be more significant for its indication that few members belong be cause they save money. This, it is possible, explains why co-ops don't have more members than they do. You can shout the virtues of cooperation as a new way of life at people until you're blue in the face, but in the end most of the people will still be folks and they'll still belong to the co-op only when and if they think they can save money or get better stuff by doing so. And it is only through centralization and coordination of capital and purchas ing power and management brains on as large a scale as possible—locally, region ally, nationally—that co-ops are likely, in the small-margin, big-capital fields, to make it possible for folks to do those things. Now it's all very well, of course, to be writing about a genuinely national move ment and saying that cooperative leaders ought to drown their professional jeal ousies and personal ambitions in a sea of unselfish cooperation, but it's quite another thing to "rare back" and pass such a miracle. Perhaps the most cooperators can do is to keep right on repeating and repeating that the miracle just must be passed, or else— and to keep drumming away on the tune that if only we did have more coordination and unity this American cooperative move ment would be going places nationally in groceries, gasoline, tires and other com modities, in insurance, publicity, educa tion, finance, recreation and in Lord knows how many other categories at least 100 per cent faster than it is going now. Cer tain it is that as cooperatives plunge into production they're going to need all the national coordination of purchasing power and management they can get. And they must go into production if they expect to do a halfway decent job of controlling quality and costs. Warns Against Wreck of Whole Train It might help, too, to point out that if the cooperative movement doesn't develop some sturdy, centralized machinery pretty danged soon, shrinking retail margins, in creasingly stiff competition from vast in dustrial aggregations of capital and the en croachments of American Fascism are apt to strip the movement of the mass appeal it now has and wreck the whole co-op train. Yes, the American cooperative move ment needs desperately to get together. It needs to get together on a coordinated in surance program; on a coordinated pro duction program ; on a coordinated distri bution program ; on a coordinated finance program; on a coordinated educational program. "Union Now" ought to be the slogan of the day for co-ops as well as for nations; union of retail co-ops, union of wholesale co-ops. Co-ops exist to serve the people. Very well, then, if one large wholesale can serve the people better than two medium-sized ones, why not add one and one and get ONE? And so on. Bigness, or coordination, or centraliza- Consumers' Cooperation January, 1941 tion, do not in themselves, of course, spell efficiency. All machinery requires human care and operation, and you know these humans. Nevertheless, other things being equal, an intelligently coordinated coop erative movement, with its educational and economic gears meshing in a single-pur posed mechanism-of-the-people, would be the most powerful agency we can think of for the defense of America, for the exten sion of American freedom and democracy, and for the elevation of the American standard of living. Unite Before It's Too Late This article, then, is an appeal to Amer ican cooperative leaders to achieve re gional and national unity in these unpre dictable times by building as quickly as possible regional and national organiza tions with enough authority, derived dem ocratically from the bottom up, to coordi nate the management and operation of a strong, united movement from the top down. Cooperative leaders have "within their own hands" the power to make consumer cooperation a tremendous influence in the life of the country "in our time." They also have the power to doom it to a piffling, hand-to-mouth existence, scorned and derided by its rivals, apologized for by its friends. HERE'S AN IDEA—ON PUBLICITY TWICE within the week I've heard people stand up in a co-op meeting and ask why it was that they had not heard about the cooperative in that community. In both cases they and the co-op had been there longer than two years. A third man put it this way, "Don't the co-ops believe in telling the public what they are doing?" Whether they do or not seems to depend on the particular co-op being referred to, but the point is that co-ops in general haven't made a real effort to tell people about their commodities and their organi zation. Compared to the clever and imag inative methods employed by competitive private business the co-ops are not even a voice crying in the wilderness. Truly we have hid our light under a bushel. Perhaps it is time to reveal it to a waiting world. Here are some ideas that are being used to get news about cooperatives in the press. With a little thought others will come to mind. The Cooperative League of the U.S.A. sends out news releases every week, two or three pages of well written concise articles that can be lifted in toto by an editor of a mind to print such items. This news service now goes to over 500 papers and writers. Ohio Farm Bureau Co-op sends out news releases every week to all papers in the state. Midland Co-op Jack McLanahan does the same thing, not as a regular ser vice but whenever there is news of a na ture that might be accepted by the local press. Many local co-ops have realized the value of getting news into print and regu larly write up accounts of interesting meet ings and happenings to send to their local papers. Some papers have even been persuaded to set aside a column or part of a page in each issue for news of the co-op. In getting your story to the papers in regular news releases or in contributed articles here are a few things to remember: 1. Send in news—not personals or fea ture articles—unless you know the paper will accept them. Of course, local people can hand in personals with good results. 2. Write the news with a general inter est slant to appeal to as large a number of people as possible. 3. Use names of people concerned. Those who send news releases will often cover a story such as the Cooperative League Congress and leave space at the end for adding names of those who have attended as delegates from that particular locality. 4. It is sometimes better to write up the news and give it to a local manager or member. These persons may have a right of way with the local paper not open to an outsider. 5. Be brief and be certain that the article is well written. Busy editors don't like to take time to rewrite and may assign your contribution to the wastebasket. People read the daily papers and they are perhaps impressed by what they read much-more than we realize. Co-ops should not overlook the possibilities. In the face of a new year it is a good time to resolve that we are going to get our story before the public. If yours is a regional, send news releases regularly. If yours is a local, CIRCLE PINES CENTER HPO catch the spirit and significance of 1 Circle Pines Center in the space of a short column is an assignment too great for this writer. Suffice it to say that in Lower Central Michigan is a cooperative camp that is challenging many a firm be liever in cooperation and many a disillu sioned Thomas to a realization that the cooperative way of life means more than activity in the field of economics. This unique recreational and cooperative ven ture started three years ago when a few far-sighted members of the Central States Cooperative League dared to gamble the rental of one of the National Park Service camps for a summer vacation and educa tional center. The season passed with people from a dozen states coming to learn that here was a camp operated by the people, set up to satisfy the need for family vacations at a cost available to working people, where elbows could be rubbed with people of all races, creeds, and stations of life, where "learning by doing" was the watch-word, and coopera tive living the goal. Out of this pioneering venture has grown the Circle Pines Center Associa tion, a Rochdale cooperative that has pur chased a 283 acre farm on Stewart Lake at Cloverdale, Michigan. Enthusiastic mem bers from several states are building this property into their ideal of a cooperative vacation camp and educational center. At send in articles of your activities as often as there is something worth reporting. You can find plenty to write about; world shaking cooperative events are in the making. There is hardly a single paper in a community with a co-op oil station that would not have carried an article on the CCA refinery and oil wells if properly presented. Follow Consumers Coopera tion, the national magazine and the re gional papers for such news and then keep your eyes on the alert for the things in your own community that ought to be set down in black and type. Viola Jo Kreiner their farm house, which is kept open for winter sports and which was reconditioned last summer by members of a Friends' Service Work Camp, the Board of Direc tors met a few days ago. From three states they came to cut wood, to do preliminary clean-up work, and to lay plans for the coming season. Indications are that again the Friends' Service Committee (Quaker) will set up a work camp to assist in the building of the project. The National Park Service camp which accommodates 120 people may again be rented. A sep arate children's camp will be maintained, and a cooperative youth work camp will be carried on. Institutes on cooperative recreation, education, management, and labor relations will also be offered. Con struction work will begin on central camp buildings and many cooperators whose society has a group membership will start the erection of their own cabins and lodges. Oak lumber taken from the wood land and the natural fieldstone from the property will be used for construction purposes. From the viewpoint of recreation, Circle Pines Center is one of the significant cooperative developments in America. It makes a reality of the belief that out of democractic action and creative group "re-creation" will grow the Good Life. It upholds our faith in the ultimate triumph of democracy. Consumers' Cooperation January, 1941 COOPERATIVE HIGHLIGHTS OF 1940 Wallace J. Campbell Counsel of the Bituminous Coal Commi; DURING the past year the pine trees have been growing so rapidly it is hard to see the forest. It is safe to say, however, that the year was marked by a concerted drive toward cooperative production of goods distrib uted through cooperatives ; that important steps were taken to modernize and stand ardize co-op food stores ; that the ground work was laid for the eventual financial independence of the movement through the operation of cooperative finance asso ciations; and that the democracy of the movement was made more effective by the expansion of the discussion group method of cooperative education. Greater Organization Strength For The Cooperative League, the year marked the close of the first quarter cen tury of organized cooperative activity. At its 12th Biennial Congress held in Chicago in October, The League's membership was reported as 1,115,000 patron-members. Two new-organizations, the Southeastern Cooperative Education Association and Associated Cooperatives of Southern Cali fornia were admitted to membership in The League and since that time the Asso ciated Cooperatives of Northern Califor nia have applied for membership. During the year the Central States Cooperative League and The Cooperative Wholesale, Chicago, were merged into a unit organ ization, Central States Cooperatives, Inc. At the co-op congress steps were taken toward the creation of a National Coop erative Finance Association which will act as a financial clearing house for the co operative movement. Already three coop erative banks or finance associations have been established by regional cooperatives. The movement into finance should give the cooperatives greater strength and fi nancial independence. Another milestone in The League's his tory was the opening of a Research and Information office in Washington, D.C. in July. John Carson, former Consumer's 10 sion and previously secretary to the late Senator James Couzens, was chosen t head the office. Co-ops Move Into Production The big news of the year, of course, was the very dramatic progress of the co operatives in producing goods for distrib ution through the retail and wholesale cc ops already established. A dozen mills factories and refineries and a coal min were built or purchased during the year« and the world's first consumer coopératif oil wells began production. By producing goods for use the coop eratives enlarge their field of service, c the costs of goods by eliminating one ext. profit and increase efficiency by producinj at peak capacity for a known demand More important than these factors, how ever, is the fact that productive enterprisf assures the cooperatives a constant ane dependable source of supply. The first of January, 1940, the first c op oil refinery in the U.S., an $850,001 plant at Phillipsburg, Kansas, began op erations. Early in May, 25,000 co-op mem bers and their friends took part in dedi cation ceremonies. Ten days later privai profit oil interests were responsible fo: cutting the co-op's source of crude oil. drastically that the refinery had to shii down for lack of oil. But the co-ops vote $42,000 to build additional pipe line into adjoining fields; made arrangement with friendly private oil companies, fi whom the co-ops had been good cui tomers, for a temporary supply of crude and protested to the Governor of Kansa on behalf of the 56,000 co-op members L the state against the "squeeze play." Bt tween these three moves the co-ops secure enough oil to reopen the refinery. The« to assure a constant source of supply, th cooperatives bought an interest in an o lease and started drilling for oil. By t year's end, five co-op oil wells were i production — making a complete cycle distribution and production without profit. In May, co-ops in Indiana opened a $330,000 refinery at Mt. Vernon, Indiana and in July the Consumers Cooperative Refineries, Regina, Saskatchewan com pleted a modern quarter-million dollar re finery to supplement its other plant. Cooperatives in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsyl vania, New York and a few southern states built five co-op fertilizer factories and in Ohio alone saved the farmers $700,000 on their fertilizer purchases. A modern paint plant in Alliance, Ohio was built to sup ply an already sizeable business in co-op paints. In Superior, Wisconsin a new co op printing plant started its presses roll ing. Feed and flour mills in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Saskatche wan and Washington state were built or enlarged during the year. Canadian co ops, moving into coal production, pur chased a substantial interest in a 1,000-ton- a-day coal mine in Drummeheller, Al berta, marking the first step on the part of co-ops in the Western Hemisphere into coal mining. The cooperatives' accomplishment in reducing artificially maintained price lev els in fertilizer may be rated as a first evi dence of their power as American trust busters. Streamlining Grocery Distribution In the field of grocery distribution, 1940 was marked by a concerted drive for modernization of old stores and opening of new "kitchen clean" self-service coop eratives in the East and Middlewest. Co operatives were aided in this venture by technical assistance from Consumer Dis tribution Corporation, established by the late Edward A. Filene. Central Coopera tive Wholesale at Superior, Wisconsin, set up an architectural service for design ing new stores and opened a testing kitch en to check the quality of goods packed under the co-op label. This gives the Mid west co-ops a "food laboratory" to sup plement the work of the first co-op testing kitchen established two years ago by East ern Cooperative Wholesale in Brooklyn. Many new commodities were put under Consumers' Coopérât« January, 1941 the co-op label as the consumer coopera tives led the field in introducing govern ment ABC grade labeling. Sales Management magazine, making a scientific survey of the cooperative movement sent research men into 15 typi cal eastern cities to ask co-op members why they joined and maintained their loy alty to cooperatives. Eighty-eight per cent checked as vitally important, "Coopera tives can be depended upon to tell the whole truth about merchandise." Next in importance co-op members rated "Even where there is no money saving, the coop erative member may reasonably expect better quality." Co-op Farm Supply Purchases Gain 23 Million Cooperative purchasing of farm sup plies jumped $23,000,000 ahead of its volume for the previous year according to statistics just released by the Farm Credit Administration. During the 1939-1940 fiscal year cooperative purchases of farm supplies totaled $448,000,000—an all time high. Nine hundred thousand farm ers were members of 2,649 associations. Buying organizations are responsible for 17.2 per cent of all farm co-op business. Cooperative insurance reported remark able progress. The Farm Bureau Coop erative Insurance Services, Columbus, Ohio, reviewed their progress from a $10,000 business in 1926 to its present $10,000,000 a year premium income, pro viding auto, life and fire insurance for 380,000 consumer members in 11 states. During the year Minnesota and Wiscon sin cooperatives established Cooperative Insurance Services, backed by Central Co operative Wholesale, Midland Co-op Wholesale and local cooperatives in those two states to coordinate the life and auto insurance program carried on by Coopera- tors Life and the Cooperative Insurance Mutual. Rural Electric Cooperatives, set up with the assistance of long term loans from the Rural Electrification Administra tion were reported to be handling 92 per cent of the new develop- 11 ment under the REA program. At the end of the year more than 600 co-ops with 483,000 members were operating well over 200,000 miles of power lines. More rural homes have been electrified by co-ops in the last five years than were supplied power by all agencies in the previous fifty years. Cooperative burial associations in five midwestern states served more than 30,- 000 members through 40 societies. The average cost of a co-op burial was re ported to be $166 as compared with an average of $363 per burial in private profit mortuaries, according to a study made by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis tics. Other Cooperative Services Grow Cooperative housing associations in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison and Nova Scotia completed about a hundred new houses. At the year's end, members of Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments in New York City voted to erect a new build ing consisting entirely of small apartments. The project, akeady housing 638 families, will thereby make its fourth addition since it was founded in 1927. Almost 2,000 new co-op credit unions were organized during the year, bringing their membership up to 2,250,000 and boosting their capital to above $200,000,- 000. Student co-ops on 160 campuses con tinued to expand—organizing new hous ing associations, eating clubs, book stores, laundry services, credit unions and medi cal associations on their campuses. The Pacific Coast League of Student Coopera tives and the Midwest Federation of Campus Co-ops increased their activity and worked in closer cooperation with the movement as a whole. A new Central League of Student Cooperatives including campus co-ops from North Dakota to Texas was formed during the annual meeting of CCA in North Kansas City in November. At the end of the year cooperative health associations were in operation in New York, Washington, D.C., Greenbelt, 12 Maryland, St. Paul, Superior, Wisconsin Elk City, Oklahoma, St. Louis, the Uni versity of Georgia, Washington State Col lege and in the Texas Panhandle. Cooperative Education and Recreation Cooperative democracy .is dependent o intensive cooperative education. In th state of Ohio alone 667 discussion grout. or advisory councils were in action at th close of the year. More than 8,000 fami lies were meeting regularly in thes groups. Inspired by the results accon pushed by the Ohio Farm Bureau Co operative Association, the Consumers Co operative Association, Midland Co-o, Wholesale, Central Cooperative Whole sale, Eastern Cooperative League and th California cooperatives launched simil adult education programs reaching an other 800 study clubs with 10,000 men bers. Employee education, spurred on by th rapidly increasing demand for traine personnel, reported its most successfn year. Rochdale Institute, in cooperatio with the Council for Cooperative Busine, Training, made up of representatives o Eastern Cooperative Wholesale, Con sumer Distribution Corporation and tl Institute, graduated its sixth class o trainees. Central Co-op Wholesale ran ten- week training school in Superior, Wis consin. Ohio Farm Bureau Co-ops ra their first employee training school thi fall, while Midland and CCA ran short courses. Youth camps and institutes wer run by half a dozen regionals. For the first time group singing, in promptu dramatics and folk dancing we made a part of the Cooperative Congre program, thus reflecting the growing in terest in all sections of the country i recreation. Evidence of this interest shown in many ways — the enrollment the National Cooperative Recreatio School reached a high of 125 students regional recreation conferences were con ducted by Midland Cooperative WhoL sale, Eastern Cooperative League, Centr States Cooperatives (Circle Pines Camp, and Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative A ^dation; annual meetings of cooperative wholesales took time to sing and folk dance as part of their program; the an nual congress of the National Recreation Association had a special session on Rec- «aj1«1 ln Cooperatives for the first time; ^d lo<-al cooperatives from California to New York began to discover the values of group play in building the cooperative way ot Me- Cooperation in the Spotlight Among the important national organ- Jzations which gave or renewed their en- dorsement of the consumer cooperative movement were the National Education Association, Federal Council of Churches, American Federation of Labor, Congress Of Industrial Organizations, the National Grange, the Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Many individuals in the field of political action endorsed the movement. Among them were: Vice-president-elect Henry A. Wal- lace; Senator-elect George D. Aiken, Congressmen Jerry Voorhis and James C Oliver; candidates for presidential nom- jnation Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft, John Backer, Burton K. Wheeler, Norman Thomas and others. During the Cooperative League Con- gress the major press associations and radio news services carried stories on the Congress. Metropolitan newspapers in New York, Chicago and Boston sent special correspondents to cover it and several trade journals and other magazines wrote feature stories on the Congress Highlight of Congress publicity was a Special broadcast over the Columbia Broadcasting network immediately fol- lowing the Congress. More than sixty important magazines rom Readers Digest to New Republic to ^m-ey and Business Week published ar- iicjes a|-,out t^e cooperative movement New Books and Pamphlets Among the new books on cooperatives published during the year were the first iffo books published by The Cooperative eague: Consumers' Cooperatio January, 1941 Cooperation and Nationality, George Russell (AE) * The Story of Tompkinsville, Mary E. Arnold Other new books included: ABC of Cooperation, Gerald Rich ardson Cooperation to the Finnish, Henry H. Bakken Credit Unions of North America, Roy F. Bergengren Belgian Rural Cooperation, Eva J. Ross My Story by Paddy the Cope Manual for Cooperative Food Stores, Consumer Distribution Corp. Among the pamphlets published were: The Socialistic Trend As Affecting the Cooperative Movement, Dr. James P. Warbasse Organized Labor and Consumer Co operation, James Myers Cooperation Between Producers and Consumers, E. R. Bowen and Murray D. Lincoln Report of the NEA Committee on Cooperatives New Plans for Medical Service, Bu reau of Cooperative Medicine What You Ought to Know About Credit Unions, Anthony Lehner Credit Unions, The Peoples Banks, Maxwell Stewart Come On, Let's Play, Frank Shilston All Join Hands, Ellen Edwards and Jac Plauche A Manual on the Church and Coop eratives, Benson Y. Landis Among the new motion pictures on the cooperative movement completed during the year were: Consumers Serve Them selves, produced by the Eastern Coopera tive Wholesale and Consumer Distribu tion Corporation describing the co-op wholesale, testing kitchen and model store, and Traveling the Middle Way in Su'eden, a 6-reel movie in color, including a two-reel unit on Consumers Coopera tion in Siveden. Produced by the Harmon Foundation and The Cooperative League. 13 REVIEWS ORGANIZED LABOR AND CONSUMER COOPERA TION, by James Myers. Published by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th Street, New York City, 40 pages, 15c. This booklet is addressed not to cooperatives but to labor. And a good and challenging state ment to our friends in the labor movement it certainly is. The labor movement in this coun try needs to know much more about the coop erative movement. It needs to know it, as Dr. Myers points out, not only in its idealistic aspects but also as a plain matter of dollars and cents. If it is the practicality of our ideas that Dr. Myers stresses most in this connection no one will be likely to quarrel with him. For while men cannot live on bread alone they also cannot live without it. Organized labor, says Dr. Myers, has found one means of raising living standards, the trade-union. That device has proved highly effective in putting more dollars in the pay- envelope of trade-unionists. But, as he points out, the device only skims the surface of the problem. Another and very much more po tent device for expanding pay-envelopes lies ready at hand in the cooperative movement which, as we cooperators know, makes each dollar in the pay-envelope go further by giving us better merchandise at lower cost. Labor gives lip-service to the idea of consumer co operation but as yet has shown little inclina tion to do more than talk about it. All this and more Dr. Myers points out in his plea to labor to join forces with American cooperators in our great self-help movement. The cooperative movement is described from its humble beginnings among the Rochdale weavers (sweated workers every one of them) down to the amazing developments of the last few years in England, the Scandinavian coun tries and, most recently, here. Its relation to the labor movement is described in terms that should be helpful to cooperators as well as to labor. European cooperatives have adopted the policy of giving their cooperative employees better working conditions than are given their competitors in ordinary business. At the same time, as Dr. Myers is careful to point out, the trade-unions have shown a keen understand ing of the business problems involved and, as lie phrases it, have been careful not to "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs" by exces sive demands. The book concludes on a note of challenge. The cooperative idea has shown amazing vi tality in this countiy in the last decade. All branches of labor support it. Let us all there fore go forward together, labor and coopera tors alike. 14 And, as a final challenge of our own, let us assume the role of missionaries and see to it that this booklet gets everywhere into labor's : hands. —DOROTHY KENYON THE SOCIALISTIC TREND As AFFECTING THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT, by Dr. James P. Warbasse. Published by The Coopérât™ League of the USA, 32 pages. 15c. This brochure, Dr. Warbasse's latest, renders a signal service to the Cooperative Movement in America. Once and for all, we have a definite, two-fisted statement that "Cooperatio^ is the opposite of Socialism, and is the one effective organized force to-day that is mov ing the world away from Socialism." On this premise the Doctor builds an argument that will be hard to answer in as coolly logical t manner. He traces the creeping paralysis of stateism, and, looking ahead, sees more and more government ownership and dominatio., "if the organized consumers do not prevent it." And thus we go, step by step, toward to- tolitarianism, and all its damage to democratic rights. . . . and this is Socialism in effect, if not in pure theory. And here will come, says the author, "the conflict of the future—between a growing state- ism, (or Socialism in effect) and Coopéra tion." The severest critics of this contention! will be those who have followed, without fear, the encroaching powers of the state in these rapidly recurring periods of depression. The; believe that an expanding political state can save democracy. Dr. Warbasse doesn't. The; believe the state must ever be doing more and more for its people. Dr. Warbasse believes through Cooperation the people should be do ing more and more for themselves. Like squir rels, they jump from limb to limb and from tree to tree as one socialistic, or fascistic, ex periment "turns sour" for their ideals. Dr Warbasse remains constant. As they expect miracles from the power of the state, Dr. War- basse may also be expecting the impossible from Cooperation—but as between some doc trine of crass materialism and the doctrine of the Golden Rule we must reject the former— always. Likewise in this growing conflict, wi accept the calm, dispassionate, logical reason ing of the author. This is a brochure to which only less thought must be put into the reading than the author has put into the writing. Every sentence de serves mental parsing and close analysis. II will stand it. It must be read in a sense of d* tachment, if you will, from the dreary, opaque conditions here and abroad. If you can't di vorce yourself for the moment from the under- Current of war hysteria; if you can't gain a broader vision than that of the moment—don't read it awhile. Wait until you can read it in the crisp air and warm sunshine of clear thought. Then you will have a better idea of Cooperation as a practical ideal—not to be con fused with the reactionary theories of socialism that lead us away from democracy. —T. WARREN METZGER LATEST BOOKS RECEIVED (Available through The Cooperative League) ON COOPERATIVES Cooperation to the Finnish, by Henry H. Bak- ken, Mimir, Madison, Wis., $2.50 Credit Union North America, by Roy F. Bergen- gren, Southern Publishers, Inc., New York, $2.00 Marketing Cooperatives, by Donald F. Blank- ertz, The Ronald Press, New York, $4.00 Cooperation the Master Key in Universal Prob lems, by Lemuel Call Barnes, Schulte Press, New York, $1.00 Belgian Rural Cooperation, by Eva J. Ross, Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, $4.50 The Problem of Cooperative Medicine, by V. J. Tereshtenko, Works Projects Administra tion, New York. * * * WITH SECTIONS ON COOPERATIVES Rural Roads to Security, by Msgr. Luigi G. Ugutti and John C. Rawe, S.J., Bruce Pub lishing Co., Milwaukee, $2.75 Do You Know Labor? by James Myers, Na tional Home Library Foundation, Washing ton, D.C., 50 $ Into Abundance, by Soren K. Ostergaard, Wil- lett, Clark & Co., Chicago, $1.50 Society in the Making, by M. N. Chatterjee, published by the author, Yellow Springs, Ohio, $1.00 So You're Going to College, by Clarence E. Lovejoy, Simon and Schuster, New York, $2.50 Trails to the New America, by John W. Her ring, Harper & Bros., New York, $2.00 Leadership for Rural Life, by Dwight Sander- son, Association Press, New York, $1.25 Rural America Lights Up, by Harry Slattery, National Home Library Foundation, Wash ington, D.C., paper bound, 25(S Tomorrow in the Making, Ed. by John N. An drews and Carl A. Marsden, McGraw Hill, New York, $3.00. Ch XII. The Cooperative Way, by Jacob Baker. Group Life, by Mary K. Simkhovitch, Associa tion Press, New York, $1.00 Consumers' Cooperation January, 1941 Consumers All, by Joseph Gaer, Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, $2.00 Getting A Living, by Lutz, Foote and Stanton, Row, Peterson and Co., Evanston, 111., $1.80 Consumer Representation in the New Deal, by Persia Campbell, Columbia University Press, New York, $3-25 The American Stakes, by John Chamberlain, Carrick & Evans, Inc., New York, $2.75 Problems of American Democracy, by Horace Kidger, Ginn & Co., New York, $1.68 Introductory Sociology, by Robert L. Sutherland and Julian Woodward, Lippincott & Co., New York, $3.50 The City of Man, A Declaration on World De mocracy issued by Herbert Agar and others, Viking Press, New York, $1.00 Social Education, Stanford Educational Confer ence, Macmillan Company, New York, $1.75 Rosscommon, Charles Alien Smart, Random House, New York, $2.00 Making Consumer Education Effective, Proceed ings, 2nd National Conference, Institute for Consumer Education, Stephens College, Co lumbia, Missouri, $1.00 * * * LATEST PAMPHLETS RECEIVED Credit Unions: The People's Banks, by Max well Stewart, Public Affairs Committee, New York, 10(S What You Ought to Know About Credit Unions, by Anthony Lehner, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n, Harrisburg, Penn., 10 $2.50 color and $1.50, blart When You Buy, Trilling, Eberhart and and white. Nicholas, High school and college, two _. chapters on consumer cooperatives ........ 1.80 "The Lord Helps Those —Who Help KM» „ ., TT 11 j «r »i • <-,«> • , Othe»," a new 3 reel, 16 mm. film of the NOTI Coopération, Hall and Watkms, Official Scotla' a per week. American Students and the Cooperative "A HouHe Without » Landlord," a new 2U Movement 02 reel, 16 mm. silent film on the Amalgamate« Co-ops on the'Campus,' Bertram "ETFOwler .03 Cooperative Houses in New York City. Campus Co-ops, William Moore ... ........ 05 "ClaiipliiR lliinil«." 1(i mm. silent, two reel fill.., showing how cooperation is taught in tlii Cooperatives and Peace schools of France. Cooperatives and Peace, Harold Fey ........ .05 "When Miiiiklnil I* \VlllliiK." a 10 mm. silei» Cooperation—A Way of Peace, J. P. War- eratfve'^'tilres whoVsnles^aiid^^ctories'0!!! basse, Co-op Edition ...................................... .50 France. • Caatorrativ* Rerrrafi™ A D^ wlth Kagawu. 3 reel, silent, 16 mi_ • cooperative Kecreatton Kagawa and his co-ops in Japan. The Consumer Consumed. Josephine „*.,*,,*» ,. .« , .-..,, Johnson, a Puppet Play ........ . 05 «ental: Each of four above $3 per day, $1.50 ,, .. „ ., -, , TT . " . for each additional showing or $10 per week. Cooperative Recreation, Carl Hutchinson, reprinted from The Annals .......................... .05 POSTFRS Two One Act Plays, Ellis Cowling .............. .15 The Answer. 3-act play, EHis Cowling ...... .20 Organize Cooperatives, 19"x28" The Spider Web, 3-act play, Ellis Cowling .25 „ **Teeu' ° ro* ** —•--••••••--••-•-••----•-• - _ .. „. „ , , .. . „ Cooperative Principles. 19"x28" Let's Play, Frank Shilston .............................. .20 mue, 5 for $1 ................................................... .2« All Join Hands, Edwards and Plauché .... .15 Cooperative Ownership, 19"x28" Education Through Recreation. L. P. Jacks 1.50 Mulberry, 5 for $1 .......................................... .2« List of recreational materials, songs, dances. Consumer Ownership—Of, By and For fames, available from Cooperative Recreation the People, 19"x28", Red-White-and- ervice, Delaware. Ohio. Blue. 5 for $1 .................................................... .2« Fun for All, two spinning games, Midland Buy Co-op, 19"x28", Red-White-and-BIue. Co-op Wholesale ................................................ .10 5 for $1 ...................................................._...... .2fl 16 Consumers' Cooperation f G Stimulate Consumption Instead of Subsidizing Scarcity Cooperatives and Character Building Dr. Le Roy E. Bowman From Consumer to Crude—Cooperation All the Way Ten Things Which Cooperatives Should Do Under War Time Conditions Here's an Idea Jack McLanahan Cooperative Recreation Notes Ellen Edwards What We Ought to Know About Credit Unions: A Review J. Orrin Shipe February 1941 25 YEARS OF COOPERATION On March 18th the Cooperative League will celebrate its 25th birthday, by looking back over a quarter of a century of organized Cooperative education and looking forward to the job of post-war reconstruction. "Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come." As America turns into a new period of its economic history, the Cooperative Movement is destined to an important position of leadership. In recognition of this 25th Anniversary, the March issue of Consumers' Co operation will be a special number, dipping into the past and laying out a partial blueprint for the future. We urge you to place your order now for extra copies of the March issue* or for subscriptions to Consumers' Cooperation, $1 per year, 27 months for $2. Mail your order to: THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street, New York City THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 608 South Dearborn, Chicago 167 West 12th Street, New York City 726 Jackson Place N.W., Washington, D. C. DIVISIONS: Auditing Bureau, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Medical Bureau, 1790 Broadway, N. Y. C. Design Service, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Rochdale Institute, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. AFFILIATED REGIONAL AND NATIONAL COOPERATIVES Name Address Publication Associated Cooperatives, N. Cal. Associated Cooperatives, So. Cal. Central Cooperative Wholesale Central States Cooperatives, Inc. Consumers Cooperative Association Consumers' Cooperatives Associated Consumers Book Cooperative Cooperative Distributors Cooperative Recreation Service Eastern Cooperative League Eastern Cooperative Wholesale Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n Farm Bureau Mutual Auto Insurance Co Farm Bureau Services Farmers' Union Central Exchange Grange Cooperative Wholesale Indiana Farm Bureau Coop. Association Midland Cooperative Wholesale National Cooperatives, Inc. National Cooperative Women's Guild Pacific Supply Cooperative Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Coop. Ass'n Southeastern Coop. Education Ass'n United Cooperatives, Inc. Workmen's Mutual Fire Ins. Society 372—40th St., Oakland Cooportunity 7 218 S. Hoover St., New Age Living Los Angeles Superior, Wisconsin Cooperative Builder 2301 S. Millard, Chicago The Round Table N. Kansas City, Mo. Cooperative Consumer Amarillo, Texas The Producer-Consumer 27 Coenties Slip, N.Y.C. Readers Observer 116 E. 16 St., N. Y. Consumers Defender Delaware, Ohio The Recreation Kit 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator 135 Kent Ave., Bklyn The Cooperator Columbus, Ohio Columbus, Ohio Lansing, Michigan St. Paul, Minn. Seattle, Washington Indianapolis, Ind. Minneapolis, Minn. Ohio Farm Bureau News Ohio Farm Bureau News Michigan Farm News Farmers' Union Herald Grange Cooperative News Hoosier Farmer Midland Cooperator Chicago, 111. 608 South Dearborn, Chicago Walla Walla, Wash. Pacific N.W. Cooperate Harrisburg, Penn. Carrollton, Georgia Indianapolis, Ind. 227 E. 84th St., N. Y. Penn. Co-op Review Southeastern Cooperator FRATERNAL MEMBERS Credit Union National Association Madison, Wisconsin The Bridge CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT Volume XXVII, No. 2 PEACE -PLENTY • DEMOCRACY FEBRUARY. 1941 Ten Cents GET GROCERY MINDED! When will every cooperative leader answer the expressed and unexpressed demand of the members to get into groceries? When will we all answer the chal lenge of Sir William Dudley, late president of the Cooperative Wholesale Society of England, that feeding human stomachs cooperatively is more important than feeding animal and tractor stomachs cooperatively? The consumer need is here. The statistics show that even farmers buy more food than any other commodity. Fortune magazine gave these figures for one year of the distribution of farmer purchases: for the farmer, 571/2%, for the farm, The economic requirement is here. Margins in farm supply lines into which the cooperative movement has entered are declining as a result of cooperative competi tion. It is necessary to broaden the base of cooperatives with home supply lines to insure economic success for the future. The member demand is here. The Cooperative Reporter, published by the Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, challenges leaders to lead out in these words, "Instead of searching for facts in their field, with a view to extending the range of their services as quickly as possible, cooperatives are inclined to hold back until forced by an impatient minority to take some forward step. It is the exception and not the rule, it seems, to find an association that does not have to be almost driven to subscribe to the wider ideals of the cooperative movement." The evidence of success is here. The bogy of chain store efficiency is cracked. The Harvard study proved that even in their early stages cooperative stores have been able to equal chain stores in percentage of expense. Market basket test pur chases show that cooperative stores can and do equal chain store prices and give higher quality. A cooperative store has the precious ingredient of business which no An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond 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. chain store can ever achieve, of the loyalty of consumer ownership which results in mass automatic distribution to equal modern automatic production. All too slowly are cooperatives going into groceries. Why should not every farm supply cooperative appoint a committee to investigate the addition of home supplies to their lines. It's time to act now! Why should not urban cooperatives be formed more rapidly where none exist and follow the proven methods and achieve the possible results which others are doing ? Superior has pioneered the way. Midland, Kansas City, Chicago and Brooklyn have followed. Now the Great G.L.F. of Ithaca, N. Y. is starting to answer the unexpressed and expressed demand of their members for cooperatively purchased and processed food, as well as animal feed, by opening a modern food-store at Rome, N. Y. Other regionals should "do likewise." Religious, educational and political democracy will never be retained in Amer ica and still further developed, unless and until a cooperative economic democracy is built alongside them. Either a brighter democratic age or a darker dictatorial age is ahead of us, and we are the ones who will decide which it will be in America. STIMULATE CONSUMPTION INSTEAD OF SUBSIDIZING SCARCITY We must turn our faces toward abundance. We must accept the possibilities of power production to provide plenty for all. We must build an automatic method of mass distribution to match our automatic machines of mass produc tion. We must release our power machines from the hands of finance-capital which operates them to produce profits for the few and poverty for the many. We must take off the brakes and dig out the sand in the gears by which profits slow up production. Finance started the scarcity program by high interest rates. Industry fol lowed by high prices. Labor followed by immigration quotas and other restrictions. Agriculture then followed in line by reducing production. Now all four great producer groups are following a scarcity instead of an abundance program. And with what result? Not parity of plenty, but parity of scarcity. It could not do otherwise. Means and ends are always the same. Scarcity policies result in scarcity production, not plenty. We have reached the age of producer groupism. Finance, industry, labor and agriculture are fighting out a battle as groups instead of individuals, but it is still the same old battle with the same old results. Finance and industry continue to increase their percentage of ownership, and labor and agriculture increasingly lose out. When Henry A. Wallace, our Vice-Président, went to Washington eight years ago he said that the government was going to take hold of the heads of this four horse producer team and keep them in line. But no free government can do it and continue to be free. Government cannot control economics in a free society, nor can economics control government. Economics is made up of pro ducers and consumers. Government is made up of citizens. Only economic con sumers, not political citizens, can control economic producers in a free society. If citizens attempt to take control of producer groups, then the end is Statism. The basic trouble in America is that consumers have not recognized their potential power and organized to deal directly with the producer groups. Pro ducers are basically farmers and workers. Consumers (who are the same farmers and workers) must become the owners of finance and industry. Then represen tatives of farmers and workers, organized as producers and consumers, will meet across the table and bargain with themselves. Only then can we have plenty— never so long as we permit finance and industry to be owned by a few middle men for their own profits. Speed the organization of farmers marketing cooperatives and labor unions! Speed the organization of consumers cooperatives in every field of industry and finance! This is the road to plenty. This is the next and final step for democracy. In the meantime, until these voluntary democratic producers and consumers cooperatives can take over, the government should base its relief program for all groups on the principle of stimulating consumption instead of restricting pro duction, as it has largely done thus far. The two things most necessary are, first, to make every effort to reduce consumers prices and second, to tax away the excess savings from the few. Taxation of excess incomes, inheritances and profits is the most important function the government could perform to stimulate con sumption, instead of continuing to borrow the excess savings away and paying interest on them. The two greatest mistakes in government policy in recent years are in encouraging price fixing at higher levels and in borrowing instead of taxing. It's high time for the government to encourage consumption rather than reducing production. COOPERATIVES AND CHARACTER BUILDING ""THERE is always the temptation, A whenever one speaks of an organiza tion with which he is identified, to find in it the elements of virtue and to assume that competing or parallel organizations are "not so good." In time of war or preparation for war this temptation is stronger. Our country is the best in the world, our institutions perfect. Hence, cooperators should be on their guard right now not "to claim virtue for coop eration merely because it is their organ ization. We should be objective and criti cal of ourselves, in order to know the truth which is in itself a satisfaction, and in order to know where we should im prove. It may be well to admit, therefore, at the outset, that while there are many ways in which cooperation builds char acter, a brief survey of the movement may reveal limitations which should be stim uli to efforts to supplement its operation, by other activities that will round out its character forming potentialities. There may be gaps in the practices of coopera tives that should be filled by adoption of other or changed practices. What Is Character Building? "Character building" is a loose phrase, made up of "weasel" words. I shall not 18 Consumers' Cooperation February, 1941 Dr. LeRoy E. Bowman attempt to define it, because I do not be lieve definition important here, nor con ducive to harmonious thinking. There are several generally accepted attributes of human beings which are affected di rectly and vitally by cooperative prac tices. It is these that furnish the most fruitful basis for consideration. First and of greatest significance is the question: is character building essentially a function of consumers' cooperation? To maintain that the movement is a business and the job of building charac ter belongs to other agencies, is to pre clude any real opportunity to build char acter. For, it is in the direct connection, even the essential identity, of practical day by day affairs and ethical considera tions that character depends. To separate business methods from goodness, from unselfishness, and from ideals, is to rele gate these flowers of the human spirit to the vacuum of abstract considerations. Nothing happens to the character of those people who only in home, or church, or school are instructed to deal justly with their fellowmen, and who regard busi ness transactions outside the moral realm. Character grows in exercise of important functions. It may have been true in by- 19 gone days that personal relations were the important channels of ethics. In face to face contact one was just or unjust. But today, the welfare of us all depends on the business transacted in the country as a whole, not to say in the world. Virtue consists in doing the things which in their results bring most good to most people. Therefore, a business transaction that seems impersonal may be, and usu ally is, fraught with more significance of virtue, human kindness, unselfishness and even patriotism, than individual attitudes toward individuals. It is in the realm of consumption that life is enjoyed or suffered. We run co operative businesses in order to consume goods and services and social contacts (for they, too, are part of the area of con sumption). It is easy to see that virtue and its opposite are of first importance in the family where we consume the ele- mentals, and in the other social group ings where consumption is on a less phy sical basis. In other words, no matter what type of business we may be in, we produce and exchange in order to live the best lives possible in the realms where character counts most. How incon sistent and destructive of its own aim would be a system of production and dis tribution that ignored or destroyed char acter building in its own operations. Character building is no side line to the aims and operations of a cooperative, it is of the essence of cooperative business. Does Cooperation Foster Honesty? The principles of cooperative organ ization and control, if carried out con sistently, take away many of the incen tives of cheating and exploitation. If the members own the business obviously it is to their own interests to tell all the truth about the quality of goods or ser vices they sell themselves. The usual dis honesty of advertising fails to have any purpose in a cooperative enterprise. There is a social, democratic flavor to a coop erative that fosters a spirit of loyalty and fair play among the members. Much more might be said in high 20 praise of cooperatives as a wholesome chan nel of business relations between equals. But, after it has all been said, several questions present themselves. The first is : do consumers want to know the truth ? Are not some of them better satisfied, that is get more of what they want for their money, if they are told in glam orous advertisements of glories that ac tually do not reside in the articles they purchase? If there are consumers of that kind, is it ethical to deflate their expansive expectations and make them conscious of the cold, hard facts about cosmetics, for example? The answer is that in this respect the cooperative move ment is not merely giving to consumera just what they want. It is educating them. It is actually teaching them to want the truth, and in so doing, it is building character. The whole effort at grading and labeling is as much character build ing as it is a business effort to satisfy demands from cooperative consumers. Is There Morality in Buying Cheaper? In the matter of grading and labeling, however, the effort has come from the leaders in the movement. Perhaps that is the way it must come. But it raises the next question as to character building, and it is: to what extent are the prin ciples of cooperation the appeal to mem bers of local cooperatives, and to what extent, on the other hand, are these mem bers responding merely to the opportuni ty to get things more cheaply than from competitive enterprises. Those who are solely or chiefly motivated by the latter desire surely are not being bettered ethi cally by "buying co-op." To the extent that cooperative education is carried to each member, to that extent the prin ciples and practices of the movement haw an uplifting influence on the members. Learn to Demand Democracy Do the leaders in the cooperatives givt to the members the amount of democraq that the advocates of the cooperative movement say they do? Do the members demand and practice as much democrat« control as the statement of our prin ciples would indicate? The answer is ob vious: in most cooperatives, no, altho they vary greatly. Further, it takes time for democracy to develop in any group. Nevertheless the inescapable fact remains that the cooperative movement is given more credit for democratic organization than it deserves. And the effect on char acter of getting more praise than is due is negative; it detracts from character. Practically there are but two conclusions to come to: (1) to build character, all cooperators should be ruthless in telling the truth about the degree of democracy they possess; and (2) building character in cooperators in any given enterprise is necessary in the sense of using every means constantly to make the organiza tion democratic. To try once and sit back defeated because the members in other organizations have become habituated to the goose step, is to be untrue to the highest challenge of the movement. I would like to dig deeper. One of our essential principles concerns neutrality. We are all one family, all faiths, races, political persuasions. But are we? Do we believe in this principle? To answer one can say without fear of contradiction that the effect of cooperative experience is broadening. But we are not free of preju dice. That much could be taken for grant ed; if we are improving we can not be criticized too severely. The awful thought pops up, however, that we are not as neutral as we pretend. And pretending is not building character. Weed Out Prejudice There are cooperatives in which one kind of people predominate, whereas the community contains many other kinds who would profit from membership even more than those who belong. I speak of middle-class cooperatives which are suc cessful and satisfied, while workers are being exploited in another part of town. Lately I have heard, without great sur prise, of cooperatives, fearful, suspicious and exclusive in the attitude of their members toward Jews. The farmer co- operators and the town cooperators hard- Consumers' Cooperation February, 1941 ly understand each other in some essen tial points, to say nothing about coop erating in the big venture. It is not nec essary to give in any greater detail what a moments' critical thought will bring to the mind of any competent observer about smugness and prejudice within co operatives. Furthermore, the usual development of a local cooperative (which I am not ad versely criticizing here), beginning with a few and spreading to their friends, is quite often conducive of a closeness of understanding that is fine, but also a smugness that is bad. The fact is the modern world demands a positive reach ing across racial and other barriers in economic relations that is inadequately furnished by local cooperatives. Here, too, the question is not one of satisfying the consumer demands in the matter of com modities alone. Character building is needed in the extension of understand ing, tolerance, appreciation of common interests, even fellowship. Usually in the long view, cooperative business interests are to be served by the extension of group consciousness in cooperative members. Double-Edged Sword of Leadership Is the cooperative movement rigidly honest in one other particular, that of the reward given the leader? This is a two-edged sword. Sometimes the leader sacrifices much and is rewarded little. Sometimes a leader, even in the coopera tive movement, becomes entrenched. The emphasis has been rightly on "one-man- one-vote," but there needs to be a much more conscious and concerted effort to think through the problem of leadership. It is primarily an ethical one. The rela tionship of leader and group is contrac tual in nature, even though money never is mentioned. If a leader or a manager stays too long, and shuts off the chance of others in the local group there is surely going to be resentment, and lack of ini tiative on the part of those who might become more important leaders. Such a situation is stultifying, not character building. Some leaders are not growing 21 in character in their position any longer. For their inner ethical development often times a change, even a disappointing one, is necessary. The exhibitionism of most leaders is insatiable. They could listen to them selves make speeches forever and think the world was being led onward and up ward so long as they talk. There is more development of cooperative character in them and surely in the membership when speeches are few and short, as well as widely distributed, and when discussion is led well and is participated in generally. Is the Social Drive of Cooperation Intense Enough? Ethical evaluation of a person can be made not alone by seeing what he is, but how he relates his acts and himself to others. So, too, with a movement. Today cooperation faces the greatest responsibility it has ever seen in this country. It is the one unquestioned an swer to the need for a business system that is sound; that returns its benefits to the many consumers and not the few owners; that teaches an understanding of the whole economic process that has been stretched out and specialized beyond the imagination of 95% of those it serves; that trains individuals in democ racy; that helps spread things and ser vices to those who need them; that stabilizes business in a world in which crazy depressions follow cock-eyed peri ods of prosperity. These are days that demand courage, daring, initiative, na tional vision. We should be intense, we should be devoted, we should be single in our ef forts. Cooperators are taking their or ganization too casually. We should be relating what we do to the crisis we are in. We should be showing that in the philosophy, the effects on people, the economic results, in short, in its national significance, cooperation is of vital mo ment—NOW! We can't stop war per haps; it is already melting in this early stage some of the finest metal of our democratic ideals: But we could give co- 22 operation the place it deserves and build for the day when normal relations again must be established. I am urging less devotion to inconse quential organizations, and more to co operation. Sociability, recreation, culture, these and other things for which Ameri cans organize hundreds of good but in effective organizations that clutter u" communities, these should be built into the movement. We need to change our lives that they may count for the things that are important. To do so takes cour age. Not to do so in the light of what is happening in America and in Europe may mean that they will be changed for us. In substance I am saying that coopera tors cannot now live up to the demands on them from the times in which we live unless they do two things. One is to have the bearing of cooperation on national economics and national politics explained and discussed, with scientific charts and research experts, but discussed by every man, woman and child in the movement. The second is to concentrate our social contacts and our dispersed activities in two or three rather than a score of organ izations. One of the two or three is the cooperative. It is too often a store when it should be a community force driving at the establishment of a dynamic democ racy in the face of totalitarian threats. Does Cooperation Affect the Human Side of People or Just Do Business? For any organization or institution to gain a hold on its members, or to extend its influence widely and permanently, it is necessary that the organization relate itself closely to human or social drives of all the people it affects. It is in this re spect that competitive business fails most completely and makes its most farcical efforts to remedy its defect. To the cooperative on the other hand is open practically all the avenues of ap proach to people as humans, and all the opportunities of associating the membeis as active, interacting persons, interested in each other. To take advantage of thest opportunities in no sense lessens the ap prédation of economic advantages of co operation. It adds to such appreciation. It is impossible to build character except through vital, interesting give-and-take between people. Many will think immediately of the meeting. Usually the meeting can be hu manized a great deal. Give-and-take should be the ideal. Instead of a long and dry presentation of figures or a set of facts, discussion could be induced among all the members as to what they want in the matter in hand, and the facts and figures brought in to feed this give-and- take. Graphic material is social, believe it or not. The reason is that a chart, or a diagram, or a graph of any kind, maybe a picture, held up before a crowd gives a feeling of oneness, of something they all can look at together, of an object that is common for discussion. The important points in any meeting should be few. If they could be gotten across to all the audience it would lift the interest in almost every organization. A skit, or an original song, a poem said in unison, a Punch and Judy illustration might be more effective, use more people, spread the leadership, interest more of the audience and go deeper into the feel ings, than a meeting wholly devoted to reports and speeches. One human proclivity organizations learn to use to connect members with the organization is the universal desire to eat. To eat together is not pampering the dis interested. Even the wise old timers have cooperation driven closer into their in most selves by a meeting at a meal than by the same meeting in straight back chairs in rows. Is this character building? It is, if ever cooperation builds character, for it is con structed out of the responses we make rather than the words we hear. At a din ner everyone is served the same. Everyone responds. Any experienced leader will say that a feeling of equality and uni versal, active response is the best possible prelude to an important development in a meeting. For this reason community singing is often resorted to, or congre- Consumers' Cooperation February, 1941 gational reading. Perhaps it is wise to say that universal response on a basis of equality is the essential condition to be achieved before character can be built. A prominent organizer and educator replies to the question: what is needed most to get cooperators back of their or ganizations, by saying: (1) Get people waked up; (2) Get them working to gether, not just being dominated. Noth ing could be better then than an active game, a square dance, singing of well- known songs. It is easy; it is enjoyable; it always works. After there has been a feeling of common response, then the individuals will more freely take the ini tiative in discussion, in committee activity or in work in the business. Action, Creation— Even a Dash of Romance In the active, the social, the creative, and the expressive response, there will be a play of many of the wishes of people. Everybody will count as one, he will be recognized by simply taking part. Every one will get the satisfaction of others responding to him, in games, dances, dra matics, discussion. Friendliness, even a bit of romance for some, a chance to show ability for many who are silent in meet ings—these and other emotional responses are stirred. Many if not most people, per haps all, are stirred more deeply by active, social or aesthetic expressions than by mere talk. It is for this reason that coop eration must include expressions of the kind mentioned if it is attempting to affect at all deeply the individuals who form its membership. The deepest feelings and the universal appreciations have been the best impulses of artists to create in song, sculpture, painting, dance, drama, in prose or in poetry, the finest formulations of the spirit. In our movement we have the form, the logic, the economic interest. For them to take the place of beauty in our lives that they deserve it will be necessary that they be formulated out of living experiences involving thought and feeling of us all. 23 FROM CONSUMER TO CRUDE .... IN THE saga of cooperative history in America it will be recorded that Con sumers Cooperative Association of North Kansas City pioneered the road in petroleum products all the way from consumer to crude. What this will mean in the long future as others follow down the same road is scarcely imaginable. Even now many cooperators and others are only beginning to grasp the significance . of this true far-reaching event. The log of the CCA cooperative ship records the following dates: 1929, the organization of the cooperative wholesale owned by retail cooperatives which in turn were owned by consumers. 1938 the organization of a cooperative trucking service hauling from refinery to wholesale and retail cooperatives. 1940 the starting of the cooperative refinery. 1940 the flow of crude in a cooperatively owned pipe line. 1940 the drilling of the cooperative oil wells. At kst it can be said in America, the consumers cooperative movement has gone all the way—from raw material production, to transportation to the processing plant, to processing, to trucking to retail cooperatives, to retail distribution to consumer members. But the consumer story must be told in reverse—the steps were from (1) retailing to (2) trucking to (3) refining to (4) pipe-lining to (5) production. We hasten to say, lest there be unwise conclusions drawn, that while a hundred years of history show that consumers can go all the way cooperatively in the distribution, transportation, processing and production of industrial com modities, the same hundred years show that consumers largely fail when they try to go all the way in agricultural commodities—agricultural producers must come part way and meet the ' consumers to achieve the greatest success in lower prices for consumers and higher pay for producers. We also add, to make the record complete and accurate, that producers generally fail in the long run when they try to go all the way to the consumer in agricultural commodities—they must let the consumer come and meet them part way. , . COOPERATION ALL THE WAY A prominent cooperative leader said recently in an executive session that cooperatives should perform the maximum number of practical operations on a commodity. He illustrated this in farm products by discussing the possible savings from the producer to the consumer in marketing, in transportation, in processing, in warehousing, in containers, in distribution. The commodities into which cooperatives enter should be decided upon only after careful research into margins, etc. The widest margin and simplest and bulkiest form of consumption commodities should be the first. This was the great decision that transformed the cooperative purchasing movement from failure to success when it entered into feed and fertilizer and petroleum products after the war. How much of the total volume shall cooperatives do, is constantly asked. Why set any limit? Let time and not theory determine. We feel like George Russell, when someone says the cooperative movement should only do some certain per centage, "I would like to exile the man who would set limits to what we can do, who would take the crown and sceptre from the human will and say, marking out some petty enterprise as the limit, 'Thus far can we go and no farther, and here shall our life be stayed'." In Finland cooperative distribution has reached 36% and has been gradually absorbing private-profit business at the rate of 1% per year. Who can say where the limit should be? Of course, the immediate necessity is to grow large enough in every line to become an effective yardstick. But then? Well, who knows? There should be no theoretical limit. Practical re sults alone should determine the answer. The moral of the story we started out to tell is—now we will in time have a yardstick of costs all the way in petroleum products from crude production to petroleum consumption—the end results of which are beyond comprehension today. R E T A l l l N C P I PI N G 24 Consumers' Cooperation February, 1941 25 TEN THINGS WHICH COOPERATIVES SHOULD DO UNDER WAR-TIME CONDITIONS HERE'S AN IDEA —ON FORM LETTERS jack II II 1. Increase Membership. A coopera tive is alive only when it is growing. Membership drives should not only be put on at periodic times, but every day should be new member day, with every employee and every member soliciting new members as they meet them. 2. Increase Services. New services should be added as rapidly as pos sible, after thorough investigation, both in order to better serve the mem bers, and also to offset the constantly reducing margins on the older lines handled. 3. Increase Capital. The capital of a cooperative should be increased until the cooperative is out of debt and the members are full owners, and then should continue to be increased still further to provide for the financing of additional new services. There is no other investment equally as sound today as investment in a cooperative. 4. Increase Reserves. A large per centage of the savings made by a co operative should be retained, rather than paid out in patronage returns. They may be retained in the form of general reserves to provide against emergencies, and as patrons equity re serves to more rapidly supply addi tional capital. 5. Increase Education. Increased edu cation of both present and prospec tive members is necessary to build strong cooperatives. The best way to provide the necessary funds is to ap propriate a definite percentage of volume monthly as a part of current operating expenses. One per cent of the volume of a local cooperative is recommended by the Directors of The 26 Cooperative League for education and recreation. 6. Decrease Receivables. A coopera tive business institution should not endeavor to be also a credit institv tion. Where credit is necessary it should be provided by a separate co operative credit association. However, members should educate themselves to save and put their budgets on a cash basis as rapidly as possible. 7. Decrease Payables. The Swedes sa" that cooperatives should neither give nor accept credit. No cooperative is fully free so long as it is in debt. 8. Decrease Inventories. Efficient op eration requires a constant increas ingly rapid turnover of inventorie- or a reduction in percentage to vol ume. Increases in inventory values should be set up as reserves against possible future declines. A coopera tive cannot gamble on the stock mar ket—it should not gamble on the commodity market. 9. Decrease Investments. Care should be exercised in making additional investments in facilities at excessive ly high prices to prevent later heavy depreciation. 10. Decrease Expenses. Economy in op erations is not a matter of under payment of employees, but of elim ination of waste and unnecessary ex penses and the increased efficiency of everyone's efforts. While these recommendations are urged for war-time conditions, they apply—war or no war. Cooperatives cannot go wrong in following them at all times. Consumers' Cooperation HAS it ever been your job to sit down and try to write out a form letter? Sooner or later every co-op makes use of them, for everything from collecting bills to interesting the housewife in buy ing co-op groceries. Such letters make it possible to handle many situations quickly and easily and there is a clear cut place for them in publicity and edu cational work. Now, along comes the occasion when it is your responsibility to turn out such a letter. You sit down to make a draft. You scratch your head, go over all the past experiences you've had, try to remember a point here and there that you thought was good. You realize that a form letter must ring the bell. After several hours, perhaps late into the early morning, you come up with a letter. It may be good, but it is not checked against experience. You can only hope it will do the job. Wouldn't it be a good idea to make a collection of form letters you know have been successful. Then, when it is your turn to draw up such a letter, you could just use the one that seemed to meet your needs. Below are listed excerpts taken from successful form letters: Dear School Teacher: We are taking the liberty of sending you the enclosed literature on Consumers' Cooperation. In view of the interest in and support of this movement by the National Ed ucation Association we believe you will find the subject of interest. . . . Now is the time to begin working for prac tical social ideals; your local Coopera tive is an integral part of a better fu ture—help it grow! Dear Housewife: Isn't it confusing to try to decide what brand or label of canned goods to take from among the many different kinds in a modern gro cery store? How is the consumer to know what is inside the can ? ... Come down to the store and look around. The store manager will be glad to February, 1941 help you and to answer questions you have. Dear Minister: As times grow harder and the world is torn by war, we all wonder just what may be a solution to it all. And surely the inequalities among the people in our own com munity must cause suffering to one who is preaching the Christian faith. . . . Churches everywhere are begin ning to realize the necessity of sup porting some movement. . . ... There is already a cooperative store organ ized on the Rochdale principles in ..................................... Why not drop in some time soon to see what the people are actually doing for themselves? Dear Farmer: A long time ago the farmers in the U.S. and other coun tries found that they could benefit by owning their own businesses. They bought feed and fertilizer together to save money. . . And the best news of all is the fact that there is a real co operative food store in............................... ... Dear Union Member: The national labor organizations have officially en dorsed the consumer cooperative move ment and encouraged union members to support the movement. . . Announcing an annual meeting: An other year has come and with it many problems that need our attention. Have you told us how we might make your store better, and make it all that you wish it to be? ... If every stock holder will make it his business to buy at least one-half of his grocery needs at his own store, the premises will have to be expanded in a few months. To New Members: We wish to wel come you as a new member of our Cooperative Association and we hope that you will not only enjoy the prod ucts in our store, but will get the same pleasure as we do in building up the whole cooperative movement. You 27 II K probably have many questions in your mind about the movement and about our local association. We are enclos ing a pamphlet. . . Possibly the League, acting as a clearing house, should make a collection of form letters, sift out the poor ones, and make the rest available. Then when a co-op is faced with the problem of writing a form letter the collection could be re ferred to and the proper form selected No doubt changes would have to be made, but the local co-op could feel pret ty safe that the chief components of the form letter were tested and would fill the bill. What do you think? (Complete copies of the form letters men tioned above may be had by writing Jack McLanahan, Midland Cooperative Whole sale, Minneapolis, Minnesota.) RECENT ARTICLES ON COOPERATIVES ADVERTISING AGE, October 21, 1940, "Co-op Head Sees Movement Replacing Economic System" AMERICAN MAGAZINE, October, 1940, "North Woods Miracle," John F. Coggswell BUSINESS WEEK, October 12, 1940, "Co-ops Organize Financing Unit" CANADIAN FORUM, July, 1940, "Cooperatives in Canada," Janet Coerr CATHOLIC RURAL LIFE BULLETIN, November, 1940, "Why Discussion Groups?" Alva H. Benton, and "Let's Do Something About Housing," Richard Deverall CHINESE RECORDER, August, 1940, "Coopera tives and Christian Missions," Lewis S. C. Smythe CHRISTIAN CENTURY, October 9, 1940, "Are the Co-ops Getting Anywhere?" George H. Tichenor COLLIERS, November 16, 1940, "Their Own Juice," Jennings Perry COLUMBIA, December, 1940, "Co-ops are Con crete," George Boyle CORONET, February, 1941, "Beating the High Cost of Living," Michael Evans FREE AMERICA, October 1940, "Quiet Mir acles," P. B. Stoyan, January, 1941, "The Outlook for 1941," Wallace J. Campbell FRIDAY, October 18, 1940, "Miracle of Men of Antigonish" INDUSTRIAL WORKER, December 14, 1940, "Haywood and Cooperation," Justus Ebert JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS AND OP ERATORS, October, 1940, "Built by Coop- tion," an editorial MONTHLY LABOR REVIEW, September, 1940, "Consumers Cooperatives, 1938" October, 1940, "Consumers' Coopera tives, 1939" November, 1940, "Operations of Co operative Burial Associations, 1939" NATIONAL PETROLEUM NEWS, November, 1940, "Making the Democracy of Private Ownership Work," Warren C. Platt NEW REPUBLIC, October 7, 1940, "Cooperation Marches," an editorial OPPORTUNITY, November, 1940, "Cooperation —Nothing New," Cornelius King 28 PARENTS' MAGAZINE, October, 1940, "Youth Finds a Way to Get What It Wants," Helen Buckler PM'S WEEKLY, January 5, 1941, "Fast Grow ing, Cost-Cutting U.S. Co-ops Shun 'Isms' " PRINTERS' INK, October 25, 1940, "Union of Church and Economics is Dramatized as Co ops Reveal Rapid Progress" PRINTERS' INK MONTHLY, November, 1940, "A $600,000,000 Business With 2,000,000 Owners," Richard Giles PROTESTANT DIGEST, October-November, 1940, "When the Rains Come," an editorial PUBLIC AFFAIRS, August, 1940, "The Coopera tive Movement in Newfoundland," H. B. Mayo READERS' DIGEST, November, 1940, "Maine Line to Recovery," a reprint of "North Woods Miracle," from The American February, 1941, "China's Guerrilla In dustry," Bertram B. Fowler SATURDAY EVENING POST, February 8, 1941, "China's Blitzbuilder, Rewi Alley," Edgar Snow SOCIAL FORUM, October, 1940, "Co-ops Give Worker Freedom and Security," John Halli- nan SOCIAL PROGRESS, December, 1940, "Miners Build Homes," Mary Ellicott Arnold SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, July-August, 1940, "The Cooperative Study Group," Dr. Emory S. Bogardus SURVEY GRAPHIC, February 1941, "China's Guerrilla Industry," Bertram B. Fowler TIDE, November 1, 1940, "Co-ops—They Meet in Chicago" WELCOME NEWS, September, 1940, "Producer- Consumer Economics," Jesse Bryan Summary of Cooperative Business for the Year appeared in: The New York Times, January 2, 1941, "Cooperatives Push New Construc tion" PM, December 31, 1940, "Cooperative Business Flourished in 1940" Netv York World Telegram, January 9, 1941, "Co-op Units More Active" RECREATION NEWS NOTES Two regional recreation conferences were held recently by former students of the National Recreation School. The last week-end of the old year, 30 students in Minnesota and Wisconsin and others in that area interested in recreation got to gether for a week-end of folk dancing, singing, games, dramatics and discussion at Osceloa, Wisconsin. Frank Shilston and Wilbur Leathermen, Midland fieldman and members of the board of the National Recreation School, headed the confer ence. The group unanimously decided to hold similar week-ends in the future and a volunteer committee was set up to work out plans. In Ohio, 25 former students gathered for "fun and frolic" at Marion, Ohio, January 24-26. * * * A recreation committee fired with zeal to promote folk dancing, athletic teams, parties, skiing, skating, short plays, co op skits, musicals and movies has been set up by the Associated Cooperatives of Northern California. John Affolter, chair man, reports that the recreation commit tee will be available to work out programs with local societies. Associated Coopera tives is now represented by the first co op basketball team to invade Northern California. One or more skiing parties are planned under the leadership of Larry Collins. Plans are also under way for a play-writing contest, and one cooperator, Mrs. William Girdner of Palo Alto, au thor of a three-act play on the Rochdale Weavers, is now working on a one-act play portraying the need for consumer co operation. In San Francisco the chief recreational interest is in folk dancing and plans are being made for a Fun Co-op "for the sole purpose of dispensing recre ation with the Twin Pine label." A folk dance party will be held February 15. * * * To meet the increasing demand and interest in cooperative recreational activi ties throughout the Central Cooperative Wholesale area, a Cooperative Recreation School is planned for the week-end of Consumers' Cooperation1 February, 1941 Ellen Edwards March 1-3. The school is sponsored by the District Education Committee of the Northern States Cooperative Youth League and will include instruction in folk games, dances, singing, crafts and dramatics as well as an opportunity to discuss recreation problems. Chester Gra ham, educational director for the Madi son Cooperative Council and Frank Shils ton, Midland fieldman and director of the National Recreational School will be the instructors. * * * The February issue of the OHIO FARM BUREAU NEWS features an ar ticle on the Washington County (Ohio) Youth Council. A picture of the group doing "Bow Belinda" makes a striking cover. There are more than 70 young people active in the Council. After many discussions the group decided that coop erative action is the best way to solve the serious problems facing them and their fellow citizens, that only through mutual education can that cooperative action be effective, and that both education and action can be best developed through the spirit of group understanding resulting from playing cooperatively. Consequently the group has chosen for one of its jobs during the coming year the leadership and training of other groups interested in folk dancing and other forms of coop erative recreation. A group of fifteen, headed by Chairman Jim Wagner was chosen to meet frequently, plan programs and arrange for engagements to be filled from week to week. Judging by demands from various organizations in the county, the group will be kept busy. * * * An enthusiastic crowd of one hundred and thirty attended the first party given by the Consumers Cooperative Society of Leonia, New Jersey late last month. Games, and European and American folk dances, under the direction of the Play Co-op, New York, were enjoyed by the group. 29 WHAT'S NEWS WITH THE CO-OPS J! On the New Store Front During the last six weeks co-op store modernization has been moving rapidly in the Eastern Co-op Wholesale area. Co operative societies in Hempstead, L. I., Staten Island, N. Y., Mid City, Phila delphia, Port Washington, L. I., Read ing, Pa., Weymouth-Braintree, Mass, and Rockeville, Conn, have opened full-time cooperative food stores or moved from small stores into large ones. The Maynard Cooperative Society appropriated $50,000 to make its store into a streamlined super market. Co-ops at Madison and Ridge- wood, New Jersey and the Co-op Trad ing Association in Harlem, New York City opened new produce and dairy de partments. In Rome, New York, the first co-op food store sponsored by the Cooperative G.L.F. Exchange opened for business February 5. Consumer Distribution Cor poration and Eastern Cooperative Whole sale are working with local cooperators, supplying technical assistance and tem porary financial aid. In Superior, Wis. and Duluth, Minn. new self-service stores were opened as Central Cooperative Wholesale launched a drive for ten stream-lined stores by April. Berkeley and Palo Alto, California co-ops moved to larger, more modern stores. Seventy-two cooperative grocery mana gers, clerks and directors gathered at the headquarters of Consumers Cooperative Association in North Kansas City, Janu ary 27-28 to discuss modernizing grocery stores. Herbert E. Evans, vice-president of Consumer Distribution Corporation told the co-op grocery managers, "We shouldn't tolerate a third rate co-op store imitating the methods of fourth rate com petition. Co-op stores must be leaders in their communities." New Service Stations Among the co-op self-service stations built by cooperators in important cities 30 in the last few months were the Konsum Service Station in Washington, D.C., and co-ops in Berkeley, California and Colum bus, Ohio. Institutes and Training Schools Central Cooperative Wholesale's ten week employee training school this fall was followed by the first employee train ing institute'to be sponsored by the Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Association. Shortly after the first of the year, em ployee training schools were opened at Midland Co-op Wholesale, Consumers Cooperative Association and North Da kota Farmers Union. Rochdale Institute, national training school in consumer co operation working with the Council for Cooperative Business Training, will open its spring term, February 24. Labor and Cooperatives As we go to press, 1941 's first Institute on Organized Labor and Consumer Coop eration is being held in North Kansas City, Missouri with labor, farm and co operative representatives participating. During the fall, the A. F. of L. and C.I.O. conventions renewed their endorsement of consumer cooperation. Oil The cooperative refinery at Phillips- burg, Kansas ended its first fiscal year in the black although it had been in opera tion only six months of the fiscal year. It paid interest dividends totaling $13,000 to 7,000 co-ops and individuals. A seventh co-op oil well supplying crude oil for the co-op refinery "came in" January 26. A report on oil distribution in the state of Minnesota prepared by the Division of Agricultural Economics and Agri cultural Extension of the University of Minnesota showed that the volume by gal lons of light oils handled by cooperatives in the state of Minnesota has tripled in the last seven years and that the co-op percentage of oil handled in the state had grown from 6.1% in 1933 to 10.6% in 1939- Kanabec County reported that 69.2% of the light oils distributed in the county was handled by cooperatives. Consumer Cooperative Refineries at Re gina, Saskatchewan took a revolutionary step forward at its annual meeting in De cember when the co-op voted to post its own prices for petroleum products dis regarding those posted by the major com panies. The move is designed to eliminate the inequities of the present price struc ture controlled by the old line companies. Record Business! Midland Cooperative Wholesale re ported an all-time high volume of $4,- 426,536 in 1940 including grocery sales amounting to $246,492. Business volume not including groceries showed an in crease of 11%. Since the grocery depart ment was launched in mid 1939 no com parable grocery figures are available. Eastern Cooperative Wholesale report ed an increase of business of 45% over 1939 booming forward to a record busi ness of $1,555,000. Central Cooperative Wholesale re ported a business of $3,883,658 in 1940, an increase of $457,000 or 13.34%. REVIEWS WHAT WE OUGHT To KNOW ABOUT CREDIT UNIONS, by Anthony Lehner, Department of Education, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, Harrisburg, Penn sylvania, lOc. Available through The Co operative League of the U.S.A. Here is a pamphlet which fills a longfelt need. It is written by a man who knows what credit unions are, how they operate, and what they can do to help people to help themselves. He writes with the intimate knowledge of an active credit union member, and the observa tions he made while connected with the Indi ana Farm Bureau, which was one of the first farmer organizations to realize that credit unions are ideally geared to serve the farmer, and now has 45 credit unions with a mem bership of over 5,650. In answer to the question, Can Credit Unions operate successfully among Farm Supply Co operatives? Lehner not only brings out all the pros and cons but cites concrete examples and figures to substantiate his definite statement. Consumers' Cooperation February, 1941 "Co-op Week" Governor Julius P. Heil of Wisconsin issued a proclamation designating Febru ary 17-21 inclusive as "Wisconsin Coop erative Week." In issuing the proclama tion, Governor Heil declared: "In these days of strain, fear, misunderstanding and conflict, there is greater need than ever for our people to consider ways and means of working together." Farm-Labor-Cooperation The Third Biennial Educational Con ference of labor-farmer-cooperative groups meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, January 17-18 demanded that facts about the co operative movement should be taught more widely in Wisconsin schools and urged that more courses and institutes on cooperatives be held in major educational institutions. New Warehouses The Pacific Supply Cooperative with headquarters at Walla Walla, Washing ton opened new branch warehouses in Portland, Oregon and Pocatello, Idaho in December to handle the rapidly growing business of the six-year-old co-op whole sale serving 60 co-ops in the Northwest ern states. "Credit Unions among farmers can and do junction successfully whenever we really want to make them junction." The writer of "What We Ought to Know About Credit Unions" strongly recommends that Credit Unions should (1) Set aside a portion of their earnings and allocate them to an educational fund which should be used to acquaint the members and others thoroughly with the services and benefits of their Credit Union, to explain to them how it operates and to make them understand they share in the responsibility of managing it. (2) Credit Unions should affiliate with their State League and the Credit Union National Association. This pamphlet, although written particularly for rural cooperative groups, contains much information which will profit everyone to read. It will, however, be especially useful to rural groups which need credit union service just as badly as the urban industrial worker. —J. ORRIN SHIPE, Educational Director Credit Union National Association 31 n !» ft! 1940 INDEX An index of CONSUMERS' CO OPERATION for 1940 will be sent to subscribers free on request. CO-OP LITERATURE • Novels and Biography Fresh Furrow : Burris Jenkins .................... 2.00 The Brave Years: Wm. Heyliger .................. 1.50 My Story, by Paddy the Cope, Co-ops in Ireland .................................................................. 2.75 A Doctor tor the People, Michael Shadid, special edition .................................................... 1.25 Leaflet, to Aid You: ** Jj ' How a Consumers Cooperative Dif- i ers From Ordinary Business ........ .01 .Ii I Saw a People Rising From the Dead, Rev. Ignatius W. Cox, S. J. .02 1.» Learn About Consumers Cooperation .02 1.W Sure Way is the Quick Way .............. .02 1.W The Burden of Credit ........_.._.......... .02 1.B What Cooperation Means to a De pression Sick America, Cooley ...... .02 2.« Answering Your Questions About the Co-operative ...................................... .02 1.51 What Attracts Members to the Co operative Store Movement, from Sales Management ................................ .02 1.51 Building a Brave New World, George Ticheiior .................................................... .02 ta A $600,000,000 Business With 2,000,000 _ _ , , . Customers, Richard Giles, Printers • Textbooks on Cooperation Ink Monthly ............................................ .02 1.51 Consumers' Cooperatives, Julia E. John- Union of Church and Economics is son. Debate Handbook .................................. .90 Dramatized as Co-ops Reveal Rapid When You Buy, Trilling. Eberhart and Progress, P. H. Erbes, Jr., Printers' Nicholas, High school and college, two Iuk ................................................................ -02 1.51 chapters on consumer cooperatives ........ 1.80 Brickbats and Boomerangs, E. R. Cooperation, Hall and Watkins, Official Bowen ........................................................ .03 2.M British Textbook .............................................. 3.0(1 The Consumers Cooperative as a Distrlbu- FILMS tlve Agency, Orin E. Burley 3.00 Traveling tnfi ^^ Way ,n Bweden 18 ^ Windows on the World, Kenneth Gould, silent, produced hy the Harmon Foundation. high school text, one chapter on coop- (jnit I, Land of Sweden, 2 reels. Unit II eratlves ................................................................ 3.0(1 Consumer Cooperation, 2 reels. Unit IE • c«.,,» i rn „„,„,; Agricultural Cooperatives, 2 reels. Rental p«i • Student Cooperatives unlt: color, $5; black and white, $3; addl American Students and the Cooperative tional showings, $2.50 color and $1.50, bind Hovement ................................._...................... .02 and white. Co-ops on the Campus, Bertram B. Fowler .03 "The Lord Help» Thole — Who Help But Campus Co-ops, William Moore .................... .05 «^VduT^uA? Sf ÄraÄ Campus Co-op News Letter ............................ .25 gram, produced by the Harmon Foundation ,, j „ Excellent photography. $4.50 per day, $2.21 Cooperatives and Peace additional showing. $13.50 per week. Cooperatives and Feace, Harold Fey ........ .03 Consumers Serve Themselves, 1 reel, 16 mm, Cooperation—A Way of Feace, J. P. War- Kodacrome, shows how cooperators on tl« basse Co-on Edition in eastern seaboard are providing themselvel basse. Co op lidition ...................................... .50 wjth teste(J Quallty CO-OP products. ?2 per • Cooperative Recreation day. $6 per week. Th« r'nnalimai. rnn.iiiiu.ri Tf,«o,,l,i,,o "A IloUHe Without B Landlord," a UeW 2ty Johnson aTuDDet PI.?v ' Josephlne 0, reel, 16 mm. silent film on the Amalgamai Johnson, a Puppet Play ................. .0.1 CuOperative Houses in New York City. Cooperative Becreation, Carl Hutchmson, . . _, -, .. -- -, * . , M renrinted from The Annal« O>> "«lanplng Hand»," 16 mm. Silent, two reel fill». reprinted from Ihe Annals ....................... .05 „,lowlne ,1OW cooperation i. taufht in tl. Two One Act Flay», Ellis Cowling .............. .15 schools of France. The Answer, 3-act play, Bills Cowling ...... .20 .-When Mankind I» Wllline." « 1« mm. silem The Spider Web, 3-act play, Ellis Cowling .25 three-reel film, with English title», of coop Let's Flay, Frank Shilston .............................. .20 erative stores, wholesales and factories I» All Join Hands, Edwards and Planché .... .15 France. Education Through Be^tlon, I, P. Jacks !.50 A ^^a^hXrôps3 intâp^' " """ FCo o°DrwhoirsaIePilmlng ^™*' Mm*Uä 10 «entel: Each of four above $3 per day, «LU Co-op Wholesale ................................................ .10 for each addltlona] showing or $10 per week. List of recreational materials, songs, dances, games, available from Cooperative Recreation _ _ Service, Delaware. Ohio. POSTBBS • /^ J-, ji • Organize Cooperatives, 19"x28" • Credit Unions Green, 5 for $1 ................................................ .2« Credit Unions, Frank O'llara ........................ .05 Cooperative Principles, 19"x28" What You Ought to Know About Credit Blue, 5 for $1 ..——....................—.................... .M Unions, Anthony Lehner .............................. .10 Cooperative Ownership, 18"x28" Credit Unions: The People's Banks, Max- Mulberry, 5 for $1 .......................................... 3> well Stewart ...................................................... .10 Consumer Ownership—Of, By and For Tuna Emerges (Credit Unions), Roy Ber- the People, 18"x28", Red-White-and- sengren ................................................................ 1.00 Blue. 5 for $1 .................................................... .2) Credit Union North America, Roy Bergen- Buy Co-op, 19"x28", Red-White-and-Blue, gren ........................................................................ 2.0(1 5 for $1 ........................................_................. .20 _________ 32 Consumers' Cooperation ...,,....•»«•.* ^ A NATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE LEADERS MARCH. 1941 DOCTOR JAMES PETER WARBASSE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 25 YEARS OF COOPERATION, James P. Warbasse AS I REMEMBER, Peter Hamilton, Mabel Cheel, Mary Arnold, Mary Coover Long, Colston Warne, A. S. Goss, I. H. Hull, Waldemar Niemela, Rev. R. A. McGowan. Like the Blooming of a Rose "The beginning of The League did not occur per saltern, but is somethir more like the blooming of a rose," thus wrote Dr. Warbasse when he described the first days of organized consumer cooperative education under the guidanct of The Cooperative League of the USA. So it was! For our national magazine Consumers' Cooperation first saw the light of day in May 1914 almost two years before The Cooperative League -was formally organized. While we are celebrating, The Magazine bids its youngs brother a happy 25th Anniversary and takes a couple of extra bows itself. In keeping with this occasion Consumers' Cooperation bursts forth with i new cover format and with sixteen extra pages under its belt. Send a subscription for a friend, or have other members of your co-op sub scribe. And if your own subscription is about to expire, renew // today so you will not miss an issue of the Consumers' Cooperation—$1 per year, 27 months for $2. Send your subscriptions today to: THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE OF THE USA 167 West 12th Street New York City , CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OFTHE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE I 608 South Dearborn, Chicago 167 West 12th Street, New York City 726 Jackson Place N.W., Washington, D. C DIVISIONS: Auditing Bureau, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Medical Bureau, 1790 Broadway, N. Y. C. Design Service, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Rochdale Institute, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. AFFILIATED REGIONAL AND NATIONAL COOPERATIVES Name Address Publication Associated Cooperatives, N. Cal. Associated Cooperatives, So. Cal. Central Cooperative Wholesale Central States Coopeiatives, Inc. Consumers Cooperative Association Consumers' Cooperatives Associated Consumers Book Cooperative Cooperative Distributors Cooperative Recreation Service Eastern Cooperative League Eastern Cooperative Wholesale Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n Farm Bureau Mutual Auto Insurance Co Farm Bureau Services Farmers' Union Central Exchange Grange Cooperative Wholesale Indiana Farm Bureau Coop. Association Midland Cooperative Wholesale National Cooperatives, Inc. National Cooperative Women's Guild Pacific Supply Cooperative Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Coop. Ass'n Southeastern Coop. Education Ass'n United Cooperatives, Inc. Workmen's Mutual Fire Ins. Society Columbus, Ohio Columbus, Ohio Lansing, Michigan St. Paul, Minn. Seattle, Washington Indianapolis, Ind. Minneapolis, Minn. Chicago, 111. 608 South Dearborn, Chicago Walla Walla, Wash. Pacific N.W. Cooperator Harrisburg, Penn. Carrollton, Georgia Indianapolis, Ind. 227 E. 84th St., N. Y. Penn. Co-op Review Southeastern Cooperator PEACE • PLENTY- DEMOCRACY Volume XXVII. No. 3 MARCH, 1941 Ten Cents 372—40th St., Oakland Cooportunity 7218 S. Hoover St., Ne*/ Age Living Los Angeles Superior, Wisconsin Cooperative Builder 2301 S. Millard, Chicago The Round Table N. Kansas City, Mo. Cooperative Consumer Amarillo, Texas The Producer-Consumer 27 Coenties Slip, N.Y.C. Readers Observer 116 E. 16 St., N. Y. Consumers Defender Delaware, Ohio The Recreation Kit 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator 135 Kent Ave., Bklyn The Cooperator Ohio Farm Bureau News Ohio Farm Bureau News Michigan Farm News Farmers' Union Herald Grange Cooperative News Hoosier Farmer Midland Cooperator THE ROCHDALE PIONEERS SALUTE THE AMERICAN PIONEERS Today we of the present generation of cooperators, salute the American Pioneers who formally organized the Cooperative League 2 5 years ago on March 18, 1916. We also salute those American cooperators whose still earlier pioneering efforts laid the groundwork on which the League was started. But, much as we of today honor those who laid the groundwork for a national organization of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement in the United States (of whom many, happily, are still among us), we are moved to suggest that, since the pioneering spirit goes marching on, it may not be amiss to imagine that the Rochdale Pioneers today salute the American Pioneers with even greater joy. Yet the dreams of the Rochdale Pioneers and our own American Pioneers are far from being realized. Today, it seems that they are even being discarded in many countries. But "the Light knows the need, and the way." And the Light never fails to draw the souls and minds of men on toward the truth, though the economic and political clouds may seem at times to hide it. So while we salute the Pioneers of the past, we also challenge the Pioneers of the future to struggle on in the unfinished task of freedom, as Marie de L. Welch said in the New Republic: "There is much space still to explore and conquer, Between these old seas, on this well-known ground ; The world is wide as always, and as always Wider than the world is round. Last league of water sailed, last island settled, Still must explorers voyage hardy hearted. Peace is a country yet unknown, and Plenty Has been discovered but is not yet charted." FRATERNAL MEMBERS Credit Union National Association Madison, Wisconsin The Bridge An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond 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. "THESE ARE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS" So challenged Thomas Paine during the Revolutionary War in "The Ameri can Crisis." Today we are in the midst of the third great American crisis. Merii souls are being tried again today, as perhaps never before. This issue of the national magazine is largely given over to the history of 2 years of The Cooperative League. But in such trying times as these, we cannn forget the problems of the present. The following editorials are according!; directed toward these immediate problems. After you have read these few page you will then find many interesting pages from the history of the past 25 yean THE SILLINESS OF SUBSIDIZING SCARCITY There is no other possible word to accurately describe our economic illiterao than "silly." "When a people become imbecile they place themselves in the hand of the State." That is what we are increasingly doing. One of the latest and mes definite evidences of our mental aberration is illustrated by the application of th stamp relief plan to cotton, which will give to cotton planters, in payment f not planting cotton, stamps entitling them to cotton sheets, pillow cases, tabl: cloths, napkins and underclothing. For the producer to get finished cotton througf political government hands after it has passed through private-profit manufat turers and distributors hands, in return for not raising raw cotton, is the heigli of mental economic illiteracy. The producer of raw cotton should deal direct will himself as the consumer of finished cotton. He can do so when he organizes a market raw cotton and purchase finished cotton cooperatively. Then he will bypar both the political government and profit business, which will drop out of tK economic picture as they should. It was explained as a clerical error when a cranberry farmer received a goi ernment AAA check for $1,000,015.25. But there are more than one millio dollar keys punched in error in paying for the waste in the present political relic and profit system of getting raw products from the producer back in finish« form to the same producer as a consumer. THERE ARE NO HALF-WAY STOPS ON A GREASED TOBOGGA1* a free society. If such is done, the result is dictatorship, not democracy. A gov ernment regulated economy is on the greased toboggan toward dictatorship. A free economy must be self-regulated and self-contained—not dependent on a political government. That is what a Cooperative Economy would be. It does not lean on the gov ernment. It asks only the right to develop free from government interference. "WE MUST TEACH IN SPECIFICS—" A group of British churchmen have published a joint letter advocating that "extreme inequality in wealth and possessions should be abolished." The Pope's Christmas eve prayer was for "victory over economic maladjustment." President Roosevelt's annual message set as a goal "freedom from economic want." The people of the world are becoming skeptical of such generalities. They want specific action and results. One reason we do not have definite action is that definite thinking is lacking. At times we hear some one say "I know what I want to say, but I cannot express it." Yet if he really knew, he could express what he knew. So leaders speak vaguely because they have not yet thought their way through to specific methods of action and can accordingly only express high- sounding general goals. Dr. M. M. Coady, the famous adult-education cooperative-organization leader of Nova Scotia, says in his book, "Masters of Their Own Destiny," that "We must teach in specifics . . . We preach and teach in the abstract. We expect the common man to transfer these abstract doctrines into concrete actions. We perpetuate the old educational fallacy that abstract knowledge is sure to transfer to the realm of practical life. We might as well try to teach piano by lecture." An outstanding evolution of thinking from generalities to specifics is illus trated by two succeeding year's resolutions adopted by the annual conference of the Northern Baptists. At their 1934 annual conference generalized goal resolu tions were adopted which read, "we believe our churches should study the coop erative commonwealth." In 1935 they had thought their way through to specific action and urged, "we recommend to our churches that they study consumers co operatives and credit unions." It is necessary to set forth general goals, but it is even more necessary to COOPERATORS SHOULD NOT BE FOOLED BY GOVERNMENT PRICE REGULATION Yesterday it was said that "A nation cannot continue half slave1 and half free.1 , " '5 "«-.««^ «> *« ™™ gênerai é 1 advocate specific steps toward those goals. Today we are in the process of demonstrating that "a nation cannot be halt at war and half at peace." The Special Peace issue of CONSUMERS COOPERA TION, published in October 1939 immediately after war was declared in Europe recited the four steps leading to war as (1) Materials, (2) Munitions, (3) Monej and (4) Men. Today we have reached the third step of supplying Money. _ . . , ,, , - . .. Cooperators should be the "salt of the earth" in clearly explaining the rea- Tomorrow, when the present worlds war insanity of destruction is ova ^ wh a fo m ^ ^ wofk ^ ; government intervention and we start again at the age old task of building a world of plenty may we hav, lead; tQ di^torship; and in advocating the various elements of a cooperative also learned the lesson that an economic system cannot be half reguated and half eœ Just fiow ^ are œncerned ^ cooperators allow themselves to be free. It will either be all regulated by the political government or all a free econ fooled b nment ice regulation. v omy. There is no permanent half-way stopping place. re When all the shouting is over—cracking the whip of legal prosecution by Department of Justice—threats by the members of the Defense Commission t government might take over^ business—when it is all over it will be found .„. , , ,. . rrxr>u-i-/~L..rr>.. u We repeat the profound observation of Dr. Philip Cabot of Boston wh declared that a government and an economy ,n a democracy are creatures of free society. Neither can control the other ,n a free society, nor can either contre 34 Consumers' Coopératif,. permanently effective than Teddy Roosevelt's big stick, which 35 proved to be less effective than a toothpick in strength, or than the NRA blue eagle's claws,' or the world-war's price decrees. Once more consumers are going to be milked by higher prices, no mattei how bombastic may be the threats of prosecutions or taking over. If the govern ment does fix any prices it will be for the producers and not for the consumers. All government regulation of private business results in higher prices than would otherwise be the case, rather than lower prices. The reason is simple—when thei government tries to enter into price fixing it must always fix prices that will take care of the high cost producers. They would be eliminated by normal competi tion, but under government regulation they get a lease on life by higher prices fixed by the government. As an illustration, witness the Coal Law. The consume» pays more for coal since the law was put into effect, not less. When the Vice-Président went to Washington he spoke of the government taking hold of the heads of finance, industry, labor and agriculture and keeping them in line. This follows the Locke theory of "government ringmaster." But no political government can itself overcome "capitalist sabotage" and remain free. If the government did fix lower prices it could only do so by converting itself into a dictatorship. The only way the government can really help the consumer is by promoting cooperative arid public ownership of non-profit yardsticks which will act as auto matic regulators of consumers prices. As an illustration, the Attorney General has announced a suit against electric light bulb manufacturers. He should havi left this to the cooperatives to take care of in time, as they did in Sweden, and as the government cannot do unless it takes over bulb manufacturers. Cooperators should develop a long memory and learn from the past failure of government to regulate prices in the interest of the consumer, as well as lean from following the course of the present ballyhooed efforts, which we predid will end with the same futile results. SAVE-SPEND COOPERATIVELY FOR SECURITY If the people of the world had learned to Save-Spend Cooperatively we would not be discussing today Lease-Lend Preparedness. We would already be secure- secure from war, as well as secure from want. Unfortunately we are apparentlji not willing to learn as yet except in part through destruction—tather than con struction. * Yet, "it is all so simple," as Kagawa said. First, we must learn that Coop eration, not competition, is the life of trade and be willing to cooperate. Second we must learn to save our money cooperatively—to mobilize our money in coopj erative credit unions, cooperative finance association, cooperative banks, coopéra tive shares. Third, we must learn to spend our money cooperatively—in coopen tive stores, oil stations, cafeterias, medical and burial associations, and so fortl The biggest thing right now we need to learn is to mobilize our money coop eratively and get out of debt, both as individual cooperators and as coopératives For, after this war is over, there will be no end of Humpty-Dumpty cooperative that will fall and cannot be put together again, unless they increase their tel serves and capital and decrease their receivables and payables to a far great« degree. As "a watchman on the wall" we urge you to heed this warning and g cooperatives down on solid ground financially while there is yet time' 36 Consumers' Coopérai THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE J. P. Warbasse BEFORE 1916, there was no integrated cooperative movement in the United States. There had been scattered coopera tive societies for more than a hundred years. But no national federation had united them into a concerted movement. There was practically no cooperative edu cation. The directors of most cooperative societies were aware of the Rochdale prin ciples. The prevalent educational idea was that of "learning by doing." The leaders in cooperative promotion organ ized cooperative societies with the view that the people would learn about coop eration by patronizing and running their society. Usually they made fatal mistakes, and failed. Without a central place of information and lacking coordination, within a few miles of a society that had failed, another society would start, make the same mistakes, and perish from the same errors. Education and Unity It was obvious that two essentials had to be met in order to create a cooperative movement. The first was education. The second was unity. The Cooperative League was planned in 1915 to meet these needs. Its constitution was adopted on March 18, 1916. It first made a survey of existing societies in the United States and developed the first roster of such societies. It examined into the causes of failure. A voluminous literature in pam phlet form was then issued. This dealt with cooperative principles and methods, and the history of cooperation, taken largely from the British, French, and Ger man cooperative literature. The failures of cooperative societies were discussed. We gained strength out of these errors by recognizing them and by taking measures for their correction. During the first twelve years of its existence, The League was financed most- March, 1941 ly -by voluntary philanthropic contribu tions. It developed contact with the ex isting cooperative societies. These in time began to join The League. From the be ginning, the societies which came into this federation were the soundest, the most progressive and the societies with the best understanding of cooperation. This has continued up to the present time; and for this reason The League has been recognized as the center of the best cooperative principles and practices and as the authoritative source of infor mation on cooperation. Tools of Cooperation Among the first pamphlets published by The League were "The Cooperative Movement in America," "How to Organ ize a Cooperative Society," "The Distinc tion Between Consumers' and Producers' Cooperation," "The Cooperative League —Its Aims and Principles," "Dangers which Threaten the Cooperative Society," "Cooperation and Labor Organizations" and "Consumers' Cooperation during the War." "Why Cooperative Stores Fail" was published in 1918. The first three books.on general cooperation published in America were written by the directors of The League. After collecting information about the existing societies, the next thing was to provide them with information about cooperation. This was done regardless of whether they were members of The League or not. The pamphlets of The League were widely and freely distrib uted. A Speakers Bureau provided lec turers. An Educational Secretary func tioned during the first twelve years. Lec ture courses on cooperation and schools for study were conducted. The labor movement was brought into close rela tion with The League. A traveling ex hibit was sent across the country and in 37 1924 it was taken to the Congress of the International Cooperative Alliance in Belgium. The League became a member of the Alliance in 1921, and has had rep resentation on its Central Committee and has sent delegates to each international congress of the Alliance since that time. The First Congress The first congress of The League was held in 1918. Since then a congress has been held every second year. The con stitution of The League has scarcely been changed since its adoption. The organiza tion is simple. The League consists only of cooperative consumer societies which are conducted according to Rochdale prin ciples. Its membership now is almost ex clusively regional federations. Its con gresses are composed of delegates from the constituent societies. A board of di rectors and an executive committee are the administrative bodies. In 1918 there were less than 100 societies in member ship. With the exception of a few credit societies and some with general stores, most of the societies conducted only gro cery stores. By 1924, The League had 333 societies in membership, with 50,000 members, and a turnover of $15,000,000 yearly. It had published and was circulat ing 59 different pamphlets and leaflets. It was publishing two magazines — one for executives and teachers and one for the general membership — and was issu ing a News Bulletin to 275 newspapers. In 1928 The League was disturbed by communist dissension in some of its so cieties. The "prosperity" which had pre vailed had caused a decline of interest in cooperation among industrial workers. But a new element was joining The League which in time was to change its character. This was the organized farmers. They had discovered that they were con sumers, and as purchasers of farm sup plies were proceeding to cast their lot with the consumers' movement. By 1932 the majority of members of The League were agricultural consumers' societies. In 1934, there was a membership of 450 38 societies with 100,000 individual mem creased jts turnover 29%; the Eastern bers. When National Cooperatives, ft Wholesale, wth 200 societies, advanced national wholesale, joined The League; jts business 45%; the Consumers Coop- the membership rose to 1,498 societies erative Association, a federation of 450 with 500,000 individual members, and societies, increased its turnover 15%; with a yearly turnover of $100,000,000, and no wholesale in membership in The By 1935 the 1,500 societies had 750,00» League experienced a decrease in business, members and a turnover of $150,000,000. National Cooperatives, Inc. formed in 1933, is a federation of 14 regional Nearing the Million Mark wholesales which did a business of over $50,000,000 in 1940. These organiza- In 1936, the individual membership o! tions are becoming dominant factors in the constituent societies was 704,000. In many fields. They now regulate the price 1938, it was 965,000. In 1940, it was of fertilizer in several states. The testing over a million; and the turnover of the laboratories of some of the wholesales 2,000 member societies was $200,000,. are standardizing certain foods. 000. The majority of societies in mem bership in The League are still agricul- Moving into Production tural consumer societies. They begin bj supplying to their members farm essen. At the 1940 Congress of The League, tials such as feed, fertilizer, tools, ma- delegates from 40 out of the 48 states chinery, and petroleum products. Already were present. Progress in every depart- among these societies are some large and ment of cooperation was reported. The efficient manufacturing plants for the pro-r greatest progress was that of the oil in duction of these commodities as well as dustry. The year 1940 was characterized flour mills, paint factories, and oil re- by the erection of additional cooperative fineries. They have been highly success- factories, mills, and refineries. Coopera- ful in the production of lubricating oils, tive banking and insurance expanded, and more recently in the manufacture of Grocery distribution steadily increased, fuel oils and fine gasoline. One of these Outside of The Cooperative League is organizations during the past year has g . number of ^^ whkh are built a gasoline refinery with a dad, in|uenœ| b it There are over 17j000 capacity of 3,000 barrels of oil. It has consumer J^ The mfal dectric so. built 92 miles of pipeline connecting , ^ haye madg electdc and u ht refinery with the seven oil wells whid ^^ Q famf th have 't,^™1^ E / ye?r-, *? built 200,000 miles of lines. There are $100000,000 worth of petroleum pro - ^zfoe banks (credit unions) ucts flowed through cooperative channels ^ 2^000 members and assets of in IJ4V. , $200,000,000. Several thousand coopera- The consumer cooperatives in the tive telephone societies are highly success- United States now represent a highly ef- fui. Cooperative burial societies and ficient as well as expanding factor in the housing societies are expanding slowly, oil industry. Since March 1935, they have The total purchases of the commodity so- shipped petroleum products to the coop-' cieties in 1940 amounted to about $500,- erative wholesales of Esthonia, Bulgaria, 000,000. Student cooperatives have de- Belgium, France and Scotland at lower veloped on the campuses of many colleges cost and in superior quality than were and universities for supplying housing, available in those countries. food, and other student needs. The ex pansion of cooperative health associations As examples of business expansion dur-f is s[ow Although there is much interest ing the past year: the Central Cooperative in this subject and a Bureau of Coopera- Wholesale, serving 140 societies, in- t;ve Medicine for its promotion, and al Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 though the need for cooperative medicine is very great, the nationally organized medical profession in its powerful trau° union is able to obstruct the advancement of this form of cooperative service. As a result of this obstruction, state medicine such as is developing in Europe, instead of voluntary cooperative medicine, is the likelihood. National Training School Rochdale Institute was started by The League in 1937. This is a national school for the training of cooperative executives and educators. It follows new lines of education based on the idea that educa tion is a continuous process rather than an accomplishment. Cooperative study groups are in action in all parts of the country. The State of Ohio has over 600 such groups. Moving pictures and radio are used for educational purposes. JH Cooperative League House 39 •111 ™ " The League lays emphasis on coopera- tive education and upon adherence to Rochdale principles. Like the Swedish cooperative movement, the union of so- cieties is being effected in an educational and promotional national organization. Within this league of societies is the na- tional cooperative wholesale. There is no official violation of the principle of neu- trality. The Cooperative League resists any tendency toward an alliance with any political party. As a result of this political neutrality, every political party, appeal ing for the support of citizens, writes into its platform endorsement of con sumer cooperation. Because of this neu trality, the churches of all denominations, the great educational associations, and the important social organizations openly en- dorse and express approval of consumer cooperation. The cooperative movement in the United States has won the respect and the approval of every organized ele ment in the country excepting the traders' and business interests which fear its com petition because of its efficiency. The hos- tility against cooperation is due to its | efficiency as a means of supplying human needs. And that hostility comes from the field of profit business, with a growing consciousness of its own inefficiency in supplying human needs, and a growing realization of its destiny to fade out and pass over into stateism. Stateism — the ex- pansion of the state into a position of dominance over the individual and over property — is seen as the ultimate threat to cooperation. To Build a Free Society The Cooperative League of the United States is preparing itself to become the center of guidance and promotion in the evolution of the new economy toward which this country is moving; to avoid stateism; to circumvent autocracy; and to attain cooperative democracy by the con sistent policy of building free and volun tary cooperative societies. 40 THE 25th Anniversary Dinners Chicago, March 18 An anniversary dinner sponsored by Central States Cooperatives and local cooperatives in the Chicago area. The full Board of Directors of The Coopera tive League will be special guests of honor. New York, March 20 A 25th anniversary dinner, honoring Dr. and Mrs. James P. Warbasse, spon sored by Eastern Cooperative League and a host of old-time cooperators. 25th Street branch of Consumers Co operative Services, 7 p.m., $1.50. Washington, D. C., March 24 A special dinner commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Cooperative League, sponsored by the District of Columbia Cooperative League. Consumers' Cooperation CO-OPERATIVE CONSUMER Published by The Co-operative Propaganda Publishing Association, 567 Thirteenth Street, West New York, New Jersey Provisional Executive Committee: MRS. A. ROSENTHAL, Treas., EMERSON P. HARRIS, M. H. COHN. WILLIAM A. KRAUS ALBERT SONNICHSEN, Editor Subscription, 25c. a year Five cents a copy VOL. I MAY, 1914 No. 1 Why. lust seventy years ago, in a small English mill town, twenty-eight weavers out on strike got together in the tap room of a dingy tavern and organized themselves into a club. Their purpose — but that is an old story and nearly everybody knows it. They were the famous weavers of Rochdale. Their club prospered and grew in membership. Its ultimate purpose, to establish a world-wide industrial demo cracy, has not yet been accomplished. But there are to-day ten million people throughout the civilized countries of the world who believe that if eyer we are to obtain a higher social order, it must be by the path mapped out by the Roch dale weavers. Each year sees a huge increase in their numbers. In Great Britain alone 116,000 new members were enrolled last year, bringing the total membership of the British co-oper ative societies up . to three million; counting each as the head of a family, they now include more than one fourth of the whole population. Together with Greece and Turkey and Abyssinia we have been slow to respond to the call of the Rochdale% Pioneers. But at last we are beginning to heed. The co operative idea, if not yet the move ment, has gained a foothold in this country. Not only is co-operation being discussed on all sides but here and there, March, 1941 throughout the land, small groups have organized, as did the Pioneers them selves, and are trying out the idea in actual practice. Forty thousand they number, according to Washington sta* tistics. In the eastern states alone there are' over a hundred such groups, each trav eling its solitary way, ignorant of wha't the other groups are doing or may have accomplished. Surely these groups, each with its own experiences, good and bad, must have much to teach each other. If there is one thing you can not learn from the text book, it is co-operation. The literature on the subject is scant enough at the best. Co-operative prac tice can only be learned from many ex periences, and this is especially true of those little details which vary with local conditions but which must, nevertheless, be overcome before success can be at tained. It for no other reason than this : the exchange of experiences and ideas, co- operators should get together. It is in the hope of bringing tnis about that The Co-operative Consumer is issued by a group of individuals devoted to the Rochdale idea. By publishing reports of significent events among the co-oper ative groups, by serving as a medium through which individuals may tell how 41 and why they succeeded or failed, we hope to give each group the benefit of the experiences of all. But there is yet a greater reason why the local groups should come together. The co-operator who believes that the co-operative store is an end in itself is wasting his time and energy; he might better collect stamps. This much, at least, Europe rrjay teach us. It is not the profits of the small retailer that weigh us down; usually his gains amount to little more than a fair reward for very hard labor. If co-operation is worth working for, it must promise more than the reduction in price of a loaf of bread from five to four cents; the excep tional store that has accomplished so much has given all that it has to offer, by itself. Before co-operation can influence economic conditions at all, it must reach up into the higher stratas of capitalist trade and industry. If we devote so much time and pains to the management of our store, it is only because we are undergoing the preliminary training that shall fit us for greater tasks beyond. Without its own independent source of supply, without co-operative production, carried on in factories owned and con trolled by the organized consumers, as is already done abroad, the co-operative store remains utterly insignificent. To attempt these bigger enterprises without solidarity of organization would be futile. And here you have the chief reason why we must come together, first through mutual intercourse, then in the bonds of a wide spread organization. But you cannot build without mortar. Such an organization will only be poss ible when we all have a common under standing of what our aim is, when we are all agreed 6n 4iow to attain it. Unity of purpose and a clear conception of fundamental principles is the mortar be tween our bricks. When we say that the time is not ripe for a certain new development in our movement, such as the establishment of a wholesale society, we only mean thereby that the brains of the co-operators are not yet in a con-. dition to put such an enterprise through. It all comes down to a propaganda of education. By that it must not bf> un derstood that we, a few of us who have read half a dozen books or papers on the subject, constitute a select group who are going to instruct the ignorant masses. All we can do is to stir up the( debate, through which we shall all lean ' together. We do not need teachers to hand us out a set of dogmas, to be learned by rote ; what we want is stimu lation of thought. Lack of thought is the only real obstacle that co-operation has to overcome. This is the work which The Co-pper- ative Consumer proposes to undertake; stimulate thought on this one subject. The theories it voices editorially may not all be sound ; some may be absolut ely wrong, but if it stimulates thought and action, it accomplishes its purpose. Of course, it should not be the sole business of a publication such as ours to propound great theories. Most of our space must be devoted to reporting actual events that have some signifi- cence, some instructive value, to all the members of the movement. Then there must be open discussion of the details of actual practice, whether it be how to establish a delivery system for a store or to organize a national union. But on the other hand we cannot eli minate theory altogether. Theory is only another name for the engineers' blue prints. We are building up nothing less than a new industrial system, and it is perfectly legitimate to discuss the roof, though we are still only at work on the foundation walls. It is his vision of the finished structure, no matter how exaggerated its glories, that gives the worker the enthusiasm to continue building the dull foundations. However, discussion of theory does not mean a mere indulgence in visions. What we want is to draw our blue prints. The object of a blue print is to guide your work so that you limit your energies to the efforts that count. Theory will help us formulate our thoughts on what we are aiming at. By knowing OUT aim we shall also know how to distinguish the useless from the real. That is especially necessary in this country, where countless forms of enter prise travel about under the name of co-operation. There are private corpor ations with profit sharing schemes, rural batiks, building and loan associations, fruit packers' associations. The Co operative Consumer starts out with the assumption that these enterprises, no matter how beneficial they may be to the actual participants, do not represent the co-operation which shall benefit the whole people. We are aware that there are thousands of sincere co-operators who will not agree with this view. An open discussion will present the evidence on both sides ; the majority shall then decide. There is only one principle tha. we shall not discuss, and that is the principle of democracy itself. That stands, argument or no argument. Whether The Co-operative Consumer shall sink or float depends entirely on the support it gets from the rank and file of the movement. The dozen in dividuals behind the publication of this first number are in no financial position to sustain such an enterprise by them selves. And of all the kinds and varieties of publications that apply for second class mailing privileges, a co operative publication is the last that may hope for support from advertising. Our working capital must come from direct taxation. It is up to you, the individual. Without your direct sup port there can be no organ for the move ment. WHY? HOW? In using the word "Why" as the subject of the first editorial written for the national magazine, then called The Cooperative Consumer, in 1914, Albert Son- nichsen led his readers into doing straight thinking. He might well have also added the word "How," since the magazine was started to answer both questions, "Why Poverty"?—"How Plenty"? Read this editorial and see how prophetic of the future it was. Sbnnichsen's story of the life of John T. W. Mitchell was one of the strongest appeals ever written to private business men to transfer themselves over into the Cooperative Movement where they can truly serve the people. John Ruskin says that the principal question in life is "What should a man die for?" He then adds that a business man is not presumed by society to die for anything. But John Mitchell, a former business man, discovered the answer—that by transferring over into the Cooperative Movement he had a cause worth dying for—the devel opment of an economy of plenty for all and peace on earth. Sonnichsen's book "Consumer's Cooperation" should be reprinted and kept in circulation indefinitely. It is one of the clearest interpretations of the Move ment ever written, and his style of writing was incisive. The present editor owes much to the first editor, Albert Sonnichsen, and hereby pays him his deep respects. 42 Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 43 THE THE CO-OPERATIVE CONSUMER CO-OPERATIVE CONSUMER Published by The Consumers' Co-operative Union, 567 Thirteenth Street, West New York, New Jersey. EMERSON P. HARRIS, Près.; RUFUS TRIMBLE, Sec'y; MRS. A. ROSENTHAL, Treas.; WM. A. KRAUS, Business Mgr.; ALBERT SONNICHSEN, Editor. Subscription, 25c. a year Five cents a copy VOL. I JUNE, 1914 No. 2 What Co-operators Are Doing. The third meeting of the organizers of the Consumers' Co-operative Union, (Consumers' Co-operative Publishing Association) was called to order in the evening of April 24, at 394 First Street, Hoboken, N. J. It was unanimously decided to change the name of the society to "Consumers' Co-operative Union", as indicating more comprehensively its program, which includes other forms of co-oper ative propaganda beside publishing literature. The purpose is to make it a federation of the store societies for propaganda, similar to the British Co operative Union, rather than an organ ization of individuals. Among those present were representatives from Elizabeth, N.J., West New York, N.J., The Co-operative League, Ne-v York City and Paterson, N. J. The treasurer read a detailed report, GREAT DAYS IN COOPERATIVE HISTORY April 24th, 1914 should be recorded in American Cooperative annals as the day when a small group of cooperators met and formally organized the Consumers Cooperative Union. The brief story is reproduced herewith from Volume I, Number 2, of the national magazine published in June, 1914. March 18, 1916 should be particularly recorded in American Cooperative annals as the date of the organization of The Cooperative League. The story is reproduced here from the April 1916 issue of Volume II, Number 7, of die magazine. Published Monthly by The Consumers' Co-operative Union 490 Bergenline Avenue, West New York, New Jersey Entered as second class matter July 21st, 1914, at the Post Office at Weehawken, N. J. under the Act of March 3rd, 1879 EMERSON P. HARRIS, Près.; RUFUS TRIMBLE, Sec.; MRS. A. ROSENTHAL, Treas. WM. A. KRAUS, Business Mgr. ; ALBERT SONNICHSEN, Editor Subscription, 25c. a year Five cents a copy VOL. II APRIL, 1916 No. 7. after which it was unanimously decided that the society was justified in contin uing the publication of the Co-operative Consumer, the number of subscriptions being especially encouraging. An elelction of permanent officers followed. Emerson P. Harris, (Mont-1 clair, N. J.,) was chosen president, Rufus Trimble, (New York City), secretary, Mrs. A.. K. Rosenthal, (.Pat erson, N. J.,) treasurer. The certificate of incorporation was read and, after some few amendments, was unanimously adopted. A meeting of the new Board ol> Directors was held immediately aft., adjournment of the general meeting. Wm. Kraus was elected business man ager and Albert Sonnichsen editor" ol The Co-operative Consumer. The Co-operative League of America For three months The Co-operative Consumer has not been issued. But we, those of us who believe the need for a centralized organization of the movement is the most pressing just at this time, have not been idle. Not un like the Germans at Verdun, we have gathered together all our forces and resources and have made one strong and determined effort to push ahead. The result is the Co-operative League of America, organized on the 18th of last month. Certainly it would have been more desirable to have organized a federa tion of local co-operative societies, and so have created a true-to-type Co-oper ative Union. But unfortunately our local societies are too scattered to form an effective Union just at present. And even if they could have been brought together, the dues which they could reasonably have been expected to contribute toward a working fund •would have been too insignificant to have paid the expenses of the most modest kind of a central office. The local societies are too few 'and too weak financially to support an ef fective general propaganda.. But scattered all over the country are many individuals keenly interested irf Co-operation ; keenly interested, but too isolated to form themselves into co-operative societies. Taking all these individual's together, the^- are probably quite as numerous and quite Consumers' Cooperation Marcj1) 1941 as enthusiastic as the members of the societies. It was to utilize the strength of this element, in combination with the members of societies, that the Co- operaive League was organized. The Co-operative League is, there fore, a society of individual co-opera tors who propose to push a general campaign of propaganda until the so cieties shall be strong enough to under take it for themselves. The organizers were: Dr. and Mrs. James P. Warbasse, Mr. and Mrs. Scott Perky, William Kraus, Emerson P. Harris, Ferdinand Foernsler, Hy- man Cohn, Charles F. Merkel, Dr. Louis Lavine, Max Heidelberg, W. J. Hanifin, Isaac Roberts, Peter Hamil ton, Walter Long, Mrs. and Mr. Ernst Rosenthal, Rufus Trimble, A. J. Mar- golin, Albert Sonnichsen, most of whom are familiar to our readers as persons who have devoted much en ergy in the past for the cause and who have graduated through the experi ences of local organization. The constitution and by-laws for the society, which were approved by a general meeting, held on March 18, at 384 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y., deserve close, consideration. The aim of the League is "to spread a knowledge of the history, principles, purposes and methods of the Co-oper ative movement; to encourage the for mation of consumers' co-operative so cieties, to publish periodical and other 45 50 THE CO-OPERATIVE CONSUMER THE CO-OPERATIVE CONSUMER 51 forms of literature, to conduct such investigations as shall contribute to the knowledge necessary for the suc cessful operation of co-operative soci eties, to establish a central office to disseminate information and to serve as a medium for the exchange of ideas and experiences between co-operative societies, and to organize a staff of persons, experienced in the theory and practice of co-operation, to guide new ly-formed co-operative groups through the difficulties of their early organiza tion." The members also express the opin ion "that all propaganda for Co-opera tion should be carried on and finan cially supported by the co-operative societies themselves, on a democratic basis, as is done in other countries." To bring this about all co-operative societies are urged to participât» in the work of the League by affiliating tnemseH-es with it, gradually assuming full control, until the League shall de velop into a proper Co-operative Un ion, such as exists in nearly every other country in the world. Sticklers for democracy may object to this form of organization as being neither fish or fowl ; a hybrid, in which individuals and co-operative societies are herded together. To such persons it may be pointed out that the League has one of the most notable precedents in the history of the Co-operative movement. Twen ty years ago, when the International Co-operative Alliance was organized, its membershin was composed largely of individuals, who represented noth ing but themselves. Societies were reluctant to join for this reason, until finally the British Co-operative Union broke the ice by affiliating itself with the Alliance. Other societies in other countries began joining. Little by little the privileges of the individuals were restricted. Then their votes were taken away from them. And today, the I. C. A. is a true federation of the co-operative societies and unions of all the world. This was the example the organizers of the League had in mind when they drafted the constitution. From the very beginning, however, the affiliated societies will have the bal ance of power. The dues of individual members will be : active members, $1 a year ; contributing members, $10 a year and life members, $100. Active members will be entitled only to a sub scription to the official organ of the League ; contributing and life member ship will include all literature issued by the organization. The dues of affiliated co-operative societies will be only five cents pet member per year. And while each in dividual member has only one vote in the affairs of the society, the co-opera tive societies have one vote for every forty members. In referendum voting, however, the members of the affiliated societies 'have each one vote ; thus the balance of pow er remains in their hands. The officers of the league are a Pres ident, Secretary and Treasurer who, to gether with twelve other members, will comprise the Executive Committee, whose function it will be to carry out all the activities initiated by the mem bers at the general meetings. Aside from Executive Committee there is A Control Committee of three member whose business it will be to audit all the accounts of the organization and supervise the referendum elections. The organizers feel that they have made every possible provision for a truly democratic government. For all that, however, the present constitution has been adopted only pro visionally. It was unanimously decid ed that the League should call a gen eral convention of co-operators, to take place some time next autum, at which the constitution should be finally rati fied or, if need be, ammended or revis ed. Every effort will be made to give national scope to the organization. So cieties, or unions, in all parts of the country will be urged to join and make their voices felt in the affairs of the League. In fact, so strong was the de sire to give a voice to future members that at this first election several va cancies in the Executive Committee were left so that they might be filled by persons representing co-operation in other parts of the country, just so soon as they can be persuaded to join. The provisional officers elected were : President, Dr. James P. Warbasse; Secretary, Scott Perky and Treasurer, Peter Hamilton. Members of the Executive Committee: Ferdinand Fo- ernsler, William Kraus, Isaac Roberts, Hyman Cohn, Albert Sonnichsen, Em erson P. Harris and Rufus Trimble, to hold office until the convention. Meanwhile, however, the Executive Committee proposes to get the work proposed well on its feet. Already the copy of some of the literature to be issued is in the hands of the printer. First of all will be published the Con- stiutution of the League in full and a leaflet explaining its aims. The ten tative list of titles of publications to follow, prepared by the committee on literature, is as follows : The Co-operative Movement Before the War (Illustrated). The Co-operative Movement During the War. The Co-operative Movement in America. How to Organize a Co-operative Society. Dangers Which Threaten the Co operative Society. The Distinction Between Consum ers' and Producers' Co-operative So cieties. The Destiny of the Co-operative Movement. Co-operation and Labor Organiza tions. As for an official organ, while the transfer has not yet been made, The Co-operative Consumer will be taken over by the League as such. As prac tically all the members of the old Con sumers' Co-operative Union are now members of the League, it may be said that the two organizations are merged and that thus the Consumer becomes the official organ of the League. The legal formalities will be undertaken at once. While the Treasurer has not yet is sued a report (only ten days having passed since the organization of the League), the applications for member ship so far received have been extreme ly encouraging; already there is enough money in the treasury to make a start. But, of course, no matter how many individuals may show their enthusias- ium by joining, the ultimate success of the League is by no means assured. That depends entirely on the co-opera tive societies. Quite aside from the question of funds, if the societies show no interest in pushing for a general organization, individuals will soon find their enthusiasm evaporating. Again we urge members of local co operative societies, and especially the officers of such societies, to consider the work which the League proposes to undertake, as expressed in its Con stitution, and quoted above. Do you not realize that alone, iso lated, your society can never become a permanent success? Is the end of all your efforts to be only a miserable little five or six per cent, dividend on the purchases of your members? Don't you realize that in all other countries there was no real success until a co-operative union was estab lished? Don't you realize that the moment a chain store corporation decides to es tablish a branch in the next street, you are done for? You are frittering away your time and energy in trying to solve those ir ritating little problems that confront every isolated co-operative störe, be lieving and hoping that you will finally overcome them. There is only one solution to all those local troubles : ONE POWER FUL, GENERAL MOVEMENT. WHICH SHALL STAND, ALL FOR EACH AND EACH FOR ALL. 46 Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 47 86 TEARS AGO AM) HOW 26 years ago the national magazine said, "the dues of the constituent societies shall amount to five cents per member pat year"» 26 years later the Treasurer reported that the league had paid its own «ay out of dues of five cents per member for the first time in it« history* * * * * 26 years ago the first publication by the Cooperative Lea gue ires announced» 25 years later the League bibliography in cludes hundreds of books, pamphlets, leaflets, etc» * * * * 25 years ago a irriter in the national magazine urged, "Why not add insurance to groceries and so build powerful coop, erative societies?11 26 years later the question is, "Why not add groceries to insurance and farm supplies»" * * * * 26 years ago the national magazine published an article advocating cooperative recreation and said, "ire must get the people by the heart strings} those who can be persuaded by lo« gio are too few.» «It is not enough to held people by their sto machs» It is also necessary to hold them by their hearts". Evidence was cited from Belgium, "When music and dancing were introduced, the membership expanded rapidly". £5 years later the Cooperative League included recreation as a fourth corner stone of cooperation« * * * * 25 years ago the national magazine quoted George W. Rus sell, "I want to unite countrymen and townmen in one movement, and to make the cooperative principle the basis of a national civilization"» 25 years later R. H. Benjamin said, "In our educational program we have answered the call for help from the town as readily as from the farm". * * * * 25 years ago the national magazine said that, "The Swed ish associations are moving in the direction of the abolition of credit"» 25 years later Consumers' Cooperative Association of Horth Kansas City reported that "Strictly oash trading was put into effect at CCA on February 1, 1959"» * * * * 25 years ago the national magazine quoted George Russell, "The best solution of our national troubles might be to make all Irishmen oooperators"» 26 years later the Cooperative Lea gue is trying to persuade Americans to be oooperators» * * * * 25 years ago the national magazine asked, "How shall we togin?" and answered the question, "from study circle, to buy ing olub, to cooperative society". 25 years later L. E. Wood« eook said "with our oity cooperatives in the east there is re peated again and again the progress from discussion group, to buying olub, to small store, to full food market11« * * * * 25 years ago in the national magazine, John H« Walker, President of the Illinois Federation of Labor answered the question, "Why the Labor Man Should Become a Cooperator"» 26 yeare later Jacob Baker and Mark Starr answered the same ques tion in the same way, "to lower prices and to raise pay"» * * * * 25 years ago Albert Sonniohsen, editor of the national magazine said, "This world is a hell these days. God speed Co operation I" 26 years later the present editor says, "The gates of hell are wide open today« Build Cooperatives faster I" * * * * 25 years ago in the national magazine. Dr. J. F. Warbasse, President, said, "The old competitive system of profits and privilege has at last attained its goal. Its utter inadequacy to solve the great problem is revealed. It has led the world into a cataclysm of death"« 25 years later Dr. James P. War- basse. President, said, "The conflict now raging is due to the decay of the profit system". * * * * 25 years ago the national magazine urged "Cooperative pro duction in factories owned and controlled by the organized con sumers*. 25 years later II. R. Briggs and H. A. Cowden describ ed the factories cooperative associations had built. * * * * 26 years ago the national magazine was trying to educate Americans that "profit is not created by capital, but is an arbitrary overcharge which comes out of the pockets of the consumers"» 25 years later the national magazine is still saying the same thing. * * * * 26 years ago the national magazine was discussing the failure of cooperatives. 25 years later cooperatives are so well audited they almost never fail« * * * * 25 years ago in the national magazine. Justice Brandeis iras quoted as speaking of chain store "misleaders". 25 years later CO-OP goods were being chosen because the labels told the truth» * * * * Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 49 AS I EElffiMBER Twenty five years ago I received an invitation from Doctor and Mrs. Warbasse for an evening at their home to discuss plans for the promulgation of the Cooperative Idea. At that meeting in the doctor's library every shade of radical opinion of the period seemed to be represented. There were socialists and syndicalists, labor agitators and direct actionists and t saving number of those who believed in the bénéficient possib ilities in the gradual development of Consumer Cooperation. Among these latter were Albert Sonnichsen, e crystal oleer thinker, since deceased, and Hyman Cohn, a lover of his fallow men, who believed in putting principles into practice and who had had actual experience in organizing cooperatives. That first meeting was a very exciting one with the forceful expression of widely divergent opinions, but there were succeeding meetings under Dr. Warbasse's auspices at which a more mod erate temper was displayed and out of these came the definite organization of tot Cooperative League of America with Dr. Warbasse as President, Mr. Scott Ferky, Secretary and myself the original Treasurer. Hyman Cohn and Albert Sonnichsen were on the board of directors and the latter was the editor of the Cooperative Consumer, the League's magazine, the name of which was afterward shortened to "Cooperation". The immediate objective of the League was educational and statistical, essen tially a propagande body, and its financial support was, theoretically, by dues from its members who, in the first instance, were individuals imbued, to e greater or less degree, with enthusiasm for the cause. But for many months there was a recurring deficit, always met by a cheque to cover from Dr. Warbasse, so great were the faith, the vision and the zeel of this leader in America of the great rev olutionary (evolutionary) economic movement making for true industrial democracy. The League today, supported by many successful Cooperative societies, no long er needs a good angel to meet deficits, but has become a permanent institution foi the spread of the gospel of Cooperation and with every prospect of future growth and usefulness« It is a source of great satisfaction to me that I was privileged to be one of its organizers. /ß~tf- J& ^ // fj&bfl*W*w7*=^-. ~~ My first contact with the Cooperative League was at the Con gress in Superior. I arrived just as our communist friends T '- were walking out of the meeting. I was very much interested ^ that some of the leaders who stayed while in sympathy with the ** communist political theories insisted that all such political . „ ' ideas should be kept completely separated from the Cooperative — - Movement. ^ At that meeting I met Dr. Warbasse, Secretary Long, Eskel ~\ ^ Ronn, E. G. Cort, L. S. Herren, and Mr. McCarty of Nebraska •f Farmers Union. The high ideals and broad vision of these men . were sufficiently impressive that it gave me a wholesome res pect for the organization which before that I had not understood or appreciated. I have had the opportunity of being associated with Coopera tive League activities since the Convention of 1917. At the last Convention in Chicago, I made a check up to find out how ' many of the old-timers were still active in the Movement. Only Dr. Warbasse, Joe Blaha and myself were present. At the 1917 i Convention there were only a few cooperatives represented, and * they were most foreign groups: Finnish cooperatives from Mass achusetts, Jewish cooperative bakeries from New England and New York, and Bohemian cooperatives from Chlo. The Finnish and Bo hemian cooperatives are still going strong and prospering. A few years after the League was organized, a strong consumer movement came into being to combat the high cost of living re sulting from the War. Cooperatives sprang up all over the country} unscrupulous adventurers took hold of the idea and began organizing cooperatives and collected high compensation for the work they did. Many regional wholesales were started before there were enough cooperatives to support them. It was unfortunate that the understanding of Consumers' Cooperation was so feeble at that time, for all the tremendous consumer interest went to waste. Very few of the newly organized cooperatives of the post-war period survived. The League was too weak and too small to give enough help and guidance to curb the wide-spread development or guide them to a sounder growth, so most of them disappeared. There was one particularly regrettable experience during this period of our cooperative history. The Illinois coal miners started to organize large numbers of cooperatives. They expected to get a cooperative going quickly, to set up a system of centrally-controlled food stores with a central wholesale warehouse,and to finance the venture'largely from miners union funds. They disregarded many of the Rochdale principles, and, so in a few years failed completely, losing large sums of money. There was a time for several years after the War when the League was constant ly in danger of falling under political influence. A number of influential people among the cooperators sincerely believed that the present capitalistic system was going to pieces and radical changes in our economic system were just around the corner. To hasten the change, they were anxious to use the funds of the coopera- and the prestige of the League for political purposes. By the vigorous action and sound leadership of Dr. Warbasse and Cedric Long, the League survived this trying period, and those politically minded were defeated. The League was financed by the Warbasses for many years. This was a source of constant embarrassment to the member societies and probably to the Warbasses as well. Many old-tim oooperators were convinced that a democratic movement such as cooperation should not accept contributions from individuals. Year after year attempts were made to raise at least a minimum budget to maintain an office with a secretary. Through the untiring efforts of Mary Arnold, that budget was finally realized. After Mr. Bowen became secretary of the League, things began to happen in a big way. Great farmer cooperatives began to join the League and within a few years the membership had grown tremendously. After the adoption of a uniform sys tem of membership dues the question of the League budget was solved. It seems to me that the League is headed for a great future in this great na tion of great opportunities. / Director Director My earliest memory of the Cooperative League is of reading of its work. That must have been around 1916 or 1917. And my first considerable use of its material was in 1919. I was writing a pamphlet on both consumers' and producers* coopera tion for the old national Catholic War Council; and of course had to use what the Cooperative League produced. The pamphlet Y?as issued that summer. It advocated both kinds of coopera tion and described how both kinds could be organized and what good they could do. A good many copies of it were distribu ted that year and the next. 52 Consumers' Coopérât«! March> 1941 53 My pamphlet had been preceded by a paragraph on consumers' cooperatives in the War Council's "Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction," issued Lincoln's Birthday, 1919. The pamphlet I wrote was based upon it and included an account and advocacy of producers' cooperatives as well. I kept in touch with the work right along. The first national meeting I at tended was the Cincinnati meeting in 1922. Those were pioneering days in the move ment in this country. The meeting was small but it was hopeful. I remember par ticularly the work of Dr. Warbasse at that convention and the close friendships' I struck up with Father Reiner of St. Francis Xavier's College in Cincinnatti and with Mr. Brockland of the central office of the united German Catholic societies. Consumers' cooperation, then as now, was in the vanguard of the change from an old and bad era into a new and good era. The movement was often attached. For example, a Hew York organization, headed by a man whom a friend of mine publicly said was "a retainer of plutocracy," blasted me for taking part in the Cincinnati meeting and called consumers' cooperation all sorts of .names. I In the new age that has to come, or we are all destroyed together, consumers' cooperation has to have an important part. And it is part of the transition from the memory of the old days to the actions of the present to record that I am now pushing consumers' representation in "the defense industries and pushing also a bill for a commission "to study unemployment and post-defense unemployment in which | representation from the consumers' cooperatives will be included. CENTRAL COOPERATIVE WHOLESALE, SUPERIOR THE FIRST REGIONAL MEMBER OF THE LEAGUE Cooperative history during the past 25 years must give an out standing place to the Central Cooperative Wholesale of Superior, Wisconsin. Organized 24 years ago, only a year younger than the League, it was the League's first regional member. For many years the members of this loyal cooperative group carried on almost lone handed the struggle to educate the American born citizens to the significance of Consumers' Cooperation. The results of their pi oneering efforts and financial support are now in evi dence in the present membership of the League. We pay them sincere "tribute on "this anniversary celebration. Central Cooperative Wholesale started in a pack- ^^ ing box on September 9, 1917. Its progress is shown * by these figures: Savings $ 2,062.93 105,192.14 The First Off! 1918 1940 Volume I 132,286.79 3,883,841.28 The first lines handled were coffee and flour. Sow CCW handles groceries, clothing, electrical appliances, hardware, building materials, fuel, petroleum products, automotive supplies, feed, etc. It bakes bread, grinds coffee and grinds feed in its own factories. The First Building ^^j^^aim^s^à One of my earliest contacte with and reminiseenses of tha Cooperative League dates back to the year of 1920. In the Spring of that year I started to work for the Central Cooperative Wholesale (then known as the Cooperative Central Exchange) «8 thair first full-time educational director. Chosen as one of the three dele gates who represented the CCE at the second biennial convention of the Cooperative league held in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 11-14, 1820, I had an opportunity to at tend my first League Congress. Sinoe then, 1 have attended nine consecutive bien nial conventions or congresses of the League (missing only the last one) but I still feel that the Cincinnati convention was one of the most interesting, if not tha most interesting of them all. During the four days, the Cincinnati convention actually held 10 sessions which meant a night session on each of the first three convention days. Delegates at tending recent congresses of the CLD5A have had a picnic compared with those early conventions which were much more strenuous and sometimes rather stormy. The first unpleasant task before the Cincinnati convention was to oust the five delegates which came with credentials from the national Cooperative Association in Chicago, the first abortive attempt to establish a cooperative whoIfsele on a na tional scale in the united States. Significantly all these five delegates were employees of MCA, including the manager. It took the convention three sessions to dispose of the matter and the discussions which are recorded in the printed pro- - oeedings of the convention make very interesting reading. In the view of soae Bore recent attempts to build cooperation in the United States "from the top down? with the inevitable failure of the attempt, one is tempted to say that "history repeats itself." There were other delegates at the Cincinnati convention who advocated such un sound ideas as that of speeding up cooperative development by inducing labor unions to start cooperative stores, the union furnishing the necessary capital and all union members thus "automatically" becoming members of the local cooperative. This idea was championed by delegates representing the Central States Cooperative Wholesale Society of East St. Louis, Illinois, which organization at that time was at the height of its development, having over $3,000,000 annual sales, but which a few yeare later went out of existence. The CSCWS delegates also advocated the use of the "cost plus" system, another unsound method which undoubtedly contributed to their failure. In my opinion, the most constructive task accomplished by the Cincinnati con vention was the adoption of a new constitution for the Cooperative League which permitted the organization of district Leagues as an integral part of the Nation al League. Of the 66 regular delegates taking part in the convention, nearly 40JÉ oame from the Ohio cooperatives, most of which were urban societies. These dele gates held a meeting of their own before the adjournment of the convention and decided to organize the first district league under the new constitution, unfor tunately this Ohio Cooperative League never actually amounted to much more than • "peper organization". Evidently, the Ohio cooperatives lacked a keen realisation of th« importance of educational work, and failed to provide enough dues to enable the League to hire a full-time secretary. After a year or so nothing was heard any more of that League and it remained for the CCE in Superior to organize in 1822 the first district league that actually got going and functioning» "«>'• •* less vigorously, for a period of 16 years. It is interesting to note that among the 15 directors that were elected to the board of directors of the Cooperative League at the Cincinnati oonvention, there waa a United States senator, a catholic priest, four or five prominent labor lead ers and three managers of cooperative wholesales of which only one, the Central Cooperative Wholesale of Superior, Wisconsin, today is siill operating. In those times the CLDSA was almost desperately trying to interest labor unioniets in the consumers cooperative movement, but 16 years later that problem still lacked sat isfactory solution, and it remained for the farmers cooperatives to put new life into the League, and actually get it functioning independently of the financial anfl moral support of a few prominent individuals. Former Director 54 The Present Building Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 55 I1 ' l l;' NATIONAL VJOWEH'S GUILD NOTES Aune Spencer, Secretary On October 14, 1958, at th« Congress of the Cooperative League of the USA, • provisional national Women's Cooperative Guild was set up, looking forward to th« establishment of a permanent national women's auxiliary of the Cooperative Move ment two years hence and affiliation afterwards with the International Cooperativi Women's Guild. After four years of pioneering work by JJrs. Maiju Viita, former Secretary, and the other members of the Executive Committee in Superior, the first cf these was accomplished - the establishment of a permanent National Women's Co operative Guild. Last October at the Women's Conference during the Congress cf the Cooperative League an executive committee was appointed from Racine, North Chicago, Waukegan and Chicago, with headquarters in Chicago. Address: National Women's Cooperative Guild, % The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 608 South Dear- torn Street, Chicego, Illinois. The officers aret lire. Ruth Wright, Président) Mrs. Georgia Allbright, Vice-President; UTE. Anne Spencer, Secretary; Mrs. Char lotte Strattcn, Treasurer. A friendly feeling exists between the National Guild and the International Co operative Women's Guild, and affiliation with it is hoped for in the near future when we become a little stronger numerically and financially. At present, four Regional Guilds - Kansas City, Northern States, Southern Minnesota and Central States - a great number of individual guilds and individual persons throughout •hi' United States and Alaska have joined the National. To portray the attitude of women cooperators of other countries, a few excerpts from a message by Frau Emmy Freundlich, President, International Cooperative Women'a Guild, are given: "We hope very much that your national organization of Women's Guilds is sufficiently advanced to justify the inauguration of a nationally pre- presentative Guild that could affiliate to the I.C.W.G. We hope that we shall have the great joy of welcoming the U.S.A. to our circle shortly. Such an event would be the greatest possible encouragement to those European Guilds which are at present facing tremendous diffir culties, and would give a new impetus to the Guild Movement throughout the world. We have followed with the keenest satisfaction the gradual quickening of American women's interest in consumers' cooperation and now that many of our national Guilds find themselves completely cut off from their colleagues in other countries we need more than ever the help of women overseas to keep the Cooperative banner aloft and build for the future by strenuous efforts to rally to cur Movement all those who long to see a peacefu} and progressive world where the common people of all lands will enjoy security and freedom". We know how great is the task in your vast country, but these who, through sacrifice and enthusiasm, have built up the European Movement in the pest call with confidence upon American women to win the great American continent for cooperative ideals and practice. Then when our International Guild is a strong cooperative chain uniting the whole world, cooperative women will stand strong and determined to build a new system of Society and outlaw oppression and poverty throughout the world." The women of the United States are definitely Imbued with the same spirit. Sei* eral Regional Guilds are sponsoring youth groups and children's summer camps, pro moting discussion circles and aiding immeasurably in membership drives. One of the older guilds, that of the Waukegan Trading Company, has adopted a baby in Fin' land, contributing annual to its support and education over there. The Regional Guilds coordinate and disseminate the activities of the local guilds and in like manner the national Guild acts as a clearing house for the re gional guilds and for those local guilds-and individuals thet are not affiliated with a regional. This coming June the National Guild will conduct a Women's Institute at Amee, Iowa, in conjunction with the National Cooperative Recreation School. In unity there is strength. Now is the opportune time for women throughout the United States to get together again to plan and determine how best we can further the ideals and practice of the Cooperative Movement. Further information concerning the Women's Institute may be obtained by writing the Secretary of the National Women's Cooperative Guild. "C VERYTHING seems to be unimpor- *~* tant and trivial in Washington at the present time—everything but war and na tional defense. Men who have been most active in na tional affairs during the last thirty-five years, keen observers and earnest students, talk about "the impossibility of knowing what is going on" and in polite phrases which avoid the wofd "revolution" dis cuss the "remarkable change" and tell of their concern over the complacency in Congress, the "lack of leadership with a definite purpose" and the rising tide of military authority. Little groups in gov ernment departments plot and scheme, and intrigue is more commonplace than it has been in years. In this atmosphere, it is difficult to deal with specific matters in which the cooperatives are interested: The Coal Situation Before committees of the House and Senate, there is now pending the resolu tions which would extend the Bituminous Coal Act for two more years. The Act expires on April 26th. After a long period of preparation, of internal war in gov ernment departments, the act actually has been effective for only a few months. How effective it would have been under normal conditions, no one can say, but with war demands, coal prices increased regardless of the law and coal profits have dissipated much of the economic war within the industry. Coal producers, who a year ago organized to fight the Act, have agreed to an armistice and now they want the Act continued. Coal miners, who also wanted amendments to the Act, are now willing to see it extended without change. The distributors, wholesale and retail, have abandoned their camps of war. Only the cooperatives and some in dustrial consumers and a few coal pro- 56 Consumers' Coopéra^ March, 1941 John Carson Washington Representative The Cooperative League ducers demand amendments and a hear ing and for some time, it seemed the organized forces in Congress might de feat their effort. As this is written, how ever, a hearing has been agreed to and the door has been opened for a fight for amendments. Cooperative Housing In the field of housing, progress in behalf of consumers is less definite but some advances have been made. It is well known that the housing authorities in the National Council of Defense and who are now advisers to the Office of Produc tion Management have not satisfied some divisional authorities in the national de fense organization. Likewise, it is recog nized that with the government putting millions upon millions of dollars in de fense housing, a pattern is being estab lished, or followed, and the word "fol lowed" is used because the national or ganizations of real estate dealers, the pro moters and speculators, have been satis fied. A committee, representing that specu lation group, was in Washington, had conferences with housing authorities in the defense set-up and went home satis fied and this only added to the worry of those who were interested in the con sumer and his housing. But quietly, in the Federal Works Agency and under the direction of John M. Carmody, a step towards cooperative housing is being taken — the first constructive step yet taken by the government. This plan will provide for cooperative management of housing projects which will be publicly owned but leased for a long period to the cooperative management. This plan can be modified to provide for cooperative ownership. 57 II, il Medicine A defense organization has been set up to deal with such questions as hospitaliza- tion, medical care and generally the so cial welfare of persons associated with defense activity—and gradually the de fense activity is being extended to reach into practically every home. But as yet, this entire activity is directed entirely along the old channels. This is no break with old traditions and suggestions that cooperative action might be encouraged are only "received" as yet. War Between "Scarcity" and "Abundance" In the Department of Agriculture, the war between the advocates of "scarcity" and the advocates of "abundance" and the battle for power continues but with a trend in favor of abundance. In the Department of Labor and the defense or- HERE'S AN IDEA— ganization, efforts to soften the bitterness company kept at home that would other- between the rival forces of organized It wise have gone to line the pockets of bor go on from day to day and the insic those who already have too much wealth, reports are that some progress is madt Yes, it's a different way of doing business In the Security and Exchange Commiss«!., but it is the cooperative way. This money and from Wall Street there are reports! is not hoarded by any individual. It is put less activity and less interest—a dyir- right back into circulation in our home condition—in the fields of stock mark community to buy food, clothing, presents speculation. or other articles. By all means study this great movement. If you will, we know The best scholars diagnose the cone you too wiu join the great Cooperative tions and tell you the "proletariat" Caravan of Consumers from all parts of the cities and on the farms have com(tour country that is now on the march— into power, that the old age of capitalisa g0jng piaces _ making economic history has gone, that a new world has dt just as surely as jy our forefathers that veloped. The problem, they add, is wbe- traveled the Oregon Trail 100 years ago." er the consumers who make up the fn letariat will organize now to preserve i Another method to publicize the return democracy with power in the people, (, facts would be to make a giant facsimile " " " " ' ' ' of the patronage return check represent ing the savings of all patrons. One coop erative placed such a check in their store and it brought home every day the value of the co-op to all who came in the store. Such a facsimile might be painted on a hill board outside the store or on a larger whether they will be organized by ernment and directed into stateism o some form. sign board if one is maintained by the Co-op. Still another plan with a lot of merit is to pay patronage-returns in silver dol lars. This idea was used recently in an eastern co-op and you can imagine the dramatic situation resulting; both to the members who received the cartwheels and to the non-cooperators and business men who received these dollars in the process of trade and exchange. It certainly brings home the fact that the co-op "savings" stay at home in contrast to the "profits" in private business which leave the com munity. So, cooperators, when your co-op gets around to paying the returns this year, dramatize the event. Make everyone con scious of the advantage of the co-op; members, non-members, other business people and the entire community. Bring out the fact that both the individual and the community enjoy a better standard of living because of the presence of a coop erative. FOR PAYING PATRONAGE RETURNS THIS is annual meeting season. Many co-ops are closing their books and calling members together to hear reports on the year's business. If the year has been a good one the co-op will pay a patronage return. This may be in the form of more stock or it may be in actual cash. It is only right and proper that a co-op should pay such a return. It is a basic principle of the movement that the amount above cost of operation should be returned to the customer in proportion to patronage. Some argue that we have over emphasized the "divvy" and that is per haps true, but on the other hand we should not swing the pendulum too far the other way and ignore it. We need to give it proper place in the cooperative system. The patronage return principle is one of the unique contributions of the coop erative movement to economic affairs. One economist has gone so far as to declare it 58 to be the greatest economic discovery c COOPERATIVE RECREATION NOTES the last 200 years. In any case we've gi something here and we ought to brinj home that fact to members and publi 'T'HE growing interest in recreation in study club technique and a big banquet alike. 1 the cooperative movement has created with Andrew Jensen, secretary of the Now here are some ideas that y«i a need for wel1 equipped group leaders Midland board, as the main speaker, might employ in publicizing the prin; and a11 over the country the cooperatives were the high lights of the conference, ciple that "a co-op pays you back I: ate fet.ng this need by training their Jhe Northern States Cooperative profits " own ^aders. In addition to one and two - - - - - - ' weeks' schools, such as the National Co- On checks used to pay returns have tte| operative Recreation School, numerous from Trading at the ——————— Coop conferences are being held. Ellen Edwards Youth League held a successful recrea tion school the week-end of March 1-3 at gan and Wisconsin. Chester Graham, edu cational director for the Madison Coop- erative." In another part of the died write "Do You Use Co-op Products?" District Nine of the Midland Coopéra- . - Cooperative Refinery Association of No"! t.ve Wholesale held such a week-end con- erf ve Council, and Frank Shilstonedu- Kansas City uses a check similar to this, ference February 21-23 at New London, cational fieldman for the Midland Coop- Another means of telling the peopl. Wisconsin. Fieldmen Wilbur Leatherman eratlve Wholesale headed the staff. The would be through an ad in the W and Carl Eck headed the conference which Program included mstruction m crafts paper. Here are some excerpts from an a included folk games and dances, instruc- dramatics, folk games and dances and by the Kanawha Co-op Oil Company i tion in crafts and discussion circle tech- Iowa. "Two thousand, eight hundrel» "ique- A similar conference was held thirty dollars will be distributed to pi- February 14-16 at the Co-op Hall at Cam- trons December 12. This money you bridge, Minnesota. Recreation, crafts, Consumers' Cooperation March, 1941 59 singing. A Recreation Leadership Conference to give intensive training to leaders and prospective leaders in group recreation I n with emphasis on technique as well as subjects was held March 8-9 at Saddle River, New Jersey under the sponsorship of the Play Co-op, New York. The sub jects offered included metal crafts, weav ing, paper bag puppets, games, folk danc ing, dramatics and singing. The function of each of these in a balanced recreation 'program was discussed. The staff was drawn from the Leadership Group of the Play Co-op, most of whom have been students or on the staff of the National Cooperative Recreational School. The value of all of these training con ferences is- reflected by the enthusiasm for a recreation program which those at tending take back to their local coopera tives and by the demand for longer and more intensive training. * * * Cooperators in the Detroit area will be interested in a series of five Folk Gath erings to be held in that city, March 5, 12, 19 and 26 and April 2. "Singing America" is the title of the first session to be conducted by Augustus D. Zanzig of the National Recreation Association and a staff member of the National Coopera tive Recreation School. Lynn Rohr- bough, director of Cooperative Recreation Service, Delaware, Ohio and editor of the widely used "Handy" will conduct a session on Traditional Games, March 12. The meeting on March 19 will be on "Recreation As An Art" and will be led by Chester A. Graham, Cooperative Council, Madison. Elizabeth Burchenal will lead the group in Country Dances, March 26 and John Jacob Niles will have charge of the last session on Moun tain Ballads. The emphasis of the entire course is on songs and dances drawn from various sections of America and is de signed primarily for community leaders. * * * Taking their cue from the fact that "since we are cooperators in theory we should be cooperators in practice," the Rural Youth of Lancaster County, Pa., are developing a leadership group to take charge of the games and dances at their 60 monthly meeting and thus spread tb leadership. Other activities of this runl youth co-op include dramatics, crafts, music club, a photography club, publia tion of a monthly NEWZETTE and stud and discussion groups. Their trea» boasts a balance of $171.59! 3r ^ 3r Cooperators who have found fun at fellowship in folk dancing will be inta ested in a feature story in the magazir section of the Sunday, February 23, Ni. York Times, entitled "Folk Dance Boon by John Martin. "Everybody has a net for the expression of emotional energy] some form, and nothing offers so easyai cutlet as dancing,' he points out. "Iti the primary form of play. . . . Wholi hearted recreational activity is the tin field of the folk dance." FLASH The fifth annual National Coopérât« Recreation School will be held on til campus of Iowa State College, Am. Iowa, June 15 to 28. The program of t school is designed to provide intensii training for recreation leadership. Sti dents and prospective recreation leadt are urged to hold those dates open ar to write to Frank Shilston, director, a of Midland Cooperative Wholesale, 7J Johnson Street, Minneapolis for men, complete details. The full story of \ Recreation School, its instructors, tin courses planned for this year, and t philosophy that has made it an impoit.i cornerstone of cooperation will be incluA in the next issue of Consumers Coofâ tion. New Kits "Games We Like Best," Kit 52, a a. lection of socialise«, quiet games, ad. games, games of skill and games for dil dren. Edited by Lynn and Katherine Ror bough. 25c. "Children's Play," Kit 50, a valua collection of recreational activities for ch dren including singing games, fin painting, mask making, stunts, gro> games and folk songs. Published by i Cooperative Recreation Service. 25c Consumers' Coopérât!» WHAT'S NEWS WITH THE CO-OPS Chicago—The grocery committee of Na tional Cooperatives meeting here last month voted to introduce a CO-OP Green Label, a third grade line, to sup plement the present Red Label, first, and Blue Label, second, grade lines. The ad dition of the Green Label will make it possible to save from 15 to 20 per cent on some canned goods thereby speeding acceptance of the co-ops in lower income brackets. The Green Label will not be the lowest grade of commodities available but will be the cheapest meeting uniform specifications for wholesome, nutritious canned goods. The Green Label line will be intro duced in August with the new pack of tomatoes, green beans, peas and a few other lines. Maynard, Mass.—The first super market in the this New England community was opened here February 23rd when the United Cooperative Society of Maynard dedicated its new store, rebuilt and equipped at a cost of $50,000. Dr. James P. Warbasse, president of The Coopera tive League, speaking at the dedication praised the Maynard cooperators for their modern, streamlined store but warned them that "streamlining is not enough." "A cooperative should radiate coopera tion," he said. "A cooperative should have something about it that distinguishes it from ordinary private profit business. A cooperative should merchandise ideas as well as groceries." Dallas, Texas—A new regional consumer cooperative was established here early this year to supply cooperatives in this area with petroleum products and related commodities and will later add electrical appliances and other commodities for use on the farm and in the home as the de mand arises. The organization will be known as Producers and Consumers Co operatives. Madison, Wisconsin—The air over Wis consin crackled with Cooperation as more March, 1941 than one hundred radio programs were devoted to the cooperative movement and its role in the American economy when the State of Wisconsin celebrated its fourth annual Cooperative Week, Febru ary 17-21. One of the highlights of the week was a broadcast from WIBA in Madison by E. R. Bowen, general secre tary of The Cooperative League and Roy F. Bergengren, managing director of the Credit Union National Association, on "The Mutual Interdependence of Con sumer, Credit and Sales Cooperatives." .Professor Henry H. Bakken chaired the program. Kansas City, Mo.—Two hundred labor union, farm and cooperative leaders met here February 7 and 8 to discuss the pos sibilities of consumer cooperation as a means of increasing the purchasing power of America's wage earners. The Institute on Organized Labor and Consumer Co operation was jointly sponsored by the Consumers Cooperative Association and The Cooperative League. Among the speakers were Jacob Baker, former president of the United Federal Workers; Roy Brewer, president of the Nebraska State Federation of Labor; M. R. Miller, secretary of the Missouri Far mers Union ; Dora Maxwell of the Credit Union National Association; Howard A. Cowden, president of Consumers Coop erative Association and E. R. Bowen, gen eral secretary of The Cooperative League. Columbus, Ohio—Nearly 200,000 fami lies in Ohio, both rural and urban, are served by cooperatives organized under the sponsorship of the Ohio Farm Bureau. Auto, fire and life insurance, petroleum products, general farm supplies, farm ma chinery, home supplies and equipment, electrical appliances and low cost loans are the goods and services handled. One hundred and twenty-four retail service stores operated by 83 County Farm Bu reau Cooperatives own the Farm- Bureau Cooperative Association which handled $7,500,000 worth of commodities in 61 1940. The .Farm Bureau Cooperative In surance Services serve nearly 400,000 pol icy holder members in nine states and the District of Columbia. New York—An increased demand for competent store clerks and managers in the fast growing food stores, particularly in the East, has coincided with the heavy inroads the draft and defense program are making on the labor market. As a re sult the co-ops are hanging out the "help wanted" sign. Rochdale Institute will offer a three months training program opening April 7th while the Council for Cooperative Business Training has announced a streamlined managers training course for men and young women to be given in New York April 7 to May 31 and a sum mer course of eight weeks which will be integrated with the Eastern Cooperative League's summer institute at Amherst, Mass. Philadelphia, Pa.—The Progressive Edu cation Association, meeting here for its annual convention February 19-22 de voted one session to a panel discussion of "Education By and For Economic Coop eration." H. G. Lull, chairman of the National Education Association's Com mittee on Cooperatives, told the dramatic story of how the co-ops defeated an at tempt by Standard Oil to cut off their re finery's source of crude oil. S. R. Logan of Winnetka, Illinois, Clyde R. Spitzner of the Coatesville High School, Pennsyl vania, and Dr. H. Emmet Brown of Lin coln School, Teachers College, New York, told how cooperatives were organized in their schools to give the students a prac tical demonstration in cooperation. Wil liam Moore, chairman of the National Committee on Student Cooperatives and Gerald Fiedler, organizer of the Central League of Campus Cooperatives told how student co-ops are cutting the cost of edu cation and serving as training grounds for future cooperative leadership. An thony Lehner, educational director of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, Barbara Raines of the Ger- 62 mantown Cooperative Association ant Wallace J. Campbell, assistant sécrétai) of The Cooperative League, were aL members of the panel. Boston—A bill has just been introduc in the Massachusetts legislature appai- ently designed to destroy the cooperative! The bill provides for a special tax of \ of 1% of the gross volume of all coop eratives, but makes no provision for similar tax on profit business. Tk special tax would be in addition to all the regular taxes which cooperatives pi) on an equal footing with private busin.es St. Paul, Minn.—The Group Health h sociation at its annual meeting here, Fei ruary 15, voted to launch a program of medical care on a cooperative basis. New York—The Consumers Book Coop erative completed its fourth year of op eration with a volume of business total ling $71,076, a gain of $9,500 over th previous year. The Book Cooperative, which recendj moved to 27 Coenties Slip, New Yori City, serves individuals, cooperatives an! libraries in all sections of the Uniteu States and several foreign countries. Amarillo, Texas — Consumers Coopera tives Associated reported at their annml meeting here February 18 that six net local cooperatives have joined the organ ization in the past year. The regional co operative opened a' branch warehouse a! Lubbock, Texas, adopted a five-year plan for expansion and reported a sales volume for the year totalling $223,751. North Kansas City—Consumers Coop erative Association reports that its busi ness for the past six months has been 34% ahead of its business for the same period in 1940. Oakland, California—Consumers Coop erative Stations, operating three service stations, an automobile repair shop, .» paint and appliance store in the East Baj area, closed the year with 230 fully paid members and 1,500 who have made part payments toward membership. The total sales volume for the past year was $101,- 064. This was an increase of $161,607 over the previous year. Madison, Wisconsin — During 1940 a total of 1,364 new credit unions were formed bringing the number of credit unions in the United States to 9,134. It is estimated that there are now 2,500,000 members of credit unions with assets of more than $200,000,000. LATEST BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED (Available through The Cooperative League) The Law of the Organization and Operation of Cooperatives, by Israel Packet. Mathew Ben der and Company. Albany, N. Y.—$5.00. Abntracts of the Laws Pertaining to Coopera tion In the United States, its Possessions and Territories, by Bernard Ostrolenk and V. J. Tereshtenko, prepared with the assist ance of the Cooperative Project. Federal Works Agency, Works Projects Administra tion, New York City. Mimeographed 350 pages, published by the W.P.A.—Free. Cooperative Rural Electrification in the linlted States, by Udo Rail, published by the Divi sion of Agricultural Cooperation, l'an Amer ican I'nion, Washington, D.C. The People's Year Book, 1941, a yearbook of cooperative development throughout the world, published by the Cooperative Whole sale Society. Manchester. England.—Paper, Co cents, cloth. $1.00. Subscribe to CONSUMERS' COOPERATION National Magazine of the Consumers Cooperative Movement • $1 ... per year 27 months for $2 • order thru The Cooperative League 167 West 12th Street New York City COMING TWO NEW BOOKS ON COOPERATIVES "Introduction to Cooperatives," by Dr. Andrew J. Kress. A book of readings on the cooperative movement includ ing selected excerpts from the im portant writers and economists of almost a century. $2.75 "Democracy's Second Chance — Land, Liberty and Cooperatives," by George Boyle, editor of The Maritime Co- operator. A brilliant presentatioa of the need for increased property in the hands of all the people, drawing from the cooperative movement practical il lustrations of the effect of property and cooperation on the lives of the people. Regular edition—$2.00 Special cooperative edition—$1.00 Order through THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street New York City Consumers' Cooperation March' 1941 The Battle for Asia, l>y Edgar Snow, including much material on the Chinese Industrial Co operatives, Random House. New York.—$8.75. A Fair Deal to Ali Through the Cooperatives, I>5" John C. Ksiwe. S..T. (Reprinted from America, February 15, 1!)41).—X cents. •PM' Reports Fast-Growing. Cost-Cutting U.S. Co-ops Shun AH Isms (Reprint from TM, January 5, 1941).—2 cents. Fundamentals of Consumer Cooperation, by V. S. Alaune (Seventh Revised Edition). Co operative Publishing Association.—25 cents. All Join Hands, by Edwards, Smith (Revised Edition), Eastern Cooperative League.—15c. A Consumer's Economy and Its Rivals, by Hor ace Kallen (reprint from The Christian Cen tury), Cooperative Recreation, Inc., Del aware, Ohio.—5 cents. Dure We Be Christians? by Walter Rauschen- liusch. The Rauschenbusch Fellowship of Baptists.—10 cents. 1940 Year Book, Central Cooperative Wholesale, Superior, Wisconsin. Co-ops for the Small Farmer, Farm Security Administration, Washington, D.C. Answering your Questions about the Coopera tive. Central Cooperative Wholesale.—'2c. Operations of Credit Unions, 1939, I'.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.—Free. How to Kead Cooperative Financial State ments, l)y Merlin U. Miller and (ilenu S. Fox. published by Consumers Cooperative Asso ciation. North Kansas City.—10 cents. 63 tl CO-OP LITERATURE • Novels and Biography Fresh Furrow: Burrls Jenkins ...................... 2.00 The Brave Years: Wm. Hey liger .................. 1.50 My Story, by Paddy the Cope, Co-ops in Ireland .................................................................. 2.75 A Doctor for the People, Michael Shadid, special edition .................................................. 1.25 • Textbooks on Cooperation Consumers' Cooperatives, Julia E. John son, Debate Handbook .................................. .90 When You Buy, Trilling, Eberhart and Nicholas, High school and college, two chapters on consumer cooperatives .......... 1.80 Cooperation, Hall and Watkins, Official British Textbook .............................................. 3.00 The Consumers Cooperative as a Distribu tive Agency, Orin E. Burley ........................ 3.00 Windows on the World, Kenneth Gould, high school text, one chapter on coop eratives ................................................................ 3.00 Leaflets to Aid You: ^« How a Consumers Cooperative Dif fers From Ordinary Business ........ .01 .?! I Saw a People Rising From the Dead, Rev. Ignatius W. Cox, S. J. .02 1* Learn About Consumers Cooperation .02 l.d Sure Way is the Quick Way .............. .02 ..» The Burden of Credit .............................. .02 > What Cooperation Means to a De pression Sick America, Cooley ...... .02 .31 Answering Your Questions About the Cooperative ...................................... .02 i.S What Attracts Members to the Co operative Store Movement, from Sales Management ................................ .02 l.Si Building a Brave New World, George Tichenor .................................................... .02 1.8 A $600,000,000 Business With 2,000,000 Customers, Richard Giles, Printers' Ink Monthly ............................................ .02 U Union of Church and Economics is Dramatized as Co-ops Reveal Rapid Progress, P. H. Erbes, Jr., Printers' Ink .............................................................. .02 1.8 Brickbats and Boomerangs, E. H. Bowen ........................................................ .03 " ' • Student Cooperatives American Student« and the Cooperative , ,,,J,FI1MS, c ., « Movement, Claude Shotts .............................. .02 Traveling the Middle Way In Sweden, 16 ran silent, produced by the Harmon Foundatloi Co-ops on the Campus, Bertram B. Fowler .03 Unit I, Land of Sweden, 2 reels. Unit II n „ Tir-ii- nr n* Consumer Cooperation, 2 reels. Unit 111 Campus Co-ops, William Moore .................... .05 Agricultural Cooperatives, 2 reels. Rental pel Campns Co-op News letter ................... ... .. 25 unit: color. $5; black and wljite, $3; addl tional showings, $2.50 color and $1.50, blacl • Cooperatives and Peace and whlte" „ "The lord Helps Those —Who Help Bail Cooperatives and Peace, Harold Fey .......... .05 other," a new 3 reel, 1C mm. film of the Noil CoonpfHtinn_A ™.M „f PpH,,«, T p War Scotia adult education and cooperative pn basse Co mfEditTon 50 eram, produced by the Harmon Foundatid basse, Lo op Edition ...................................... .50 Excellent photography. $4.50 per day, $2.8 m „ .. „ . additional showings, $13.50 per week. • Cooperative Recreation Consumers Serve Themselves, 1 reel, 16 m The Consumer Consumed, Josephine Kodacrome, shows how cooperators on Hi Johnson, a Puppet Play .................. . .. .. .05 eastern seaboard are providing themsetei with tested, quality CO-OP products. $2 pa Cooperative Kecreatlon, Carl Hutchinson, it- quired until additional staff members could be financed. This is no apology. It is a simple summary by way of background to say thil we are now to the point where we are undertaking the publication of a double- sized magazine as an experiment. We say "as an experiment" truthfully. If it is sup ported in three ways it will be continued: first with additional editorial and educi- tional assistance, second with your contributions of news and views in every field of cooperative endeavor, third with paid subscriptions. We believe the first two requirements can be met in case the third is dont But the Movement must recognize that this is its national journal—that it is nfl the same but a supplement to the regional newspapers— that every coopérât« leader should read the national journal for the significant articles and ottiet material which they get nowhere else. Specifically the requirement is that ever) regional see to it that every one of its local cooperative managers and directors n well as their regional directors and department heads are subscribers to the natiod magazine. In no other way can the job be done. The Directors of the Coopérât« League and of National Cooperatives at their recent meetings voted unanimouslj to this effect. Now let's put the resolutions into practice. One regional insurant! cooperative proposes to subscribe for their 1,700 field representatives. This ist beginning of a large enough subscription list to do the necessary job of supportir| a worthy national magazine in the U.S.A. if other regionals will also follow through The March anniversary issue was the first sample of what you can anticipate This is another double issue. Printed in offset which makes illustrations possibk A new front cover with a good illustration. Three or four pages of action-stim« lating editorials. At least one leading general article. Departments on gened Organization and the four corner stones of Recreation, Education, Finance d Business. A Capitol-Letter from Washington. Highlights of National and Interni tional News. Reviews of new pamphlets and books. All these are illustrated in tht contents of this issue. Sometimes we will include a 16-page pamphlet as a centers« tion, for which we have a number of unpublished manuscripts awaiting publicatio And all for the same subscription price of SI. We will venture the statement th any cooperative leader who reads a single one of the twelve monthly issues careful and carries the suggestions into action will receive in return far more than the entii year's subscription. At least that's our goal and we are undertaking the experimai It will win only with your individual support and the support of every regional i operative. Will you do your part ? Subscribe now. $1 per year. Mail your order to: THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street, New York City c ONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT M • I Ml MfMI PEACE- PLENTY- DEMOCRACY Volume XXVII. No. 4 APRIL. 1941 Ten Cents CO-OP COMMENTS Abraham Lincoln once said that "The Lord must have loved the common people, he made so many of them." Yet we. venture to suggest that there are some "uncommon" cooperators whom the Cooperative Movement should love a little the most. One of them is such a man as William Huuskonen, who mortgaged his farm on four different occasions to raise money for the Co-op. Of course he lives in Finland, Minn., U.S.A. * * * * Political "big-stick" regulation of farm prices has only succeeded after years of effort in getting for American farmers 42 cents of the consumer's dollar in 1940. Cooperative "yard-stick" regulation of prices succeeded in getting for Danish farmers 66 cents of the consumer's dollar. Furthermore, political "big-sticks" lead to eventual dictatorship in a nation; while cooperative "yard-sticks" lead to eventual economic as well as political democracy. Will American farmers choose "subsidized scarcity by political big-stick methods," or "stimulated consumption by cooperative yard-stick methods?" Poverty and dictatorship are down one road—plenty and democracy are down the other. * * * * Prepare to be gyped more! The gentle art of gyping is becoming bigger and better. Capitalism is digging its grave still deeper. Miss Harriet Elliott, con sumer representative in Washington, says that the average family is gyped $45 per year in overcharging and underweighing. The Wool and Cotton Reporter says that "On a great many garments now being offered, the wearing or service value to the consumer will not be much over half what it was several years ago." Of course you also might prepare to prevent being gyped by building cooperatives stronger and faster. An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond Class Matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1S79. Price.$1.00 a year. Two of the things worth your special watching in the Consumers' Coopératif Movement today are the active-price policies being followed by Ohio and Indian in fertilizer and by Saskatchewan in petroleum. The power of cooperatives to lows price levels for all the people and bust the trusts is beginning to be demonstrated in America. CO-OP EDITORS SAY: James Cummins, editor of the Cooperative Consumer, says that "After the gas is all burned up—there's still something left in a cooperative tank—the patron age dividend which starts filling it up again. This is something new under the sun." * * * * George Tichenor, editor of Eastern Cooperator, says that "Co-ops are Golden- Rule Price-Yardsticks." * * * * James Moore, editor of the Ohio Cooperator, says, "We try to sell Coopéra tion, and let Cooperation sell Insurance and Commodities." * * * * E. R. Bowen, editor of Consumers' Cooperation says, "Talk with your monej for plenty and peace every time you buy or bank." CO-OP LEADERS SAY: Monsignor Luigi Ligutti says, "Unless the Cooperative Movement is sound!} founded on education, we might as well give up the Cooperative Movement. Don'i ever hold a cooperative meeting without having cooperative books and pamphlets for sale." * * * * Anders Gerne, former Secretary of the K.F. in Sweden, says in the 40th Anni- versary number of Kooperatoren, "Consumers' Cooperation alone regards the hu-, man being and his needs as the basis of the whole economic system, its driving for« and goal. It therefore invests the individual, in his capacity as a consumer, with the supreme right of decision." * * * * Dr. M. M. Coady says, "Throw up the bulwarks of ownership." * * * * Ralph Snyder, president of the Wichita Bank for Cooperatives, said "As I empty this vial of fuel from the new refinery into the old tank-wagon, let it repre sent new ideas, new and better ways, trickling through and permeating and modi fying the old structure." * * * * E. Stanley Jones, world missionary, says, "The guiding principle for the pres ent should be To make peace by the creation in himself of a new man out of both parties.' . . . The emergence of that new man would create peace, a lasting peace, for the new man would be a cooperative man. ... I want a new spirit—that neu spirit will be a cooperative spirit. . . . The thing that is struggling to be born is a cooperative order. . . . All die great answers in the world are going in our direc tion—the direction of cooperation." BE YOUR OWN BOSS From time to time we plan to print more poetry. Here is a prose-poem by Peter Maurin which appeared in The Catholic Worker. Maurin is a modern St. Francis. If he ever honors you by calling, treat him like a saint and not like a tramp as he might be assumed to be from his weather beaten face and clothes. He is a scholar as well as a saint and has originated a style of writing which will go down in history, we predict, as a method of presenting truth in the language of love in more readable form. Here is one of his prose-poems. We have taken the liberty of changing his word "Farming Commune" into the word "Co-op." The CI.O. and the A. F. of L. 3. help the worker to fight the boss. But the worker must have a boss before the C.I.O. 4. and the A. F. of L. can be of any help to the worker in fighting the boss. But if a worker cannot find a boss to fight, he can always join a Co-op and be his own boss. And if it is a bad thing to exploit the worker, it is a good thing for the worker to exploit himself in a Co-op. 66 Consumers' Cooperate AprU 1941 WE SALUTE THE 40th ANNIVERSARY NUMBER OF "LAND AND FREEDOM" While we are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Cooperative League and the 27th Anniversary of Consumers' Cooperation, we also pay tribute to our con temporary "Land and Freedom" upon it's 40th Anniversary issue. Particular tribute is paid to the former editor, Joseph Dana Miller, a true prophet who could see so clearly into the future more than 20 years ago as to write: "Great God ! We are the torch-bearers of an economic world-gospel ! We bring balm for the healing of the nations, a message for the op pressed, a new Magna Charta of emancipation for mankind. If rejected, Leagues of Nations, covenants of peoples, are veritable 'scraps of paper'. Again autocracy will challenge the political democracies that even now are shaken by internal revolution. Again the Man on Horseback, a pinchbeck Hohenzollern or a real Napoleon, will over-ride the world. Again on dying democracies, by power of cannon and shot and shell, a modern Tamerlane will seek to fatten." "We venture the prediction that as the Bolshevist experiment de velops, it will be found that its chief contribution to human progress will be its exemplification of the policies to be avoided by nations who wish to improve their social conditions and its complete and triumphal refutation of the sophistries of Karl Marx and his followers." ECONOMIC NECESSITY—NOT THEORY—DEMANDS THAT COOPERATIVES DO THESE SIX THINGS: 1. Cooperatives must deal with and accept all users of the products they handle into membership. Cooperatives cannot eventually succeed in competition if they confine their trade to either rural or urban members when they handle com modities which both use. Trading with patrons and not permittting them to be come members is undemocratic and violates the "Open Membership" principle of cooperatives. 2. Cooperatives must constantly expand into additional lines to offset the re duction in margins in the older lines. Cooperatives constantly reduce their savings by acting as yard-sticks and forcing margins down as they should do. They must accordingly constantly add on new lines with larger margins both to keep their margins of saving up and to serve their members better. 3. Cooperatives must not gamble on inventories, as they cannot gamble on 67 II shares. They have no right to gamble on Board of Trade fixed prices on com modities any more than they have to gamble on Stock Exchange fixed prices on their shares. 4. Cooperatives must constantly improve their financial condition until they achieve the goal of never giving nor accepting credit. Profit business lives on debt- cooperative business must be debt free. 5. Cooperatives must build capital faster by voting more of their savings to reserves and shares instead of paying them out in cash. Increasing ownership rathei than immediate dividends should be the constant purpose of the movement. 6. Cooperatives and «»operators must mobilize their money cooperatively; ai well as buy together cooperatively. They must pay back to themselves any interest on capital as well as any profits on purchases, in order to free themselves from monopoly financial control as well as monopoly industrial control. A COOPERATIVE DICTIONARY There is an insistent need of adopting and defining clearly the phraseology which the Cooperative Movement should use. For the language adopted for tu' competitive age is not the vital language which will be used in the oncoming co operative age. Many words may be the same but their meaning will be largely revised. Many words have been used by the present system as a smoke screen to disguise the fact that business practices were becoming the opposite of the original meaning of the terms being used. For example, the demand for the preserva|iot ) of "free-competition," when business has become "monopoly-competition" bj forming economic combinations and trade agreements which increasingly destroy widespread individual initiative and private ownership. There is great need that Consumers' Cooperation use and define its terras f.cturately. To that end we will offer, from time to time, suggested definitions fa consideration and adoption in a cooperative dictionary. PURCHASING: Consumers' Cooperatives are the purchasing agents of the ultimate consumer patron-members. Consumers have found that they need to OK ganize and appoint purchasing agents to buy for them as a whole, just as mud as industry needs to and does employ purchasing agents. Cooperative employees do not make "sales talks" but "buying-talks." They advise what, where, when ad why to buy, or not to buy at all, according to the needs of their employer consumers, Cooperative employees buy for the consumer-patron-members in front of the counter who are the owners and employers, rather than selling to them. DECEPTION WILL NOT BUILD DEMOCRACY How can we ever build a democracy on a barrage of duplicity by political and journalistic writers and speakers ? Do we have to be drugged and think that out o( the seed of deception the flower of truth will grow ? Democracy is dependent upon whole truth-telling more than upon any other foundation. Yet our writers and speakers admit that they deceive the people. The only ray of hope is that today they are admitting it earlier and not after years as a part of the long history of the past. Consider these examples and tremble for our democracy unless and until we can begin whole truth-telling. President Wilson, in 1919, after a war fought on the slogan: "Make the World Safe for Democracy"—"Why, my fellow citizens, is there any man here, or any woman—let me say is there any child here—who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? The real reason that the war that we have just fin ished took place was that Germany was afraid her commercial rivals were 68 Consumers' Coopérât!« going to get the better of her, and the reason -why some nations went into the war against Germany was that they thought Germany would get the commercial advantage of them. The seed of jealousy, the seed of the deep- seated hatred, was hot commercial and industrial rivalry." Arthur Krock in 1941—"The official dispositon (is) to look at the case squarely, forget the hopes, promises and political deceptions of the past and provide direct means to meet whatever situation may arise." William Alien White—"The enactment of the lease-lend bill puts the U.S. economically, morally and officially in the war. . . . We were in the war as deeply as now when we amended the neutrality law to keep out of the war in 1939." Herbert Agar—after quoting a description of the lease-lend bill as "not a bill to keep America out of war, but a bill to enable the President to fight an undeclared war against Germany," said, "That is precisely what it is. ... Our side kept saying in the press and in the Senate that this lease-lend bill is a bill to keep America out of war. That's bunk!" Dr. Virgil Jordan—"It is the accepted custom and the normal man ners of modern government to conceal all important facts from the public or to lie about them." We should tell the whole truth while we can, that we are in an undeclared war, trying to revive a dying economy. The majority in a democracy have a perfect right to go to war if they so desire, after they have determined that war, in their considered judgment, is the way to solve the world's problems. But it is fatal to democracy for a people to let their speakers and writers deceive them as to what they are doing. GUEST EDITORIAL We are glad to be able to reproduce the following from the Nebraska Union Farmer, written by J. H. Bolin, an auditor. Without minimizing in any way the significance of a cooperative oil station or elevator, it is more than true that a coopera tive store handling household supplies as well as vocational supplies is the principal type of a cooperative as it becomes a cooperative community center. We are gradual ly, but not rapidly enough, learning this fact. We welcome the assistance of auditors as well as editors and educators and managers in converting cooperators to this fact. "No other kind of a co-operative serves like a co-operative store, as a co-operative center and meeting place. You never see whole families congregate at a co-operative elevator or co-operative oil station. Only a co-operative store is a meeting place and a visiting place. A co-operative store, in this way, ties the co-operators of the community together, and gives them frequent contacts with each other, as no other co-operative does. "It has truthfully been said that we need co-operative stores, handling household supplies, to get the women interested in the co-operative move ment. We also need co-operative stores to serve as places for the everyday exchange of information and ideas, and to enable us to keep acquainted constantly with our neighbors and fellow co-operators. "I have been around a lot among co-operatives and co-operators in my 25 years' experience as an auditor, and it is my reasoned conclusion and firm conviction that no other kind of a co-operative is as effective as a co-operative store in bringing the people together, creating co-operative solidarity, and keeping the community keyed up to a good co-operative pitch." 1941 69 COMMENDATION'S FOR COOPERATIVES ON "fcth ANNIVERSARY OF THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE A PIONEER «OPERATOR The retirement of Dr. James P. War- basse this week from the presidency of the Cooperative League marks a milestone in the progress of one of the world's most peaceful, most construc tive economic reform movements. It is twenty-five years since the League was organized in Dr. Warbasse's Brooklyn home. Two years later he gave up his surgical practice to devote his full time to cooperation and. related fields. His vigorous and youthful spirit animated the organization and put enthusiasm into all who had contacts with It. Dr. Warbasse has always insisted that consumers' cooperation is an im partial agency in this competitive From editorial world. It has no religious, racial or class barriers. Working men ana farm ers may gain by it, but it is not a trade union or agrarian movement. It Is essentially democratic, in that it give« each member a vote, regardless Of the number of shares he owns. Its savings, except for funds reinvested or used for education, return at stated intervals to the consumers themselves. It will be a long time before the ' American cooperatives will rival in in fluence those of Denmark, Finland and Sweden in the pre-war days. They , probably do act as a brake against ex tremes of doctrine. The Communist« have been able to do little with them, except to wreck those into which the Red brethren had intruded themselves. The New York Times, March 21, 1911 "It seems to me that the cooperatives have a great field In the future. - Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt "If a vigorous cooperative movement and private business can function successfully side by side, that fact Is In itself some assurance of a free competitive system, without which our democracy cannot hope to survive." r- Thurman Arnold Assistant Attorne General © Blacks ton •m* "With the millions whom It has helped, I hope for continued growth In the future for the coo- eratlve movement. " George' D. Alken "Cooperation holds within Itself the destinies of our race. Let us take new courage as we behold the greatness of our cause, and resolve to serve It with an ever increased fidelity." "Rev. John 'uAynes Holmes Minister Community Church •""*• "And the prospects for the.second quarter century period? Giant steps toward a cooperative economy powerful enough both to checkmate the dreadful abuses of American Individualistic capitalism and to forestall the. encroachment of autocratic Euro pean 'Isms'." © Bachrach . Edgar Schmiedeier, OSB turer in Cooperative School Social Science, 'athollc unlv. of America "The cooperative movement Is the ultimate democ racy and the hope of peace and brotherhood among men. . . " Elmer Morgan^fedltor Journal of the Nat'1 Ed. Assoc. " .-/ ..*- © Blank and Stoller "Ir your curves of growth continue as steeply up ward as they have been In recent years the coop eratives will soon represent America's biggest business..." - Alfred B/ngham, Common Sense Editor © Bachrach "The Cooperative Movement offers a great oppor tunity to mobilize all the brains of mankind... When we learn to fight out our battles for brains not battles for bullets, we shall become masters of our own destiny. " - Dr. St. Francis Xavier university © Bachrach • „The cooperatlve movement cannot exist If It cannot think. The "I look on the Cooperative Movement as the first great step toward fascist and nazi regimes destroy the soul of cooperation because a full cooperative order. The cooperative order is the thing whlcl they overthrow democracy and abollsji^reedom o& thought " Is struggling now to be born In the world economy." ^7 ' " 70 E. Stanley/Jones World Missionary Consumers' Coopérait April, 1941 -Boris Skomorowsky, Editor French edition Review of national Cooperation.___ 71 FINANCE DEBT AND DISASTER Watch Credit. Business and Prices!! THE PRICE BOOM IS ON! LOOK OUT! Ever since the declaration of war in Europe in September 1939 we have been earnestly and insistently endeavoring to help cooperative managers, directors and members to prepare themselves to face the certain price boom and bust ahead. Prices of the 28 basic commodities jumped in three weeks during September 1939 mote than 25 per cent. We warned first against gambling in inventories. Secondly, we also strongly urged cooperatives to double price their inventories at the close of that year, in other words at the prices prevailing on September 1st and on December 31st ad to-set up the difference in a reserve against future price declines. Prices held to about the same index figure from September to December 1939 and then because of the dragout of the war during the winter and the collapse of Franct in the summer they gradually fell until they reached only about" 6 per cent above September in August 1940. Since then they have been gradually rising again to 20 per cent above in the middle of February 1941 and from then on they jumped rapidly 12 per cent more to 32 per cent in a month's time from the middle of Feb ruary to the middle of March when this is written. Surplus factories, surplus labor» and surplus inventories are now being rapidly absorbed and barring the miracle of a possible but doubtful early peace they will now continue to rise rapidly. Cooperatives should PREPARE! PREPARE! The kind of preparation we au talking about should be increasingly clear. PREPARE NOW AGAINST FUTURI PRICE DECLINES. They will surely come eventually. When they do, inventories will fall in value. The way to prepare to meet such declines is to double price your inventories and separate your savings resulting from price increases from your sav ings resulting from normal operations. Transfer the savings resulting from inventor; price increases to a special reserve against future declines in inventory prices, Furthermore when prices eventually decline your receivables (if you have any) will be difficult to collect. The way to prepare against uncollectible receivables is nol to have any—to go on a cash basis—like the Swedes say, "Neither give nor accept credit." TAKE HEED! PREPARE NOW AGAINST THE BUST THAT IS SURE TO EVENTUALLY FOLLOW THE INCREASING BOOM IN PRICES. It's our job to be a watchman on the wall. We shout the warning to cooperatives and co- operators. Read also with care the article which follows this editorial under the title "DEBT AND DISASTER". Having been in business in 1920 and 1929 through two of the great est booms and busts in the history of America, which awakened ray mind to study into their causes, I should be happy if I could contribute some lessons from these first-hand ex periences to the Cooperative Move ment in order to protect it from the bust of Disaster which is sure to follow the present boom in Debt. It is in the hope of doing so that I am writing this article. The possibil ity of so doing will be determined by rcy ability to express these les sons clearly and by the willingness of cooperators to learn in part from others' experiences and not alone from their own trials and errors. Commodity Prices boomed during the war period of 1915 to 1920. The wholesale price index figure rose from 100 in the five year period from 1910-14, to 226 at the begin ning of 1920. The boom then ended with a bust. The index figure fell within one year to 138. In the business with which I was connected the inventory losses were larger than all the net profits of the previous five years. 1 woke up enough to open one eye. But still, since no living person had gone through a war boom and bust, and since we had ended "a war that was to end all wars", 1 had to go through a second boom and bust in 1929 to get both eyes opened wide . The 1920 boom and bust came at a time when cooperative purchasing wholesales were generally only in their early beginnings. Many of them went broke and their exist ence is even forgotten. One which survived had to cut the 72 Consumers' Cooperate April, 1941 E. R. Bowen value of its shares in half on account of the drastic decline in commodity prices. Commodity wholesales and retails today are far stronger to meet the war boom and after the war bust, but are still in great danger from possible uncollectible cred its and declines in inventory values, since the war boom and bust may and probably will be even greater than after 1920. fte are fortunate indeed today that our cooperative inventories are largely quick consumption goods, rather than production goods which turn over much more slowly and accord ingly cause far more disastrous results in a decline in prices. Let me call your attention to the fact that Commodity Prices leveled out at about 146 from 1922 to 1929, or about 50% above pre-war prices, which fooled the government statisticians so great ly that they largely discarded the 1910-14 index base of 100 and started a new 1926 base of 100. This was assumed to be a "permanent plateau of prosperity". However, Dr. George barren of Cornell University never accepted the theory of a permanent higher price level, and accordingly Cornell University statistics continue to be based on 1910-14, which proved to be sound reasoning. Note particularly that the 1920 boom was in Commodity Prices - not Stock Prices. Stock Prices did not go up on account of the excess profits being taxed away, even though Commodity Prices went way up. Note also that the 1929 boom was in Stock Prices - not Commodity 73 19 I2O MO CREDIT AND BUSINESS 100 70 400 300 200 too COMMODITIES INDEX FIGURES DOLLAR FIGURES 74 1910 1915 1920 1925 I93O 1935 _ I94O Consumers' Coopérât» April, 1941 Prices. Stock Prices broke through the ceiling in 1924 and flew out of sight to 381 in 1929. Then oc curred a double bust of both Stock and Commodity Prices. Both hit the same low in 1932 of about 90. Note also carefully in the upper chart that the booms and busts in Business correspond to the booms and busts in Prices. Commodity and Common Stock Prices are the most sensitive advance indicators I have- ever been able to find as to the probable booms and busts in Busi ness. It was as a result of fol lowing these lines of Commodity and Stock Prices that we wrote the edi torial and published the charts in CONSUMERS COOPERATION in the early fall of 1937, predicting a "Boom and Bust Again" which occurred shortly thereafter. Both Commodity and Stock Prices began to boom to gether (a phenomenon 1 had never seen before) - whereas in 1920 only Commodity Prices had boomed and in 1929 only Stock Prices had boomed. Again we wrote another editorial with charts in the fall of 1939 in CONSUMERS COOPERATION entitled, "Another Bust Ahead - Prepare For It", and the bust followeü as you can see by the accompanying chart. To indicate that other coun tries' Cooperative leaders are alive to the trends of such charts and statistical warnings, let me relate an experience when meeting Mr. Johansson of Sweden in his office in Stockholm. Before I could do more than say "Good Morning", he asked me thi's pene trating question, "Is it really true that in the United States you have increased your install ment credit even more than in 1929?" My answer was, "I am sorry to say, Mr. Johansson, tbat we have. I wrote an article warn ing the Cooperative Movement of another Boom and Bust, and then Came to Scandinavia where you have economic intelligence to learn more from you." He literally walked the floor in his disturb ance over our economic ignorance and asked, "Haven' t you Americans learned anything about credit yet?" However, I have never read of a bus iness man in America who was dis turbed over installment credit in advance of the bust which followed in 1937, although Roger Babson wrote a book years later, after the horse was stolen again, entitled "The Folly of Installment Buying", which we reviewed in CONSUMERS COOPERATION, and quoted him as saying, "Save first. Buy for cash, and get a good discount. You will thus avoid the installment surcharge and have some money left to buy more of the things so appealingly placed before you. " My first reaction, when I opened both eyes after 1929, was that I, like other Americans was "economically illiterate", as Dr. Warren described us, of in the "kindergarten stage of economics." When a bust occurs we simply change political parties - not economic organizations as we should and as is necessary. After the bust of 1920, we changed from Democrat to Republican; after 1929 we changed from Republican to Democrat. After the next bust - but why draw the moral? As though a change in po litical' parties would solve any real economic problems! My second reaction was to dis cover that CREDIT was the "key" - the very foundation - of both booms and busts in Business and Prices. How I learned this can best be told by a brief story of a small part of my own personal experiences and economic awakenings. 75 k l In the spring of 1931 I was at tending a tractor and combine show at Dodge City, Kansas. Wheat was selling on track there at 45orts Fast-Growing Co-ops Shun all Isms .......................................... Union of Church and Economics IB Dramatized as Co-ops Reveal Rapid Progress, P. H. Erbes, Jr., Printers' Ink .............................................................. Brickbats and Boomerangs, E. R. Bowen ........................................................ A Fair Deal to All Through Coopera tives, John C. Rawe, S.J. .................. FILMS Traveling the Middle Way In Sweden, 16 nil silent, produced by the Harinon Foundatloi rnit I, Land of Sweden, 2 reels. Unit 11 Consumer Cooperation, 2 reels. Unit 111 Agricultural Cooperatives, 2 reels. Rental [8 unit: color. $5; black and white, $3; add tional showings, $2.50 color and $1.50, btol and white. "The Lord Helps Those — Who Help Eli Other," a new 3 reel, 16 mm. film of the Km Scotia adult education and cooperative pit gram, produced by the Harmon Foundattoi Excellent photography. $4.50 per day, $!.: additional showings, $13.50 per week. Consumers Serve Themselves, 1 reel. 16 mi, Kodacrome, shows how cooperators on tti eastern seaboard are providing themselt with tested, quality CO-OP products. $2[. day, $6 per week. "A House Without a Landlord," a new & reel, 16 mm. silent film on the Amalgams« Cooperative Houses in New York City. "Clasping Hands," 16 mm. silent, two reel flia showing how cooperation is taught in t schools of France. "When Mankind Is Willing," a 16 mm. slltll three-reel film, with English titles, of «» erative stores, wholesales and factoriei France. A Day With Kagawa, 3 reel, silent, 16 D" Kagawn and his co-ops in Japan. Rental: Each of four above $3 per diy, II» for each additional showing or $10 per?;' POSTERS Organize Cooperatives, 19"x28" Green, 5 for $1 ........................................... — Cooperative Principles, 19"x28" Blue, 5 for $1 .................................................... Cooperative Ownership, 19"x28" Mulberry, 5 for $1 ............................................ Consumer Ownership — Of. By and For the 1'eople, 19"x28", Red-White-and- Blue. 5 for $1 .................................................... Buy Co-op, 19"x28", Red-White-and-Blue, 5 for $1 ................................................................ March On, Democracy, 19"x28" Red-White-and-Blue. 5 for $1 .................... '-s-i -.Ha*- W—--M" .-** MAY, 1941 The First Consumer-Owned Oil Refinery in the U. S. SPECIAL OWNERSHIP ISSUE HOW SHOULD COOPERATIVE INSURANCE BE ORGANIZED? E. R. HOW FINLAND SOLVED THE FARM TENANCY PROBLEM J. Hampden Jackson YOUR WORK IS PRIZED Ruth Broan Farnsworth CO-OP DIVISION OF I.L.O. CARRIES ON Janet Coerr RESTORATION OF PROPERTY, A Review Edward Skillin, Jr. Consumers' Coopéra» , NATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE LEADERS CONFIDENCE REQUIRES ACTION Consumers' Cooperation has blossomed out for three issues in a sprightly front cover, double the usual number of pages and with more pictures than ever before. The first was our 25th Anniversary issue; the second on "Four Corner stones"; this third, a special "Owner ship" issue. But if we are to keep it up, we need more subscriptions. A thousand new sub scriptions will assure this 32 page size. Renew your subscription now; send gift subscriptions to your friends; have your co-op subscribe for its board members and employees. $1 per year; 27 months for $2 Send your order today to: THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street, N. Y. C. CALENDAR OF COMING EVE National Cooperative Recreation Sa Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa,] 14 to 27. National Cooperative Publicity and cation Conference, Iowa State Coll Ames, Iowa, June 26-28. First All-American Tour of Coopérât! starts at Columbus, Ohio, July 7, d at North Kansas City, Mo., July 19. First Cooperative Summer School, Co for Cooperative Business Training, York, July 7 to August 23. THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 608 South Dearborn, Chicago 167 West 12th Street, New York City 726 Jackson Place N.W., Washington, D.C DIVISIONS: Auditing Bureau, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Medical Bureau, 1790 Broadway, N. Y. C Design Service, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Rochdale Institute, 167 West 12 St., N. Y.C AFFILIATED REGIONAL AND NATIONAL COOPERATIVES Name Am. Fanners Mutual Auto Ins. Co. Associated Cooperatives, N. Cal. Associated Cooperatives, So. Cal. Central Cooperative Wholesale Central States Cooperatives, Inc. Consumers Cooperative Association Consumers' Cooperatives Associated Consumers Book Cooperative Cooperative Distributors Cooperative Recreation Service Eastern Cooperative League Eastern Cooperative Wholesale Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n Farm Bureau Mutual Auto Insurance Co. Columbus, Ohio Farm Bureau Services Lansing, Michigan Farmers' Union Central Exchange Grange Cooperative Wholesale Address Publication St. Paul, Minn. 372—40th St., Oakland Cooportunity 7218 S. Hoover, L.A. New Age Living Superior, Wisconsin Cooperative Builder 230: S. Millard, Chicago The Round Table N. Kansas City, Mo. Cooperative Consumer Amarillo, Texas The Producer-Consume: 27 Coenties Slip, N.Y.C. Readers Observer 116 E. 16 St., N. Y. Consumers Defender Delaware, Ohio The Recreation Kit 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator Columbus, Ohio CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT St. Paul, Minn. Seattle, Washington Indiana Farm Bureau Coop. Association Indianapolis, Ind. Midland Cooperative Wholesale National Cooperatives, Inc. National Cooperative Women's Guild Pacific Coast Student Co-op League Pacific Supply Cooperative Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Coop. Ass'n Southeastern Coop. Education Ass'n United Cooperatives, Inc. Workmen's Mutual Fire Ins. Society Minneapolis, Minn. Chicago, 111. 608 S. Dearborn, Chicago Berkeley, Calif. Walla Walla, Wash. Harrisburg, Penn. Carrollton, Georgia Indianapolis, Ind. 227 E. 84th St., N. Y. Ohio Cooperator Ohio Farm Bureau News Michigan Farm News Farmers' Union Herald Grange Cooperative Neii Hoosier Farmer Midland Cooperator Pacific N.W. Cooperator Penn. Co-op Review Southeastern Cooperator M« • I M» •"Kl PEACE • PLENTY • DEMOCRACY Volume XXVII. No. 5 MAY, 1941 Ten Cents BUILD COOPERATIVES STRONGER AND FASTER The first quarter century of The Cooperative League, which has just ended, has been truly described as Pioneering. The second quarter century which is now beginning should be described as Building. The pioneers have largely laid the foundations—four strong corner stones to carry the mighty structure of Coopera tion—Recreation, Education, Finance and Business, with the many varied divi sions. Now we are going on to build high the walls of a cooperative world. Every local cooperative, every regional, every factory is a stone in the wall. We shall need many more of them. "Build cooperatives stronger and faster" should be our slogan on our rainbow banner for the second quarter century. Others have been called "The Pioneers." We may be called "The Builders." We should all be like Gustav Saga of Sweden, of whom it was said, "Wherever he went, things grew after him." WE STAND FOR OWNERSHIP We stand on the belief that the world was made for all the people to own— that it was never intended to be the exclusive possession of the few. We believe that everyone should own his own home and also be the owner of shares in coop erative businesses and banks of every kind. We believe that cooperatives of con sumers and producers are one of the most important ways of enabling all the people to become owners. We are out to win ownership for all the people through cooperatives. This is a SPECIAL OWNERSHIP ISSUE of CONSUMERS' CO OPERATION which will tell you why we all should be owners, why we have lost ownership, and how some are gaining ownership and others can by joining cooperatives. FRATERNAL MEMBERS Credit Union National Association Madison, Wisconsin The Bridge An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond 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. THE DECREASE OF OWNERSHIP IN AMERICA When the first census was taken in 1880, 25% of the farmers were tenants. Every census has shown an increase until it reached 42% in 1935. Mortgages ate also much heavier and if added to the figures of tenancy in the State of Iowa, which the Department of Agriculture calls the greatest agricultural state in tht Union, the percentage of non-ownership by farm operators has reached the stag gering total of 76%. Farm operators in that State only have 24% equity today in the land they till, or less than one-fourth. City residents in the United States are 55% tenants or over half. Apologists for the present system tell of the number of automobiles, radios and other forms of personal property which the people own. But an increase in ownership of personal property does not compensate for the decline in ownership of productive property. Loss of ownership of productive property results in under consumption, underemployment, and underproduction. PERCENTAGE OF THE VALUE OF FARM REAL ESTATE NOT BELONGING TO THE FARM OPERATOR. 1935 THE INCREASE OF OWNERSHIP IN SCANDINAVIA In Denmark farm tenancy at one time reached 42%. Today an official report "Denmark Agriculture" says "there is no longer any farm tenancy in Denmark." In Finland farm tenancy reached 69%- Today, the latest statistics we have show that farm tenancy in Finland has declined to 11% and is probably now still lower. In Norway farm tenancy is only 10%. Sweden has the highest farm ten ancy, but only 20%. To what is this decline in farm tenancy attributable? We also have official documents from Denmark and Finland which say specifically i-iat cooperatives in finance, purchasing and marketing are one of the principal reasons for the decline of tenancy. That's why we believe in building coopera tives stronger and faster in this country—to eliminate tenancy and achieve owner ship. If it can be done in Scandinavia, it can be done here. OWN YOUR OWN MONEY You may think you do but you don't. Normally you let the bankers control your money. That means, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis said years ago in "Other People's Money—and How the Bankers Use It," that "The power and the growth of power of our financial oligarchs comes from wielding the savings and quick capital of others. . . . The fetters which bind the people are forged from the people's own gold." It may not be gold any more, but it's still your own money in some form that you allow others to control and. thereby bind you to at least the possibility, if not yet the personal actuality, of underconsumption, underemployment and underproduction. Yet how easy it is for you to begin breaking the chains which bind you 98 Consumers' Cooperating There are two simple ways. First, spend your money in a cooperative store, oil station, etc. Second, save your money in a cooperative credit union and in buying cooperative shares and cooperative insurance. What we need to do today is first, to pool our purchases cooperatively and second, to mobilize our money coopera tively. Remember—you cannot control what you do not own—you cannot own what you do not control. The essence of cooperation is both ownership and control of both property and of money. r r * * * OWN FACTORIES COOPERATIVELY The evidence seems to prove that we have been all too slow in going from retail and wholesale ownership to cooperative factory ownership. For a number of years we have had many more times the amount of distribution necessary to use the output of several fertilizer plants and refineries. As we look at the tre mendous figures of results, now that we have begun to build such factories, we can only conclude that it was a mental resistance that we had to overcome to break away from private sources and begin to build our own production plants. Our early beginnings in production have proven the oft repeated statement of the British that "production is the lifeblood of the cooperative movement" and the statement of the Swedes that "co-ops are trust busters." Now that we have gotten over the first humps, it will be easier to get over others in different fields. We need only to keep always in mind that fertilizer and petroleum are simple prod ucts, which are sold in large quantities, and with wide margins. These are the three determinants which the Swedes follow in deciding as to the next manu facturing step to undertake—simplicity, quantity, margin. Now that we have both their experience and our own experience to guide us, we should be able to also duplicate their declaration that they do not make a mistake any more in the next steps to take because of careful advance investigation based on proven principles and practices. r * * * THE THREE NATURAL FORMS OF PROPERTY According to John Locke,* whose writings formed the foundation of the American Constitution, every man has a natural and inalienable right to three forms of property. The first is the right to "property in his own person. Locke says, Ihough the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a 'property' in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself." The second is the right to property in "the labor of his body and the work of his hands." Locke says, "The 'labor' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature has provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property ... 'to The third is the right to property in "the earth itself." Locke says, "But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself, as that which takes in and carries all the rest, I think it is plain that property in that too is acquired as the former." ' And how much property does every man have a natural right to own ? First, all of his person without reservation. Second, whatever fruits of his labor «Chapter "Of Property" in "Second Treatise of Government." May, 1941 99 and,work of his hands he can use or consume. Locke says, "If the spontaneous products of nature perished in his possession without their due use—if the fruits rotted or the venison putrefied before he could spend it, he offended against the common law of Nature, and was liable to be punished; he invaded his neigh bor's share, for he had no right farther than his use called for any of them." Third, as much of the earth as he can cultivate and use the products of. Locke says, "If either the grass of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his planting perished without the gathering and laying up, this part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was still to be looked upon as waste, and might be the possession of any other." What better rules can any one write for the triple natural property rights of every man and their limitations than these formulated by John Locke two hundred and fifty years ago? The question today is how many more years we need to put them in effect. Only a cooperative economy will do so—where all become owners and ownership is divided according to justice and efficiency into the three forms—individual, cooperative and public. * * * THE THREE FORMS OF OWNERSHIP There are three natural forms of property, as John Locke declared in the chapter, "Of Property" in "Second Treatise of Government." There are also three forms of ownership,—private, cooperative and public. Just what should be > owned in either one of the three forms is a matter which changes from time to time in the world's history. In general we believe that all of those things which one can use personally in an efficient manner should be owned privately. "Use" should be the déter minent of private ownership. This would include one's home at the minimum. Those things which are by nature exclusive, where all the people accept a large degree of uniformity such as water works, electric light, power and heat, transportation, communication, etc., should be publicly owned. By publicly owned we do not mean government owned and politically controlled. We meat by public ownership the ownership by all the consumers in any area, with the control separate from the political government through a board of directors demo cratically and directly elected by all the consumers. The remaining activities of economic life should be at least in part coop eratively owned. Just how far cooperative ownership should and will supersede private ownership cannot be answered by any theorizing. Practical results alone should determine. At least the stranglehold of "the present private economic die- atorship represented in the modern corporation" must be broken by either check mating or supplanting it. In Finland cooperative ownership has reached 36$ and is increasing at the rate of 1% per year. This is far the highest percentage in any country. Perhaps conditions may make the percentage vary in different countries. All that cooperatives ask is an open field, with the best method to be the winner which can render the greatest service to all the people. That alone should be the determining element. Individual total action has proven a failure after centuries of trial. Public total action is in the process of proving a failure today. Cooperative total action would probably be a failure if adopted. What we should strive for is "An Insti tutional Balance," as advocated by the Committee on Cooperatives of the Na tional Education Association—a balance between private, cooperative and public ownership and control of our economy. 100 Consumers' Coopérant THE OWNERSHIP OF ONE'S LIFE In the introduction to "AE's Letters to Minanlaiben" appears this sentence, "Afternoon tea was his evening meal, which gave him the hours when day re luctantly and slowly was being conquered by night to wander under the ever- changing sky." Time to wander. How we envy anyone who has it. Whose hours are such and whose work is such as to relieve them from constant présure botjuoït^nd off the job. After quoting another Irish poet who calls to us-: $fc- u" '•'^1'1-'» /' "Come away, O human child, f _ ,(,.__ To the woods and waters wild II [__( ^ ' -,"' ..-• With a faery hand in hand : " For the world's more full of weeping Than you can understand" George Russell adds: "Away! yes, yes; to wander on and on under star-rich skies, ever getting deeper into the net, the love that will not let us rest, the peace above the desire for love." Russell's wish was to dwell in the mountain of his dream where, "between heaven and earth and my brothers, there might come on me some foretaste of the destiny which the great powers are shaping for us, the mingling of God and nature and man in a being, one, yet infinite in number." Peter Maurin arranges five sentences of Thoreau's prose in this form: 1. "If my wants should be much increased the labor required to supply them would become a drudgery. 2. And if I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. 3. never I trust that I shall sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting a living." When will the time come when we will not have to sell both our forenoons and afternoons and most of our evenings as well in getting plenty and trying to build a world in which to do so peacefully? We need time to wander and wonder. It almost seems we never have any time at all to do so. Working, studying, attending meetings takes almost all the waking hours. Yet, as Russell also says, "In silence thought begins." We need a world in which we can wander in silence and think on its wonders. THE OWNERSHIP OF ONE'S BODY? For centuries unnumbered it was thought under slavery and serfdom that one's body was owned by the economic master and political lord. Today under capitalism the generally accepted idea is that the ownership of one's body is subservient to the economic system and the state. Together they are presumed to be able to require of everyone what they must do with their bodies. Tomorrow, it will be recognized and we will be so organized as to maintain the inviolate natural right of everyone to the ownership and control of one's body by each individual person, subject only to one's voluntary acceptance of the right of a creator. It is toward that tomorrow that we cooperators strive. May, 1941 10 '"fl HOW SHOULD COOPERATIVE INSURANCE BE ORGANIZED? WE have reached the point, a quarter century after the beginnings of na tional cooperative organization in the United States, where three of the four corner stones of the structure of the Movement have been laid in a national way and in the following order—Educa tion, Business and Recreation. The or ganization of the Cooperative League laid the corner stone of Education in 1916; the organization of National Co operatives laid the corner stone of Busi ness in 1933 ; and the organization of the Cooperative Society for Recreational Ed ucation laid the corner stone of Recrea tion in 1936. There is still a fourth na tional corner stone to be laid and that is Finance in all its various forms. In one form only has national finance organiza tion developed—that of Credit Unions organized nationally in the Credit Union National Association. At least three other forms of cooperative finance are yet to be developed nationally—Banking, Finance Associations and Insurance. After long discussions of a joint national committee of The Cooperative League, Credit Union National Association and the Consumer Distribution Corporation it was concluded that the organization of a National Coop erative Finance Association should precede any attempt to organize Cooperative Bank ing on a national basis and the matter was voted by the joint committee into the hands of The Cooperative League Board of Directors which is working on the details of such an organization. We believe that the time is now ripe to begin the discussion of the National Organization of Cooperative Insurance with the view of eventually crystallizing everyone's opinion and initiating action on whatever conclusion is reached. Efficiency and Democracy Basic It should not be necessary to say in the beginning that the same basic require ments of cooperative organization in every 102 E. R. Bowen other field must also be applied to tk organization of cooperative insuranct. These basic requirements are centralia- tion for economic efficiency and decen tralization for democratic control. We believe strongly in learning every thing possible from others' experienct and thus saving ourselves from all of tk mistakes of the trial and error method that we are thus able to do. While the a- perience of other European countria could be used, we believe from study ana investigation that the British experienct is the clearest lesson from which tk United States may learn. In Great Britain cooperative insuranct was first organized separately from com modities on a national basis. The séparait organization of cooperative insuranct failed. Then the Cooperative Wholesalt Society organized insurance- under tk same Board of Directors as commoditie and from then on the success has bea continuous. (It might be added that tin same experience took place in Great Brit ain in the case of Banking as well—it was first organized separately and faild and then organized together with com modities and succeeded.) In other wordi, the centralization of insurance under tk same Board of Directors which handle commodities on a national basis ha proven to be highly economical and ef ficient. However, until the former president of the CWS, Sir William Dudley, visit«! America, and we had an opportunity of talking with him personally, we haj been unable to satisfy ourselves from tk reading of any literature as to their meth od of providing for democratic control of insurance. When we asked the ques tion, "How do you get democratic con trol of cooperative insurance?", the an swer was quick and clear. Mr. Dudley said in brief, "As yet you have no! thought generally in the United States of Consumers' Cooperation MiV> 1941 a local cooperative in the same terms as we do in Great Britain. We think of a local cooperative as an organization to serve the needs of the members in every way they desire. Their needs in commodi ties and services, in education and recrea tion, in banking and insurance. One local cooperative serves them all. As a mem ber you study and play, you buy, you bank and insure through the same organ ization. It serves all of your needs. Then when you attend the annual meeting you vote, first, for the Directors you want to handle the affairs of your local coopera tive and, second, for the delegates you want to attend the national Congress to control your national affairs. When these delegates meet in the national Congress they represent all of your interests — insurance as well as commodities. They elect a nation? 1 Board of Directors which in turn handles the national insurance as well as the national commodity program." By uniting insurance with commodities in one program, they achieved both ef ficiency and democracy. We believe this is a great lesson for the Consumers' Co operative Movement in the United States to learn. We believe it is now becoming increasingly accepted that cooperative in surance and commodities should be closely related locally, regionally and na tionally in the United States. Our devel opment here was not uniform and not altogether idealistic. If there had been an ideal development no doubt the logic of Education first, Finance second, and Business third, would have followed. However, in some cases there has been too little education as we all well know. In other cases, finance has been weak, and cooperative business has accordingly started on a shoe string. In some cases insurance has preceded commodities and has succeeded in a measure but doubtless not as great as though more closely al lied with commodity cooperatives every where. Now with our trial and error ex perience and with the example of other countries to which we 4re increasingly looking, we should be able to coordinate Finance, in all its forms, with Business in the best possible way locally, region ally and nationally. This is the first mental hurdle for the Consumers Cooperative Movement in the United States to get over—to decide if a close relation between Commodities and Insurance is not both necessary and desirable for both efficiency and de mocracy. Three General Types of Organization If we start by thinking of a local com munity cooperative association which will serve all of our needs as members both efficiently and democratically, then we can proceed to consider the question of the Best possible wider organization of insurance in a country as large as the United States, which because of its size has problems of organization which a smaller country does not have. We have in the United States illus trations of insurance organizations which confine their activities within the boun daries of a single State. Some even go so far as to limit their membership to_a single vocational group such as farmers. It is difficult to conceive of any major reason for doing either. Since everyone is an actual or a potential consumer of insurance, one's vocation, or one's resi dence, whether in the country or city, or one side or the other of a political boundary, seem insufficient to justify any group setting limits to the participation by others in any benefits to be derived from a larger number becoming policy holders and thus spreading the costs and risks more widely. Furthermore, if large scale operation proves to be more economical, it will increasingly be diffi cult to persuade any vocational or politi cal area group to forego receiving those benefits themselves. It was undoubtedly because of the growing belief in the justice and wisdom of the "Open Membership" principle of Consumers' Cooperation and the further belief in the possibility of economies in a larger organization, that the insurance companies which began in the State of Ohio finally broke over both vocational and political boundary lines into other 103 States until today they cover nine East ern States. These insurance companies are increasingly being sponsored by regional commodity, cooperatives who act in the capacity of distributors and claim adjust ers and who nominate the directors to be elected from their respective terri tories. Loans of insurance funds are made in all of the territories where in surance is written, thus decentralizing the reserve funds. On the basis of apparent results, it would seem that such larger scale sectional distribution of insurance has proven to be more efficient than small area operation and by being related to democratic regional cooperative associa tions can be made democratically con trolled. We now have in successful operation in the United States examples of both state and sectional cooperative insurance associations. If sectional associations are proving to be or can be made more suc cessful than state associations, that fact should be brought clearly to light by thor ough statistical comparisons. If sectional as sociations covering a number of states are more efficient as well as more truly co operative in spirit in not limiting their membership, then the question naturally follows as to whether national coopera tive insurance would not be still more efficient than sectional insurance. If a single sectional insurance association cov ering a number of states can serve several regional cooperatives, why cannot ont national cooperative insurance association serve all regional cooperatives every where? Is not insurance very much dif ferent from commodities which are or ganized by trade areas because of différ ences in the kind and qualities of prod ucts wanted, transportation costs, etc? No such territorial differences which ap ply to commodities prevent national or ganization of insurance. Assuming that cooperators are open minded to consider on its merits eveij possibility of rendering greater service to themselves, we suggest that the question of national cooperative insurance be care fully studied by the regional cooperatives. At least it is not difficult to conceive of i national cooperative insurance association covering the entire United States which might equal and far exceed any national stock or mutual company and which might be controlled by the regional co operatives in every trade area, with such regionals the distributors, the claim ad justers and the loaning agencies for theit respective territories. We believe that it is timely that this question of the national organization ol cooperative insurance, as one of the ele ments of the corner stone of cooperative finance, be considered by the cooperatives. NATIONAL COOPEBBTIVE INSURANCE ASSOCIATION NATIONAL 1NSUWNCE CONTRDUEOBND DISTRIBUTED THROUGH REUONBL CÜOPE8BTWE HttOCIATION! HOW FINLAND SOLVED THE FARM TENANCY PROBLEM (From "Finland", by J. Hampden Jackson. By permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.) (EDITOR'S NOTE: We have secured permission to reprint a jeu- f>ages \intn the book FINLAND, written by J. Hampden ]ackson and published by Macmillan Company, as it seems to us that it sums up briefly the steps which Finland has taken during the past 40 years to eliminate farm tenancy, and should serre as a pattern jor the United States to jollow. It should be remembered that cooperative education started in 1899 but that Finland did not become politically free until 1917. In other words, cooperative economic organization pre ceded democratic political organization, which makes the solu tion of farm tenancy in Finland in so short a time all the more remarkable. ) It was obvious, that the new Republic must stand or fall by its ability to satisfy the land-hunger of the masses. Of the 478,122 families who lived on the land at the time of the 1910 census, only 24 per cent were owners. About 33 per cent were tenant farmers and the remaining 43 per cent were agricultural labourers. Within each of these latter classes were two clear sub-divisions. Of the 160,000 tenant families, 66,500 were torpparit, that is holders of leases that could be revoked at the will of the owners. Of the 207,000 farm labourers, 84,000 held cottages and vegetable plots; the rest were landless. The problem before the founders of the Republic was therefore a double one: first to enable farmers and cottagers to acquire their holdings in full ownership, secondly to provide new holdings for the landless. FIRST CREDIT LAW —- 1919 The first part of this task was broached in October 1918 by a law providing state loans for peasants who wished to buy their land. It was laid down that the price should be based on the value of the land in 1914. Owners grumbled that this was too low, land-values having increased since then, but they had seen something of the temper oftorpparit and cottagers in the civil war of 1918 and in most cases they were not unwilling to come to terms with their tenants. Little was done about the second part of the task until 104 Consumers Cooperation May, 1941 105 106 1922 when circumstances made it of immediate importance. The Communist wing of the Social Democratic Party had broken away from the moderates and under the name of the Finnish Labour Party (the term Communist was illegal) had won twenty-seven seats at the 1920 elections. At the elections of 1922 the Communists retained their twenty- seven seats and it seemed likely that unless something was done to wean the masses from Communism the capitalist Republic must ultimately be overthrown. Agitators could point to Russia where the Bolsheviks had allowed the peasants to seize the land, and contrasted it with Poland where the new Republican Government preserved the vast estates intact. Revolutionaries who had no sympathy with communism could point to the new peasant Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania where the landlords were being expropriated to make way for hundreds of thousands of smallholders. SECOND CREDIT LAW — 1927 On the crest of this wave of feeling the Agrarian leader Kyosti Kallio formed a ministry in September 1922. He depended on the support of Social Democrats and Pro gressives as well as that of his own party and was pledged to find land for the landless. The problem was not so simple as that which faced the agrarian reformers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania where the landowners were Baltic or Polish barons and could easily be expropriated as anti- national aliens. The landowners of Finland were Finns; there could be no question of robbing them of their estates. A compromise was found in the bill which became law in October 1927. The Lex Kallio, as it is called, provided State aid for the purchase of two types of holding in hitherto uncultivated land. The first type consisted of small farms of a maximum of 20 hectares of agricultural land with another 20 hectares for firewood, the second type consisted of plots of 2 hectares maximum for cottage-sites and vegetable allotment. The landlords were to be paid by the State in Government 7 per cent bonds; the new landowners Consumers' Coopérât! were to pay the State at the rate of 7 per cent per annum of the cost price, 4 per cent of which ranked as interest and 3 per cent went to pay off the capital debt; the new cottagers paid 9 per cent, a burden which being wage-earners as well as allotment-holders they could be expected to bear. There was considerable opposition from the right-wing parties (especially from the Swedes who tried to pass an amendment forbidding the acquisition of land in Swedish- speaking areas by Finnish-speaking peasants) but it was overcome by the law's very careful limit on forced sales. Under the Lex Kallio expropriation became legal only as a last resort. In the case of estates of 200 hectares and under there could be no expropriation;- in estates of 500 hectares the maximum with which landlords could be forced to part was 25 hectares; only in estates of over 500 hectares could expropriation reach the legal limit of 50 per cent of the uncultivated land. In spite of its leniency to landlords and the fact that it was creating that most conservative of social groups, a peasant-proprietor class, Kallio's bill was supported in all its stages by the Social Democrats. The Communists, on the other hand, were loud in their opposi tion. In this they were backed by the Third International and by the Soviet Government—it must be remembered that those were the days when Moscow's policy was openly to ferment revolutions outside Russia. The connection between the Finnish Communists and the Russian became so close that during the parliamentary recess in August 1923 Kallio dissolved the "Labour" Party, shut its headquarters and its newspaper offices and arrested its leaders, including the twenty-seven members of the Diet. Then and only then, did the Social Democrats demur. When the Diet reassembled they insisted that Kallio had infringed the liberty of mem bers and had rendered the Diet legally incompetent to legislate. President Stâhlberg did not share this opinion, but he took the view that since the Diet in its mutilated form was obviously unrepresentative a new election should be held. Kallio resigned and the Diet was dissolved. The 107 108 elections of 1924 showed, as might be expected, a loss for the Communists (who had again changed their name to escape the penalties of the law). They retained only eighteen seats. The gainers were the Social Democrats and the Concentration Party; for the ensuing year the conservative Lauri Ingman was to be Prime Minister. In spite of storms in political teacups the agrarian reforms worked smoothly. The Government used no force: it did not once have to exercise its right of expropriation, nor on the other hand did it find any difficulty in finding worthy candidates for proprietorship. By 1929 over 144,00x3,000 marks had been lent to purchasers of new estates, but never was a State loan spent to better purpose. The agrarian reforms were a success in three distinct respects. First the number of peasant proprietors was increased. By the end of 1934 some 65,000 leaseholders had become owners of land and another 53,000 had become cottage-and-allotment owners. By the same date under the Lex Kallio 31,000 new estates had been founded on hitherto unworked land, half of these being productive farms and half cottage-holdings for labourers. To-day one Finnish family in every three owns land: there lies the greatest difference between Finland and the older states of Europe. Secondly the area under cultivation was increased. In the first twelve years of its working the Lex Kallio brought over two million additional acres of land under cultivation. Thirdly the productivity of the land acre for acre was increased. Statistics are a poor way of measuring the Finns' growing skill in working the land, but we know no other. In the production of hay and animal fodder (Finland's chief crops) the yield per hectare in the years between 1923 and 1927 was 1-067 food units; in 1934 it was 1-418. In the years between 1911 and 1913 Finland produced only 41 per cent of the cereals consumed by her population; for 1934 the figure was 82 per cent. In 1920 the yield of milk was 1,865,000,000 kilograms, in 1935 it was 2,728,ooo,ooo.1 This increased agricultural productivity was the greatest Consumers' Cooperation MaV' 1941 achievement of Finland under the Republic. It is perhaps encouraging to note that the State played a comparatively small part in promoting it. Though the Government under took research work, provided loans and subsidized the farmers (as we shall see) in time of crisis, responsibility for the striking progress in agriculture lies not so much with the State as with the individual farmers who, once freed from hopeless conditions of lease and labour, proved them selves one of the most progressive groups of producers in the world. The key to their success is to be found in their infinite capacity for taking pains and in their extraordinary collaboration through the co-operative movement. 1 See Suomen Tilastollinen Vilosikirja, the official year-book of statistics (Helsinki, 1936). EARLY COOPERATIVE EFFORTS It is the peculiarity of the northern peoples that they combine a passion for peasant proprietorship with a habit of collaboration. "Since time immemorial common enter prises have been carried on among the Finnish people in all spheres of pure economy in kind. Such common enterprises consisted, for instance, in the sphere of fishing of drag-net crews that have preserved their old form down to our own day along the sea-coast and on the shores of the larger lakes. In the sphere of forestry there were common associations, hunting teams for the purpose of destroying wolves in particular, in the sphere of reindeer-breeding grazing crews, in the sphere of cattle-farming common pastures, in the sphere of agriculture burn-beating companies. In all these associations there was, as in present-day co-operative societies, equal membership and democratic management, they were voluntary and the surplus they yielded was divided according to what each member had contributed as his share in establishing the association."1 When at the end of the last century the cash and credit system replaced the old subsistence economy, the country folk were lost; they fell a prey to the usurer and the dealer and could think of no 1 Pellervo-Seura (editors), Agricultural Co-operation in Finland (Hel sinki, 1936). 109 way of translating their habit of collaboration into terms of the new economy. The solution was first proposed by a Professor Palmen who gave a lecture in 1866 on the work of the Rochdale Pioneers. He told how in 1844 twenty-eight Rochdale workmen had collected a pound apiece for the purchase of sacks of flour; the flour was retailed at market prices from the cottage of one of the members in Toad Lane and the profit was divided among the subscribers in proportion to the amount of their purchases. From this beginning a co-operative movement had grown up in England, Germany and Scandinavia. Could not Finns adopt this method of self-help to free themselves from the extortions of the middlemen? PERMANENT COOPERATIVE FOUNDATIONS Palmén's lecture fell upon stony ground. It was not until 1899 when Dr. Hannes Gebhard founded a society (called Pellervo, after the old Finnish God of Fertility) for the dissemination of co-operative ideas that the idea really began to take root among the rural population of Finland. A law of 1901 gave statutory recognition to co-operative societies observing the following principles: membership open to anyone who would pay the minimum subscription and observe the rules; control exercised by all members on the basis of a single and equal vote; profit divided among members in proportion to their purchases. From that moment the movement grew steadily. In 1903 there were about 18,000 members of co-operative societies; to-day over half the adult population of Finland are co-operators. CREDIT COOPERATIVES The co-operative principle came to be applied to all manner of purposes. Perhaps the most urgent was the provision of credit through Co-operative Credit Banks. "A bank," wrote the Italian Luigi Luzzati, "is an institution where the money of the poor is lent out to the rich; a Co-operative Credit Bank an institution where the money of the poor is lent out to the poor." The idea was first worked out by one Raiffeisen in South Germany where societies of villagers pooled their scanty savings and pledged their bit of credit to provide loans for the needy. Professor Gebhard developed the RaifTeisen system in Finland. In 1902 he founded the Central Bank for Co-operative Societies (O.K.O.). Without the facilities thus provided the peasant could never have purchased his land, raised his buildings, purchased his tools or improved his stock. At the end of 1935 there were 1,299 little banking societies with a total membership of 140,000, and the credits granted to them by O.K.O. amounted to 1,049,000,000 marks. It is worth noting that the difference between the interest rates paid for deposits and the rates charged for loans was on the average only i- 25 per cent. The difference during the same year in England on the joint-stock banking system was nearly 4 per cent. Besides credit the farmer had two other vital needs. First he needed help as a producer: he could not hope to own his own bull, his own threshing-machine, his own butter- chum; alone he could not hope to sell his produce in the best market. Secondly he needed help as a consumer: alone he could not hope to buy his sugar, coffee and boots at a fair price; every step he took beyond the old subsistence- economy brought him more under the thumb of the profiteering middleman. Both these needs were met, and amply met, by co-operation. PRODUCER COOPERATIVES On the produce side the most important co-operative efforts were devoted to dairy-farming, for half the farm land is under pasture and fodder crops, and half the farmers' money income comes from milk products. Privately owned dairies on the great estates had mulcted the tenants unmerci fully, and the joint-stock dairies which flourished between 1895 and 1902 made profits for every one except the farmer. In 1903 the first co-operative dairies were established with the encouragement of Pellervo. They "are owned by their milk suppliers in common, every member contributing to 110 Consumers' Cooperation M*?> 1941 111 112 the costs of erection, maintenance, and business, in precise proportion as he utilizes the services of the creamery, and participating in any trading surplus in exact proportion to his milk supplies."1 By the end of 1934 there were 684 co-operative dairies with 75,000 members in all. Again the point to note is the low cost of these co-operative services to the farmer: in 1935 he received 84 per cent of the price paid for butter by the consumers. Besides the dairies all manner of agricultural producers' co-operative societies have grown up—bull societies, moss- litter societies, and lately bacon factories and egg-selling societies. Two great central organizations have been formed, the first, Hankkija, for supplying farmers' equipment, and the second, Valio, for marketing dairy produce abroad. Hankkija supplies co-operative shops and dairies with fertilizer and cattle-food, seed and grain, machinery and electric power-heating installations and refrigerators. It manufactures about 15 per cent of the articles it sells and has been a pioneer in the manufacture of several types of agricultural machinery, notably of the famous Esa thresher. Valio has done equally important work, making itself responsible for the export of dairy produce, which amounts to a fifth of the total exports of the country. Its activities have embraced research and quality control, grading and the manufacture of new products, such as Dutch types of cheese, as well as the business of foreign sales. Nearly 94 per cent of the Finnish exports of butter pass through Valio's hands. CONSUMER COOPERATIVES On the consumer side co-operation began among the industrial workers and it was through their initiative that the first Finnish Co-operative Wholesale Society (SOK) was created in 1904. The business of SOK was primarily to buy and manufacture food, clothing and household utensils for the member-societies which were rapidly springing up in country as well as town areas. It was organized on a democratic basis, each member-society having an equal vote 1 Thorsten Odhe, Finland: A Nation of Co-operators (1931). Consumers' Cooperation in the affairs of SOK. Here a difficulty arose. The rural societies were usually very much smaller than those in the towns and the latter naturally felt it unfair that their vote should count for no more than that of a parish union with a handful ,of members and insignificant capital. They were particularly angry when the rural societies refused to accept the principle that only Trade Union members should be employed. A quarrel developed and led to a split in 1916, when a number of urban societies seceded from SOK and in the following year founded a wholesale society of their own (OTK). Henceforward Finnish consumer-co-operation developed through two separate channels. SOK became known as the Neutral Society and drew its strength chiefly from the conservative farming community. OTK was called the Progressive Movement and drew its strength largely from the Social Democratic industrial workers. Yet the distinction was not so clear as might be expected. Both movements were careful not to affiliate themselves with any political party. Neither restricted its appeal to any one class or region. Each retained the same co-operative principles, keeping the minimum subscription demanded from individuals as low as possible—ten shillings is an average figure—and aiming at low prices and increased reserves of capital rather than at high dividends (the dividends in a normal year rarely exceed 2 per cent). Both joined the Scandinavian Wholesale Society in 1928. A healthy rivalry developed between them and their competi tive propaganda brought many more members into the co-operative movement than would have been likely under an undivided system. At the same time the division handi capped the movement in two important respects: it split the capital resources and made mass production impossible on the scale which in Sweden was so successful in setting an example in cheapness and efficiency to profit-making companies; and it made consumer co-operation an irritant instead of an emollient in the friction between Haves and Have-nots. May, 1941 113 114 Nevertheless the Finnish consumer-co-operatives have some remarkable achievements to their credit. They set the price-level of a great many articles. The SOK settlement at Vaajakoski and its flour-mills at Viipuri and Oulu are models for the world, and the same may be said for the restaurants of some of the societies affiliated to the Progressive Move ment. Of these Elanto, the Helsinki consumers' society, is by far the biggest and the most enterprising. In 1934 it had 48,173 members (of whom 80 per cent were wage-earners), 329 shops including 15 restaurants of varying grades, its turnover amounted to over 288,000,000 marks and its employees numbered 2,400. Elanto sets the standard for all Finland in the manufacture of bread and bacon, in shop and restaurant design and in the treatment of employees. The reputation made by its Social Democratic managing director, Väinö Tanner, raised him to the Prime Minister- ship in December 1926. Some idea of the part which co-operation plays in Finland can be gathered from a Swedish writer's1 account of a journey in Ostrobothnia: "Still fresh in the author's mind is a visit one frowsy April day to Lapua, where Finland fought one of her bloodiest battles against the Russian invaders in 1809, now a flourishing village in one of the most fertile and best- cultivated parts of Finland. In the middle of the village stands the stately local authority offices, turreted like a castle, rough-cast, with café and restaurant and other social amenities. Through the village runs the old main road, now a broad highway; along both sides lie the business premises, for the most part co-operative institutions of one kind or another. The parish boasts a population of 14,000, practically all co-operators. "There are in the parish three consumer co-operative societies, two SOK, one KK, with ten shops amongst them, seven co-operative creameries, six co-operative Credit Banks, a score of bull societies, threshing societies, pig- breeding societies, and, in intimate relation to agricultural Consumers' Cooperation co-operative undertakings, eight farmers' guilds, young farmers' clubs, and other mutual improvement associations. Lapuan Osuuskauppa (Co-operative Retail Society), which, with its capacious stores, occupies a substantial brick build ing in the middle of the village, sells grocery and provisions, drapery and furnishings, boots and shoes, household utensils, feeding stuff's, manures, agricultural machinery and requirements, and markets yearly for its members many thousands of pounds' worth of grain and other produce. Special show-rooms for agricultural machinery, with large display windows, have been built, and at the railway station the society has its own granary with mechanical conveyors, and cleaning and grading machinery. The Society has 1,350 members and an annual turnover of £67,200." COOPERATIVE EDUCATION When the history of the Finnish co-operative movement comes to be written, its greatest achievement will no doubt be found in its work as a medium of education. Each of the many central organizations has its own periodical Press. May, 1941 115 'YOUR W)RK IS PRIZED" Ruth Broan Farnsworth 116 The chief weekly papers of the Neutral and Progressive Societies have a circulation of 182,000 and 130,000 copies respectively among the Finnish-speaking population alone. (An equivalent circulation in Great Britain, where the reading public is about fifteen times as big, would be two-to-three million copies. Which English weekly can boast that?) Each runs its own lecture courses. Every year some 1,400 lectures were- delivered to nearly 350,000 listeners under the auspices of KK, the propaganda agency of the Progressive Movement. KK maintains its own staff of architects and has set an example in factory and shop design which older nations might do well to follow. To the co-operative movement the Finnish housewife owes her education in domestic science, the farmer in modern methods of crop- and stock-raising and in book-keeping, the wage-earner in what Quakers used to call the re-creative use of leisure, and the public as a whole in democratic principles and the elements of economics. What the Finnish people would have become without co-operation can never be known; perhaps there would have been no alternative between remaining a poverty-stricken, backward and exploited peasantry or becoming a regimented and collec tivized community in the Russian model. Consumers' Cooperation Kyman Cohn died on March 18, 1941, the 25th anniversary of the found ing of the Cooperative League. A quarter of a century before, he met with the other founders in Dr. Warbasse's Brooklyn home to plan the future of cooperation. He was our oldest cooperator, here in New York. At times, in the course of his thirty-odd years in the movement he was our only co- operator. Such facts of his cooperative life you will find in the news papers. You will find the man himself, in his active middle years, in Son- niohsen's unpublished article, "The Alien Agitator'", the tribute of a great cooperator to his friend, his companion and his leader. In it Son- nichsen drew Cohn to the life, with the writer's delight in a picturesque hero, and with the zealot's discernment of the prophet behind the sound and fury of the man. In his late sixties he came to us, and linked the small beginnings of the Bronx Co-op with the heroic past of cooperation in New York. On a September evening in 1937 he walked into our first little store at 1821 Eathgate Avenue. When we knew him better we realized the thrill Hyman Cohn must have had as he stood there, after the violent successes and failures of which he had been a driving force, hearing young enthusiasms express themselves, seeing cooperation at work again, just as it had been thirty years before, in a similar hole-in-the-wall grocery, right here in the Bronx, where he had taken a pamphlet on Consumers Cooperation off a nail and read, for the first time, the gospel according to Rochdale. Thst September evening Ned Siner and Harold Wattenberg were tending store. Cohn began shooting questions. Was it a true cooperative? How had it begun? Why? When? As the boys explained, his gruffness disap peared; at the end of his life he had found a new cooperative that need ed him. He bought his groceries and joined the West Bronx Co-op Club. When that club joined with five others to incorporate as the Bronx con sumers Cooperative Society he was elected to the Board of Directors. One of the last acts of his life was to drag his tired, heavy body up three flights of stairs to participate in a meeting of that same board. His was the stocky, picturesque figure that limped into our store almost daily, in heat and cold, and carried home the groceries for which he had taken orders from the various branches of his family, a rebuke, not always silent, to us who were feebly having our orders delivered. His sleepy eyes, under heavy brows, beamed kindly upon a friend and blazed blue fires upon an enemy. Anyone expressing an idea contrary to Rochdale principles or sound business practice, felt the force of his royal wrath and of his Talmudic magnificence of phrase. During the hot summer of 1938, he began to complain of his heart. On one of those days he came into the store—our second store on 184th Street—with a grubby typewritten article, and, with unwonted shyness, asked the manager to read it. The manager was young and apt to be a bit impatient with the old man and his bulldog grip on his ideas, but she took the manuscript and read it with deep emotion. It was Albert Son- nichsen's "The Alien Agitator." Sonriichsen had written the article just before he died and had sent it to Cohn for comment. Before Cohn could send it back, Sonnichsen was May, 1941 117 gone. Cohn wanted copies of the article, so we settled down to long hours of cutting stencils and running off the story. It aroused the en thusiasm we had always had for the oldest New York cooperator, and re sulted in our giving him a testimonial dinner in November of 1938. His family have since told us that that gesture lengthened his life. Mrs. Swerdlove, his beloved daughter—so close to her "Pop"— told us some thing he had said that hot summer: "I don't want .memorials when I am gone. I want testimonials while I can hear them." It makes us wish we had done more of what he really wanted, rather than write words now, words he can never see. The testimonial dinner was a success. Delegates from other cooper atives attended, his fraternal circle and the credit union he had organ ized were among those present, speeches were delivered, letters and tel egrams read. Cohn sat at the head of the table—dressed in his CO-OP suit, wearing the "Pine Trees"—honored by all before his children and friends. The next day came the annual ECL meeting at the Amalgamated Houses. During his speech, Dr. Warbasse told all of us, representing the cooperative movement in the East, of our debt to an old man sitting in the auditorium, Hyman Cohn. Necks craned. Ralph Miller and George Paul hoisted him to his feet and the crowd arose and cheered the stocky Jew with the bent shoulders. His cup was full. It overflowed when a priest came to him to grasp his hand, "You should be content. YOUR WOM IS PRIZED. Hyman Cohn is part of our past but he is not dead. He goes with us, of the Bronx, and of the united States, into the future of Consumers Cooperation. We know it, we who were with him at that Board meeting early in March. We were planning a new store, and he was discussing with us the need to build substantial capital for it. "We must give," he pulled himself out of the slump into which he habitually sank between his ex hausting outbursts. His great voice poured forth in the roar that made him hard to understand. Perhaps he repeated what he had said in another crisis in an older cooperative. "The foundation is different for B ten- story building, than for a one-story building. I am not interested in one-story buildings." Here his voice dropped. "I haven't got much. I gave it all to the movement years ago. But I'll put in five dollars." It wasn't an anticlimax. Some of us thought of another Jew whom Hyman Cohn often quoted between Hillel and Maimonides, a Jew who said that from penury one might give more than from wealth. All of us feel that no richer gift oan be made to our future than Hyman Cohn then of fered—and in offering, paid. On the nineteenth of March we went to a small funeral chapel where Cohn lay—dressed in his CO-OP suit, with his "Pine Trees" in his lapel- and his friend, the Rabbi, said good words about him; "generous", "a lover of mankind". That evening the manager used the ticket Hyman Cohn had bought to attend the Twenty-fifth anniversary dinner, and now Leslie Woodcock talked of Hyman Cohn and James Warbasse recalled the old days, both saying good words, the tributes of old friends. We of the Bronx Co-op are proud that he was one of us in his last years when he could know of the size and strength of a movement, could see the practical ap plication of an ideal, an ideal which had been once, in this great city, only his. We knew him in the last, the mellow years, and our tribute, we feel, is the one he would treasure most dearly, for it is the one he worked for all his life—HYMN COHN, CONSUMER COOPERATOR. 118 CO-OP DIVISION OF THE I.L.O. CARRIES ON THE International Labor Office, in cluding its Cooperative Service Di vision, is now well established and carry ing on "business as usual" in its new home at McGill University, Montreal. The decision to move from Geneva was reached kst summer when it became plain that it would no longer be pos sible for an international organization, whose staff included nationals of 40 dif ferent countries and whose work depended on being in constant communication with all parts of the world, to function effec tively there. Switzerland was neutral, but its geographical situation, hemmed in by nations at war, made invasion a constant threat. The entrance of Italy into the war in June blocked the last avenue of free communication and effectively isolated the office at Geneva from the British Empire and the western hemisphere. To insure continuance of its work throughout the war, the main activities of the ILO were moved to Canada, and only a small force, acting primarily as a liasion office, re mained in Geneva. Since the transfer of headquarters is not expected to be permanent, only a nucleus of technicians and specialists from the Geneva staff have come to Canada, bring ing with them the documents and equip ment absolutely essential to their work. Each member of the staff has taken on responsibilities and duties formerly shared by others, with the result that surprisingly few of the activities of the ILO have had to be curtailed. In the Cooperative Service Division once again periodicals and correspondence from all parts of the globe pile up as foreign cooperators learn the new address. One member of the staff, who speaks French, German, English and Russian flu ently, and who reads Spanish, Italian and the Slavic languages with facility, scans those incoming publications for items deal ing with cooperatives. Especially noted are Consumers' Cooperation May, 1941 Janet Coerr current figures for the number of co-ops and their members in a country; their relative importance in the national econ omy ; legislation affecting co-ops, and new forms of co-operation. Correspondence with cooperative observers throughout the world, combined with the official reports and studies coming to the ILO, which would not be available to a private agency, round out its sources of information, and make it possible for the Cooperative Serv ice to have a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the cooperative movement throughout the world at any time. The Cooperative Service itself publishes, besides its Directory of Cooperative Or ganizations issued every three years, a bulletin sent free of charge to co-operative organizations or their papers. Four issues, printed in Spanish, French or English, have been sent out since the establishment of the ILO in Montreal. In the larger sphere, any member na tion may call upon the co-op division ex perts for assistance with a cooperative problem—either in determining its scope, devising a solution, or advising on the effectiveness of existing legislation. At the present time, special problems confront the European co-ops in regards to production, distribution, price-levels, government regulation, and the like. Re ports indicate that none the less they have gone ahead to prove their efficiency in war time as well as peace-time economy, be cause of the wide interests they represent and the services they can render. For the same reason that the ILO, a world association of nations aiming at in ternational cooperation in the advance ment of social and economic standards has from its inception considered the coopera tives an integral part of its study, so it now considers that the cooperatives will have an important share in the social and economic reconstruction taking place after the war. 119 ë - ANNUAL ALL-AMERICAN TOUR OF COOPERATIVES • JULY 7-19 FIRST ANNUAL TOUR OF U. S. COOPERATIVES While the world 'is talking about defending democracy, it is vitally important to strengthen democracy at home by applying it to economic life. The growth of consumer co opératives in America has been one of the most encouraging developments of the last decade. Two million American consumers purchase more than $600,000,000 worth of goods and services through their own cooperatives each year. This means great wholesales; large factories, mills and refineries; gas and oil stations and stores which tell a most striking story. We have heard a great deal about cooperatives in Europe and Nova Scotia. Thousands have visited them and brought back a new vision of the practicability of a truly democratic social order based on peace and cooperation. Toddy the United States is the home of one of the world's most dra matic cooperative movements. But few have seen the great expanse of it at work. This is your opportunity. See America's cooperatives first ! ! ORGANIZATIONS TO BE STUDIED Farm Bureau Cooperative Association Columbus, Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Insurance Services Columbus, Ohio TYPES OF COOPERATIVES TO BE VISITED Cooperative Grocery Stores Livestock Cooperatives Co-op Gas & Oil Stations Cooperative Hatcheries Rural Electric Cooperatives Meat Packing Plants Cooperative Funeral Associations Wood Pulp Cooperatives Co op Fertilizer Factories Farm Machinery Plants Cooperative Housing Recreation Camps Credit Unions and Co-op Finance Assns. Cooperative Health Associations College Co-ops Co-op Insurance Companies First Consumer-owned Co-op Oil Wells in the World Cooperative Oil Refinery Rubber Tire Plant Manufacturing Co-op Tires Feed and Flour Mills Oil Compounding Plants Cooperative Bakeries Grain Elevators Milk, Butter and Cheese Plants THE ITINERARY JULY 7 The tour will officially open at 10 A.M. at Colum- Mondav *""• Oni°- Tl"> "p!t da» wi" bc !P«nl l"'9"lY in ' introductions, lecture!, opianaHons, orientation and detailed plans for the tour. Besides the tour leaders we will hear from Murray D. Lincoln, Dr. Warbasse and others. COLUMBUS OVERNIGHT. 8 See Ohio Cooperatives and proceed to Indianapolis. Tuesday INDIANAPOLIS OVERNIGHT. a Indiana Farm Bureau and cooperatives; proceed to Wednesday chicago- CHICAGO OVERNIGHT. Morning, free period. Visit National Cooperatives, 10 Cooperative League of the U. S. A. and Central Thursday States Cooperatives. Evening banquet. CHICAGO OVERNIGHT. PERSONALITIES WE WILL MEET 11 Friday Indiana Farm Bureau Co-op Assn. United Cooperatives Central States Cooperatives, Inc. Cooperative League of the U. S. A, National Cooperatives, Inc. Credit Union National Assn. Central Cooperative Wholesale Midland Cooperative Wholesale Farmers Union Central Exchange Consumers Cooperative Association Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis, Indiana Chicago, Ml. Chicago, III Chicago, III. Madison, Wisconsin Superior, Wisconsin Minneapolis, Minn. St. Paul, Minn. N. Kansas City, Mo. l£. Saturday 13 Sunday 14 Monday Visit Waukegan, Kenosha and tour to Madison, Wise.; visit headquarters of Credit Union National Association. MADISON OVERNlGHl. Drive to Eau Claire and visit rubber tire plant. Drive to Recreation camp at Brule, Wise. Recrea tion, swimming and general relaxation. BRULE Morning church services [Catholic and Protestant). Afternoon free. Evening meeting. BRULE OVER NIGHT. Central Cooperative Wholesale, Superior, Wise.; Virginia Iron Mines. Supper at Cloquet. MINNE APOLIS OVERNIGHT. Midland Cooperative Wholesale; Farmers Union Central Exchange, St. Paul, Minn. MINNEAPOLIS OVERNIGHT. Visit Albert Lea and Granger; visit housing and coal mines. DES MOINES OVERNIGHT. Brief stops at Omaha, Lincoln and Hastings. Drive to Phillipsburg, see oil refinery Thursday evening. OVERNIGHT AT PHILLIPSBURG AND STOCK- TON. Visit oil fields at Phillipsburg. Visit Beloit, Clay Center and Manhattan. Evening banquet. OVER- KANSAS CITY OVERNIGHT. 19 Visit Consumer Cooperative Association; blending Saturday plant; paint and grease factories. The official tour will close in Kansas City Saturday 15 Tuesday 16 Wednesday 17 Thursday 18 Friday Often leading pBrsonaMtiei or pictures, but those who and have an opportunity to with the: Or. Jai Murray 0. Lincoln I. H. Hull Roy F, Bergengren Msgr. L. G, Ligutti A. J, Smaby Hugh Bogardus James Proebsting and scores of other educational directors, P. Warbasse Howard A. Cowden E. R. Bowen A. J. Hayes Wm. Liimatainen E. A. Syftestad L. S, Herron Andrew Jensen _ _. __ .... anagers,, editors and active cooperative leaders. COSTS The complete official tour will begin with luncheon, Monday noon, July 7 in Columbus, Ohio and end with breakfast Saturday, July 19 in Kansas City, Missouri. Costs are figured for thii time only. Each person must provide for his or her own transportation to Columbus and from Kansas City. Travel will be by automobile. If a sufficient number come who cannot be accommodated in private cars, a bus will be provided. TOTAL COST ON TOUR Registration fee $10.00 Complete tour, board and room 48,00 Transportation 30.00 (for those not driving their own cars] SPONSORED BY Committee on the Church and Cooperatives of the Fadaral Council of Churches National Catholic Rural Life Conference Social Justice Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis For Further Information, Write J. HENRY CARPENTER, Tour Director The Cooperative League of the U. S. A. 147 West 12th Street, New York City RECREATION TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES THE summer of 1941 offers numerous opportunities for persons interested in learning recreation leadership. The longest and most intensive course is the National Cooperative Recreation School to be held on the campus of Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, June 14 to 27. The April issue of CONSUMERS' COOPERA TION carried a complete story about this school. A flier and detailed information can be secured from Carl Hutchinson, Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Association, 246 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio. Growing out of the need for regional recreation schools to supplement the work of the National Recreation School and to take care of persons unable to attend the National School, an Eastern Cooperative Recreation School is planned for August 17 to 24. The school, which is sponsored by the National Co operative Recreation School, and en dorsed by the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Cooperative Association and the Eastern Cooperative League, will be held at the Hudson Shore Labor School, West Park, New York. Staff members will include Ruth Chorpenning and James Norris, who are on the staff of the National Rec reation School; Phyllis Randall, former staff member of the National School and Meta Schweibert, dean of the Child Edu cation Foundation, New York. The staff i<*^- i will be assisted by former National Rec reation School students who are now ac tive in recreation work. The one week's course will include instrumental music, group singing, dramatics, folk dancing, crafts—metal, leather, weaving and wood work—games, and philosophy of group recreation and leadership. Cooperative leaders in the East will be drawn in to lead seminars on cooperation. The cost for room, board and tuition for the week is $20. Complete information can be secured from Jac Smith, Eastern Co- •operative League, 135 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. The recreation-vacation camp, Circle Pines Center, Hastings, Michigan, will conduct a special recreation institute; July 13-26. Chester Graham, recreation leader from Madison, Wisconsin, will head the staff which will include Naomi Rawn, folk dancing; Dorothy Sonquist, crafts; and W. W. Kapnick, music. Plans are under way in the Midland Cooperative Wholesale territory for two or three one-week recreation leadership training institutes. These one-week insti tutes have grown out of the interest aroused by students attending the Ni- tional Cooperative Recreation School anJ by the week-end recreation conference! which were held last summer and tit past winter and spring. Crafts, gatics, 122 Consumers' Coopérât! music, dramatics and folk dancing will be on the program. Ruth Chorpenning wd James Norris are scheduled to handle dramatics and Murray Lewis will teach crafts. Midland fieldmen, Wilbur Leath- trman and Frank Shilston, and Gwen Goodrich, who is doing recreation and educational work in Midland's District VI, will be on hand to help with games and folk dancing. Information concerning these recreation institutes can be secured from Frank Shilston, Midland Co-op Wholesale, 739 Johnson St., Minneapolis. An Education-Recreation-Publicity Insti tute is planned for May 16-18 and May 29 to June 1 at the DeKoven Foundation, Racine, Wisconsin. The institute is spon sored by The Cooperative Union, Chicago, wd the Midland Cooperative Wholesale, Minneapolis. The purpose of the institute is to give intensive training to leaders and prospective leaders in cooperative educa tion, publicity and recreation, with em phasis on procedures and techniques. Recreation leadership training will in clude European folk dances, square dances wd singing games; traditional board games; informal group singing and in strumental music. Vyatautus Beliajus and Chester Graham will head the staff of recreation leaders. The combination of training in discus sion group leadership, publicity and recre ation should make this institute extremely valuable. For information write Henry Dyer, 2301 S. Millard Avenue, Chicago. In addition to these specific recrea tional leadership conferences, a number of cooperative conferences will include recreation as an important part of the program. Such conferences include the California Cooperative Institute, Camp Sierra, July 12-19; Camp Shawnee In stitute, Lake Shawnee, Penn., July 12- 19; Cooperative Youth Course, Brule, Wisconsin, June 15-July 12; Amherst Institute, Amherst, Mass.. August 3-9. RECREATION NEWS NOTES Cooperators in the Philadelphia area held a recreation week-end "just for May, fun," May 10-11 at Camp Tinicum, Pennsylvania. The group of more than seventy people folk danced, played games, acted in charades, or pounded out copper ash trays or pewter bracelets. * * * The Cooperative Consumers Society of Bergen County, Rutherford, New Jer sey, has instituted a series of Friday eve ning socials where members and friends meet at the organization's headquarters for an hour or two of singing, square dancing and feasting. A newly acquired piano helps to bring out the crowd. * * * A group of serious minded but light- footed cooperators have been gathering Saturday nights in Indianapolis to talk and play. Folk games from the South, from Indiana, from Sweden and Den mark have been the program. "This is a real amateur's group," according to the Co-op Reporter, publication of the Indi anapolis Cooperative Services, "with mem bers of the group supplying the 'music' and directions. The group grows, because once tried, it 'get's a hold on you'." * * * Twenty-six former students of the Na tional Cooperative Recreation School met at Epharta, Pennsylvania, April 18-20 for a week-end of folk dancing and discussion. Ohio was represented by one student, the rest of the students coming from Pennsylvania and New York. Pub licity for the National Recreation School was discussed and plans made for the Eastern Recreation School. * * * The dramatics group of the New York Play Co-op presented two one-act plays, "Helena's Husband" by Phillip Moeller and "The Flattering Word" by George Kelley at a party given by the Rochdale Institute and the Council for Cooperative Business Training, April 24. The plays were also presented at the weekly meet ing of the Play Co-op, April 27 and will be given for the Morningside Coopera tive recreation group, May 13. 123 WHAT'S NEWS WITH THE CO-OPS Cclcimbus, Ohio—The big news at the annual meeting of the Farm Bureau Co operative Insurance Services here April 3 was the announcement of a new policy which it is hoped will clean up the abuses of the industrial insurance racket. The policy is designed to take the place of industrial policies where 97% of the so-called "burial insurance" is sur rendered or lapsed and thus never ful fills the purpose for which it was taken out. The co-op policy will be for $500 face value only, limited to one coverage per person with no examination required. The cost at age 35, for example, is $6.22 a year. It is a twenty year term partici pating policy, eligible for dividends, re newable to age 65 and convertible. The premiums may be paid annually, semi- annually or quarterly. Murray D. Lin coln, president of the Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and recently elected president of The Cooperative League, proposed to the thousand repre sentatives of 380,000 policy-holder mem bers gathered at the meeting that the co- guilty of an attempt to destroy the Group Health Association, a District of Colum bia medical cooperative. The New York Times said in com menting on the decision: "It onens the way to wider devel opments in'the field of group medi cine. A country with forty-eight states with wide variations in cli mate, density of population and occupation will need more than one type of medical practice. Ex perimentation with cooperatives, groups of physicians who practice as they would in hospitals, pre payment of medical care, voluntary health insurance is clearly called for before we attempt to legislate either on a state or national scale." New York — Dr. James P. Warbasse, president emeritus of The Cooperative League, told the five million listeners of America's Town Meeting of the Air, April 10 that they should organize coop eratives if they want to prevent effectively higher living costs. Dr. Warbasse said an estimated $120,- Regional Organization I Consumers Cooperatives Ass'd, Amarillo, Texas Eastern Cooperative Wholesale, Brooklyn, N. Y. Central States Cooperatives, Chicago Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n, Columbus, Ohio Penn. Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n, Harrisburg Indiana Farm Bureau Cooperative, Indianapolis Midland Cooperative Wholesale, Minneapolis Farm Bureau Cooperative Services, Lansing, Michigan Consumers Cooperative Ass'n,* N. Kansas City, Mo. Farmers Co-op Exchange, Raleigh, N. C. Farmers Union Central Exchange, St. Paul, Minn. Saskatchewan Co-op Wholesale,** Saskatoon, Canada Central Cooperative Wholesale, Superior, Wis. United Farmers Cooperative,*** Toronto, Canada Pacific Supply Cooperative, Walla Walla, Wash. operative movement take the lead in 000,000 worth of petroleum products we« * . ,. . . ....... i 1.1 i . • i. providing an insurance service which will guarantee the minimum insurance neces sary for the average family. Baton Rouge, La.—The first cooperative education conference in Louisiana took place on the campus of Louisiana State University April 14 and 15 under the joint auspices of the Southeastern Co operative Education Association and the General Extension Division of Louisiana State University. Two hundred edu cators, churchmen, farm, labor and co operative representatives from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi met for the conference to "Educate People to Help Themselves." Washington, D. C.—The American Medical Association and the District of Columbia Medical Society are law vio lators guilty of breaking the anti-trust laws. This was a decision of the Federal District Court here which found them 124 purchased through cooperatives last year saving members about $10,000,000. North Kansas City, Mo.—The fourth annual membership drive of Consumers Cooperative Association brought 3,158 new members to the 94 cooperatives which participated in the drive com pleted March 15. This increase was sur passed only in 1938 when the membership drive brought in 4,945 new members. Chicago—The fifteen regional coopera tive associations affiliated with National Cooperatives in the United States and Canada reported total sales of $58,821,- 107 in 1940, an increase of slightly ovei $10,000,000 or 20% over the $48,708,- 823 sales of 1939- The number of led retail co-ops affiliated jumped fron 2,050 in 1939 to 2,-328 in 1940, a gain of 13-7%. The regional cooperatives, their sales and membership were as fol lows: Consumers' Cooperation Total Sales $ 223,732 1,559,896 204,658 7,304,194 2,337,116 6,510,678 4,460,495 3,114,607 6,211,401 2,324,844 6,236,224 2,041,933 3,865,984 9,755,345 2,670,000 Individual Members 16,250 21,771 12,000 60,000 11,000 75,000 76,000 25,000 125,000 16,200 80,000 40,000 40,000 *Induding subsidiaries ** Ten months ** Including livestock sales Superior, Wis.—Delegates to the 24th annual convention of Central Cooperative Wholesale meeting here April 14 and 15 approved the expenditure of $100,000 for building expansion and voted to take their earnings on last year's business in shares instead of cash so the co-op whole sale will be in a stronger financial posi tion to meet any emergency which may grow out of a post-war crash. A. J. Hayes, manager, reported to the annual meeting that sales of the co-op wholesale for 1940 were $3,883,841 which was 14% greater than the record year 1939 and that net earnings on wholesale operations were $87,348. New York—Cooperative Distributors set as its goal $100,000 volume in 1941 at the annual meeting of the membership here April 28. Olga Hourwich, manager, said that it's necessary for the co-op to build up this volume if it is to operate economically. During the year, sales fell to a total of $86,521 for the year. Among plans proposed to bring up the volume were the possibility of opening a New York miniature cooperative de partment store, a drive for new members and new business, extension of service to individual cooperators in the southeast ern states and on the Pacific Coast, and the introduction of CD products to stu dent co-ops on 100 college campuses. May, 1941 Chicago—Negotiations are under way to extend cooperative insurance to the mid west states served by Central States Co operatives, Inc. These plans were revealed at the first annual conference of Central States Cooperatives at International House on the University of Chicago cam pus here April 26 and 27. The total sales for CSC were up 9% in 1940 totaling $205,000. Net savings jumped to $4,500, an increase of 410%, making possible a patronage refund to local societies of 1.7%. Jamestown, North Dakota—A new con sumers' cooperative wholesale to be known as the Northwest Cooperative So ciety was organized here last month. Its original membership is made up of seven co-op stores in northwestern Montana, and North Dakota. It will act as a broker age buying organization, supplying gro ceries and other commodities to co-op grocery stores in those states. At the pres ent time it will serve just as a buying agency. The decision to form the new whole sale was made after officials had con ferred with representatives of the Cen tral Cooperative Wholesale, Superior; Midland Cooperative Wholesale, Minne apolis and the Farmers Central Exchange, St. Paul. 125 Oakland, California—The robust young consumer cooperative at the migratory workers' camp at Visalia, California was host to the state-wide conference of con sumer cooperative leaders April 8 and 9. Representatives of the Associated Cooper atives of Northern and Southern Califor nia met to thrash out problems of organ ization, business management, education and finance in connection with the drive for further development of California cooperatives. Columbus, Ohio—The first consumer- owned department store in Columbus opened April 16 and 17 when the Farm Bureau Consumers' Cooperative, organ ized by Farm Bureau co-op employees six years ago, blossomed forth as a full fledged department store. The co-op shop occupies the entire first floor of the Farm Bureau Cooperative building. It has 870 members and operates two parking lots, a gas station, a tailor shop and half a dozen contracts in addition to the store. New York—The Textile Workers Union of America meeting here for its annual convention April 22-25 voted unani mously to endorse the consumers' coop erative movement and instructed the edu cational director to foster and promote consumer cooperative study groups. The convention urged all members of the union to join consumer cooperatives and recommended that all locals set up special committees to work with the educational director and the Committee on Organ ized Labor and Cooperatives of The Co operative League. This was followed by the adoption of a supplementary resolu tion recommending that the national of fice of the union appropriate such funds as it deemed necessary for teaching about consumer co-ops in local unions. New York—The spring training course for careers in consumers' cooperation con ducted jointly by Rochdale Institute and the Council for Cooperative Business Training reported an enrollment of 42 students for the term which opened here April 7. 126 New York—Representatives of six m- tional student organizations will aid in the selection of candidates for the first co-op summer school for college men and women, which will be conducted by the Council for Cooperative Business Train ing July 7 to August 23. t The organizations which will partici pate are the National Committee on Stu dent Cooperatives, the National Student Federation of America, International Student Service, National Intercollegiate Christian Council, American Friends Ser vice Committee and the American Stu dent Union. Representatives of these or ganizations together with officers of Con sumer Distribution Corporation, Eastern Cooperative Wholesale and Rochdale In stitute will select the candidates and award the limited number of scholarships which are made available by a grant from the Filene Good Will Fund. Washington, D. C.—United States Sena tor George D. Aiken speaking befort the Monday Evening Club, April 21, de clared, "I think cooperation is the al ternative to monopoly, either on the part of big business or on the part of the government." In the month of February, he pointed out, Vermont was the only state in lit union that had not a single foreclosure. This he attributed to the strong cooperi- tive movement in his state, almost everj town in Vermont having a cooperativt of some kind. He praised too, "the spirit of tolerance and understanding" which the cooperative movement has engen dered. Palo Alto, California—Exactly six yean after incorporation, the dreams of many of the members of the Consumers' G- operative Society of Palo Alto, Califor nia, came true when the society opened its second grocery store, complete withi meat market and located beside the newly- built cooperative service station. Tht property for the Cooperative Center vis purchased and improved with loans from members who had sufficient faith in the organization to loan it $15,355. BOOK REVIEWS THE RESTORATION OF PROPERTY, by Hilaire Belloc, New Yorks Sheed and Ward, $1.50. (Available through The Cooperative League) His many works in the fields of biography,. history, religion, belles lettres, have obscured the fact that Hilaire Belloc has perhaps his most important things to say on the social question. His "Servile State" of nearly 30 years ago, for instance, charted with unerring accuracy the broad outlines of the course of American capitalism down through the crash of '29 and right up to the present moment. This little book on property, published 5 years ago, if less prophetic, is a substantial contribu tion on the subject. What everyone wonders these days is how, tven for the people of the democracies, free dom can ever be reestablished. Here in the United States the danger to freedom grows, is a ten-year depression gives way to a war tconomy financed only by saddling future gen erations with mountains of public debt. Hilaire Belloc has presented in these pages an able brief study of the relationship between economic self-reliance and human freedom. He recognizes that there must be limitations on the individual for the sake of the com mon goal, and suggests that true freedom ob tains as long as the family enjoys the power to react against whatever limits its freedom. It is obvious that this power is lacking to the pro letariat, urban or rural, the dispossessed, who bulk so large under capitalist democracies as well as political dictatorships. The author frankly recognizes the difficul ties of arousing the desire for property among people who think primarily in terms of higher wages. The Proprietary State he envisages in the place of Capitalism or Totalitarianism would of necessity be imperfect, its ideals in completely realized, ever in process of develop ment. Mr. Belloc does not blink at the near- impossibility of trying to reverse the direction of the world's economic forces and of the popular mind. The upheaval caused by the war and the demobilization of millions of men would make this less difficult if a pro gram of decentralization were prepared now and taken up by the proper authorities once the long-desired cessation of hostilities has ar rived. In any case, Mr. Belloc's diagnosis here is a minor masterpiece. Part of his remedy—the reestablishment of the small cultivator, and the small craftsman (to a modest degree) is quite convincing. So, too, his objectives of distributing in adequate amount shares in industrial enterprises that are by nature large-scale. Also, in a sense, the lestoration of the small distributor. But is the Belloc proposal of virtually taxing chain stores, department stores, and other high-profit enterprises out of existence the way to do it? Such enterprises are hardly the only villains in the piece. Mr. Belloc suggests political means for arriving at an end much better com passed by consumers cooperation. Somehow he leads directly toward co-ops without reach ing them. Consumers Cooperation is logically the principal instrument for working out his admirable scheme for restoring and maintain ing economic independence and genuine free dom for millions of the dispossessed. —EDWARD SKILLIN, JR. Editor, The Commonweal Consumers' Cooperation May, 1941 LATEST BOOKS RECEIVED (Available through The Cooperative League) Introduction to the Cooperative Movement, Andrew J. Kress, editor, Harper and Broth ers, New York, 370 pages, $3.00. Democracfi Second Chance (Land, Work and Cooperation), George Boyle, Sheed and Ward, New York, 177 pages, special co-op edition, $1.00. Consumers' Cooperatives in the North Central States, L. C. Kercher, V. W. Kebker and W. C. Leland, Jr., edited by R. S. Vaile, Uni versity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 430 pages, $3.50. The Consumer Movement, including a section on cooperatives, Helen Sorenson, Harper and Brothers, New York, 245 pages, $2.00. / Chose Denmark, Francis Hacket, Doubleday, Doran and Co., New York, 290 pages, $2.50. Selection of the month, Consumers Book Cooperative. Procedure for Incorporating Consumers' Co operatives, Report of the Institute of Living Law, 340 Woodward Building, Washington, D.C., 27 pages and copy of D.C. Coopera- ative Law, 25c. First the Fields, A novel of the tobacco growers' cooperative in North Carolina, by Charles Wood, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 308 pages, $2.50. Sociology, a text, Emory S. Bogardus, contain ing a brief section on cooperatives, Macmillan, New York, Revised edition 1941, 567 pages, $3.00. We Have a future, Norman Thomas, two brief sections on cooperatives, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 236 pages, $2.50. A Primer of Economics, Stuart Chase, Random House, New York, 60 pages, $1.00. Mobilizing for Enlightenment, St. F. X. Uni versity Goes to the People, by Dr. M. M. .Coady, Antigonish, 30 pages, 25c. The Principles of Consumers Cooperation, H. R. Lamberton, 24 pages, 15c. Organization and Management of Consumers' Cooperative Associations and Clubs, with model Bylaws, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statis tics No. 665, completely revised and en larged edition, 15c. 127 CO-OP LITERATURE • Novels and Biography A Doctor for the People, Michael Shadid, special edition .................................................. 1.25 The Brave Years: Wm. Heyliger .................. 1.50 Fresh Furrow: Burris Jenkins ...................... 2.00 Co-op, by Upton Sinclair .................................. 2.50 My Story, by Paddy the Cope, Co-ops in Ireland .................................................................. 2.75 ® Textbooks on Cooperation Consumers' Cooperatives, Julia E. John son, Debate Handbook .................................. .90 When You Buy, Trilling, Eberhart and Nicholas, High school and college, two chapters on consumer cooperatives .......... 1.80 Cooperation, Hall and Walking, Official British Textbook ............................................. 3.00 The Consumers Cooperative as a Distribu tive Agency, Orin E. Burley ........................ 3.00 Windows on the World, Kenneth Gould, high school text, one chapter on coop eratives ................................................................ 3.00 • Student Cooperatives American Students and the Cooperative Movement, Claude Shotts .............................. .02 Co-ops on the Campus, Bertram B. Fowler .03 Campus Co-ops, William Moore .................... .05 Campus Co-op News Letter, per year ........ .25 There Are Jobs in Cooperatives, Wallace J. Campbell, the Intercollegian ................ .02 • Cooperatives and Peace Cooperatives and Peace, Harold Fey .......... .05 Cooperation—A Way of Peace, J. P. War- basse, Co-op Edition ...................................... .50 • Cooperative Recreation The Consumer Consumed, Josephine Johnson, a Puppet Play ................................ .05 Cooperative Recreation, Carl Hutchinson, reprinted from The Annals .......................... .05 Cooperative Recreation Songs, A. M. Calkins .10 Two One Act Plays, Ellis Cowling .............. .15 The Answer, 3-act play, Ellis Cowling ...... .20 The Spider Web, 3-act play, EUis Cowling .25 Let's Play, Frank Shilston .............................. .20 AU Join Hands, Edwards and Smith .......... .15 Education Through Recreation, L. P. Jacks 1.50 Fun for All, two spinning games, Midland Co-op Wholesale ................................................ .10 List of recreational materials, songs, dances, games, available from Cooperative Recreation Service, Delaware, Ohio. • Credit Unions and Finance How to Read Cooperative Balance Sheets, Fox and Miller, 2 parts 1. Learning the Language .......................... .10 8. Rending Between the Lines .................. .10 Other Peoples* Money, E. K. Bowen .......... .10 Credit Unions, Frank O'Hara .......................... .05 What You Ought to Know About Credit Unions, Anthony Lehner .............................. .10 Credit Unions: The People's Banks, Max well Stewart ...................................................... .10 Cuna Emerges (Credit Unions), Roy Ber- gengren ................................................................ 1.00 Credit Union North America, Roy Bergen- gren ........................................................................ 2.00 128 Leaflets to Aid You: How a Consumers Cooperative Dif fers From Ordinary Business ........ I Saw a People Rising From the Dead, Rev. Ignatius W. Cox, S. J. Learn About Consumers Cooperation Sure Way is the Quick Way .............. The Burden of Credit .............................. What Cooperation Means to a De pression Sick America, Cooley Answering Your Questions About the Cooperative ...................... What Attracts Members to the Co operative Store Movement, from Sales Management ................................ Building a Brave New World, George Tichenor ......... ............ ........................... A $600,000,000 Business With 2,000,000 Customers, Richard Giles, Printers' Ink Monthly ............................................ I'M Reports Fast-Growing Co-ops Shun all Isms .......................................... Union of Church and Economics is Dramatized as Co-ops Reveal Rapid Progress, P. H. Erbes, Jr., Printers' Ink .............................................................. Brickbats and Boomerangs, E. K. Bowen ......................................... A Fair Deal to All Through Coopéra lives, John C. Rawe, S.J. .................. Are the Co-op» Getting Anywhere?, George Tichenor, Intercollegian .... .01 .'' .02 1 .02 1 .02 1 .02 1.» ... .02 1 t ........... .02 1 • .02 Ul .02 1.K .02 1.50 .02 IX .02 150 .03 2.M .03 2.« .02 1.01 FILMS Traveling the Middle Way in Sweden, 16 mm. silent, produced by the Harmon Foundation. Unit I, Land of Sweden, 2 reels. Unit ft Consumer Cooperation, 2 reels. Unit III, Agricultural Cooperatives, 2 reels. Rental p« unit: color. $5; black and white, $3; addl tional showings, $2.50 color and $1.50, blaci and white. "The Lord Helps Those — Who Help Ead Other," a new 3 reel, 16 mm. film of the Noil Scotia adult education and cooperative pro gram. produced by the Harmon FoundBtK» Excellent photography. $4.50 per day, $!.!! additional showings, $13.50 per week. Consumers Serve Themselves, 1 reel, 1C mm. Kodacrome, shows how cooperatots on tbi eastern seaboard are providing themseiva with tested, quality CO-OP products. $2 p« day, $6 per week. "A House Without a Landlord," a ne« ï\ reel, 16 mm. silent film on the Amalgamât« Cooperative Houses in New York City. "Clasping Hands," 16 mm. silent, two reel Sltt showing how cooperation is taught in tbi schools of France. "When Mankind is Willing," a 16 mm. site three-reel film, with English titles, of coop erative stores, wholesales and factories U France. A Day With Kagawa, 3 reel, silent, 16 ma Kagawa and his co-ops in Japan. Rental: Each of three above SS per day. $1.5) for each additional showing or $10 per met POSTERS Organize Cooperatives, 19"x28" Green. 5 for $1 .......................................... __ 2 Cooperative Principles. 19"x28" Blue. 5 for $1 ........................................... __ .3 Cooperative Ownership, 19"x28" Mulberry, 5 for $1 ............................................ Consumer Ownership — Of. By and For the People, 19"x28", Red-White-and- Blue, 5 for $1 ............................................. _ 2 Buy Co-op. 18"x2S". Red-White-and-Blue. 5" for $1 .................;.....................................,........ a March On. Democracy, 19"x28" Red-White-and-Blue, 5 for $1 ................... .» f\ <*..*._ n •ft si^te. ..*** j :i'i The first Consumer-Owned Department Store in the U.S.—Columbus, Ohio SPECIAL RECONSTRUCTION ISSUE COOPERATION AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION from the Review of International Cooperation THE ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION OF FREEDOM Louis de Brouckere THE PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE COMMON GOOD Dr. Ruf, Editor, La Cooperation COOPERATION AND THE STATE from "Kooperatoren" Articles and Reviews by Frank Harris, Jack McLanahan, James P. Warbasse and James Drury JUNE. 1941 Consumers' Cooperation »NATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE LEADERS HALF A LOAF For the past three months you have re ceived special issues of Consumers' Co operation—double the number of pages of the present issue and with a picture cover and many illustrations inside. We had hoped that subscriptions by the hun dreds would pour in from enthusiastic subscribers. The experiment was enthusi astically received, but it did not bring action in terms of new subscriptions. With this issue we are returning to 16 pages, but are continuing the picture cover and illustrations inside. We can move forward as subscription income grows but we need more consumers. If you liked those special issues and want more of them—say it with subscriptions ! ! ! $1 per year—27 months for $2 Send your subscriptions to THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 167 West 12th Street, New York City THE COVER The photograph on the cover of this issue is of the first consumer-owned de partment store in the United States. Organized by a handful of employees of the Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperatives in Columbus in May 1935, the co-op now has 780 members and owns one of the smartest looking department stores in the city. With a green marble front, modern windows, fluorescent lighting throughout, the co-op occupies the entire first floor of the eight-story Farm Bureau Cooperative Building in downtown Columbus. Men's furnishings, ladies' wear, sodi fountain, beauty shop, drug and toilet goods department, electrical appliance shop, tires and auto accessories, kitchen and bathroom fixtures all find a place in this multiple co-op shop. THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE 608 South Dearborn, Chicago 167 West 12th Street, New York City 726 Jackson Place N.W., Washington, D. C. DIVISIONS: Auditing Bureau, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Medical Bureau, 1790 Broadway, N. Y. C. Design Service, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C. Rochdale Institute, 167 West 12 St., N. Y. C AFFILIATED REGIONAL AND NATIONAL COOPERATIVES Name Address Publication Am. Farmers Mutual Auto Ins. Co. Associated Cooperatives, N. Cal. Associated Cooperatives, So. Cal. Central Cooperative Wholesale Central States Cooperatives, Inc. Consumers Cooperative Association Consumers' Cooperatives Associated Consumers Book Cooperative Cooperative Distributors Cooperative Recreation Service Eastern Cooperative League Eastern Cooperative Wholesale Farm Bureau Cooperative Ass'n Farm Bureau Mutual Auto Insurance Co. Farm Bureau Services Farmers' Union Central Exchange Grange Cooperative Wholesale Indiana Farm Bureau Coop. Association Midland Cooperative Wholesale National Cooperatives, Inc. National Cooperative Women's Guild Pacific Coast Student Co-op League Pacific Supply Cooperative Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Coop. Ass'n Southeastern Coop. Education Ass'n United Cooperatives, Inc. Workmen's Mutual Fire Ins. Society St. Paul, Minn. 372—40th St., Oakland Cooportunity 7218 S. Hoover, L.A. New Age Living Superior, Wisconsin Cooperative Builder 2301 S. Millard, Chicago The Round Table N. Kansas City, Mo. Cooperative Consumer Amarillo, Texas The Producer-Consumer 27 Coenties Slip, N.Y.C. Readers Observer 116 E. 16 St., N. Y. Consumers Defender Delaware, Ohio The Recreation Kit 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator 135 Kent Ave., Brooklyn The Cooperator Columbus, Ohio Columbus, Ohio Lansing, Michigan St. Paul, Minn. Seattle, Washington Indianapolis, Ind. Minneapolis, Minn. Chicago, 111. 608 S. Dearborn, Chicago Berkeley, Calif. Walla Walla, Wash. Harrisburg, Penn. Carrollton, Georgia Indianapolis, Ind. 227 E. 84th St., N. Y. Ohio Cooperator Ohio Farm Bureau News Michigan Farm News Farmers' Union Herald Grange Cooperative News Hoosier Farmer Midland Cooperator Pacific N.W. Cooperator Penn. Co-op Review Southeastern Cooperator FRATERNAL MEMBERS Credit Union National Association Madison, Wisconsin The Bridge CONSUMERS' COOPERATION OFFICIAL NATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE CONSUMERS' COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT PEACE-PLENTY-DEMOCRACY Volume XXVII. No. 6 JUNE. 1941 Ten Cents CO-OP COMMENTS "What I think we need more than anything else is a deep spiritual revival, in which we begin to practice true Christianity," says Murray D. Lincoln, Presi dent, The Cooperative League. * * * "Cooperatives enable you to practice on Monday to Saturday what is preached on Sunday," said Edward A. Filene. :Jî :Jî :Jî "The new spirit will be a cooperative spirit; the new man will be a coopera tive man; the new world will be a cooperative world," says Dr. E. Stanley Jones. "Impossible, you say? Well, all right, then I shall give myself to the impossible. For I see that the opposite is not only impossible; it is ruinous." * * * This lifetime decision was made by Hyman Cohn, one of the organizers of The Cooperative League, who died on the 25th anniversary of the League, "I came to the conclusion that the moral force of The Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount can only work through Consumers' Cooperation on the Rochdale principles, like the force of electricity has to work through a machine." What a derision to motivate a man's life! No wonder it was said of him, "Your work is prized." * * * Preachers arid1 professors cannot be economic neutrals, no matter what the cost, if they do their jobs. They cannot discuss economic problems in generalities but must do, as Dr. M. M. Coady says, "PREACH AND TEACH IN SPECIFICS." Religious and educational leaders do not do their full job of supplying inspira- An organ to spread the knowledge of the Consumers' Cooperative Movement, whereby the people, in voluntary association, purchase and produce for their own use the things they need. Published monthly by The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., 167 West 12th St., N. Y. City. E. R. Bowen, Editor, Wallace J. Campbell, Associate Editor. Contributing Editors: Editors of Cooperative Journals and Educational Directors of Regional Cooperative Associations. Entered as Seecond Class Matter, December 19, 1917, at the Post Office at Neu* York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Price $1.00 a year. tion and information when they take a neutral position. They must become specific advocates of cooperative economic organization, which is the only thing that will save freedom of religion and education. High credit should be paid by the Con sumers' Cooperative Movement to the many preachers and professors who are both advocates and practitioners of cooperation. * * * Father John C. Rawe, co-author with Msgr. Luigi G. Ligutti of "Rural Roads to Freedom," has outlined in a recent article "A Program for Prosperity." He drew on the Encyclical "Reconstructing the Social Order" which says, "Then only will the economic and social organism be soundly established and attain its end when it secures for all and each those goods which (1) the wealth and resources of nature, (2) technical achievement, and (3) the social organization of eco nomic affairs can give." What more is needed? Resources, techniques, organiza tion. We have the first two. Abundant resources were put here by the Creator. Previous generations of men have developed the techniques of automatic gas and electric power production to turn these natural resources into finished prod ucts. Now the job remaining to be done, which challenges this generation, is to develop the necessary cooperative economic organization of society which will eliminate the brake of profits on progress arid automatically distribute abundance to all. The pressures of both plenty and poverty combine to force rapid action to "Build Cooperatives Stronger and Faster." "WE WERE THERE!!" John Partanen of Cloquet, Minnesota, and John Taipale of Iron River, Wiscon sin, could paraphrase the Apostle Paul and say, "We were not only present, but a part of the organization of the Central Cooperative Wholesale of Superior." "Yes, Tai pale and I were there," said Partanen, when they recently retired from the CCW Directorate. "We dropped our coins in the hat to help make up the collection of $15.50 which started the wholesale, and now look at the size of the organiza tion." What satisfaction they must have had during all of the past quarter century of their lives and will have during their .remaining years to feel that they helped to start one of the ''outposts of the new social order" in the north central states. It would be a study in human relations to compare what those who have lived in the competitive world have missed, with what such cooperators have enjoyed. * * * "WHAT CAN I DO? ... A CONGRESSMAN GIVES THE ANSWER "The true spirit of cooperatives," says Congressman Jerry Voorhis, "is ex pressed by the messages and tidings associated generally with the Christmas season. The cooperatives not only believe in a better distribution of wealth in this country; they are acting to bring about better distribution of wealth. The cooperatives not only believe in helping themselves; they must, to be successful, believe in helping the other fellow too. The cooperatives, to live and to be suc cessful, must be unselfish. The true cooperator, for example, who lives in the city and works in industry, must be interested in the success of the cooperator who lives on the farm. The true cooperator who lives on the farm must be inter ested in the welfare of the cooperator in the city." The above are extracts from-an address given by Congressman Voorhis in the House of Representatives commemorating the 25th anniversary of The Co operative League, which he introduced by saying, "I am giving to the House today a picture of the work of our American cooperatives. I think this is the answer to the question so often asked by our citizens: 'What can I do to help save my country's institutions ?' " While Kagawa's present mission to the United States is largely limited to a discussion of the organization of the United Christian Church of Japan, his visit to America reminds us all of the great service he rendered the Cooperative Move ment when he was here in 1937. Two of his staccato statements made at that time will be repeated' indefinitely: "Cooperatives are the economic foundation of world peace." "Cooperatives are the love principle applied to industry." * * * THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE CO-OPS, says the famous missionary to India, Dr. E. Stanley Jones, in discussing: A Cooperative World at Birth "All the great answers to the world need are going in one direction — the direction of cooperation. That is the one hopeful thing on the horizon. Fascism attempts to enlarge the area of cooperation, but stops within the limits of the state. Within the state they have a cooperative order, a national socialism. Nazism enlarges the area of co-operation, but stops within the limits of the race. Within the superior Aryan race there is a national socialism, a coop erative order. Communism enlarges the area of cooperation, but stops within the limits of the class, the class of the workers. Within the limits of the class of workers there is socialism, a cooperative order. It is true that they say they are going to a classless society, but in the meantime there will be a dictatorship of the proletariat, the class of workers. Communism stops within the limits of the class with its cooperative endeavor. "I repeat that all the great answers are going in one direction—cooperation. If all of these are going in one direction, why is there chaos and confusion and war? For the simple reason that if you stop within the limits of the state, you lay the foundation of clash between states—as now. If you stop within the limits of the race, then other races will combine against you—as now. If you stop within the limits of the class, then other classes will combine against you and there will be class war. All of these try to found life on a partial truth and hence they will break down." He concludes that there must be no limit to the application of the principle of cooperation. Cooperation must include "the last man of every state, every race, every class." COOPERATIVE FELLOWSHIP Cooperation is a practical movement—a bread and butter movement. It has to do with immediate economic benefits in the form of better quality, lower prices, higher pay, improved working conditions. It has to do with ultimate economic results in eliminating poverty, unemployment and tenancy. It 'deals with figures and factories, with wholesaling and retailing, with gasoline and groceries. Cooperation is also an idealisic movement. It is a way of organizing people as well as of producing and distributing things. It is spiritual as well as material. To endeavor to express an ideal human side of the movement at times is not to overlook the practical economic side. To speak of cooperative fellowship does not mean any failure to recognize the need of sound business. Brotherhood and business are two sides of the same cooperative coin. Recently within less than a month's time we had the privilege and' pleasure of attending a number of cooperative meetings where the spirit of cooperative fellowship was strongly evident—at a small group meeting, at a national com mittee meeting, at an inter-regional representatives meeting, at an annual regional meeting. The Rochdale principles of Open Membership and One Person One Vote cover the democratic or equal-freedom side of Cooperation. But no Rochdale principle specifically covers Cooperative Fellowship. The Fellowship you feel when you meet another member in the cooperative is far different than when you meet someone in a chain store; the fellowship you feel when you meet 130 Consumers' Cooperation June, 1941 131 another member in a cooperative meeting is far different than when you meet another stockholder in a corporation meeting; the fellowship you feel when you are a member of a cooperative housing group is far different from when you meet an ordinary neighbor. If the sum of human rights is expressed in Life, Liberty and Ownership, then Ownership is the economic side of Cooperation, Control is the Liberty side and Fellowship is the Life side. Cooperative Fellowship may not be specifically covered by any Rochdale principles, but it is just as real as Cooperative Control arid Ownership which are definitely provided for. Cooperative Fellowship is the vital ingredient of the Cooperative Movement. Without it, no cooperative will be an economic success. With it, a cooperative will not only succeed economically but will give to its members a supreme degree of happiness in human relations not otherwise realized. THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IS GETTING TOGETHER The 25th Anniversary Congress last October was a great get-together for the Consumers' Cooperative Movement. It demonstrated both the Unity and Action of the Movement. It has been apparent during the months since the Congress that the spirit of get-together is spreading. Some of the evidences of this fact are the following: The application for membership in The Cooperative League of additional regional cooperatives. A joint meeting of Committees of National Cooperatives arid1 United Coop eratives. An invitation by the Directors of The Cooperative League to the Directors of National Cooperatives and United Cooperatives to hold a joint meeting. The organization of Cooperative Insurance Services by Midland and Central Cooperative Wholesales and their local cooperative members to jointly distribute various kinds of insurance in the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota. A half day program during the annual meeting of Farm Bureau Insurance Services at Columbus, during which the State Secretary of a Labor Organization and the State Secretary of a Farm Organization spoke on the same platform and talked the same language. The first annual meeting of Central States Cooperatives of Chicago, which is the combined organization of the previous Central States Cooperative League arid The Cooperative Wholesale, with the best report in the history of the organ izations. The settling of the controversy between the Cooperative Oil Association of Caldwell, Idaho, and the Pacific Supply Cooperative of Walla Walla, Washing ton, in a cooperative spirit of compromise. The first meeting of the joint Legislative Committee of The Cooperative League and National Cooperatives and the adoption of a national legislative program. This meeting, in a sense, completed the initial job of financing and staffing the Washington office, organizing a joint Legislative Committee and adopting a program of action. It is said that we progress by desire or necessity—that our progress is measured by our degree of impulsion by desire, rather than compulsion by neces sity. In all these significant indications of the getting together of the Movement the action taken has been the result of voluntary desire. The leaders of the various organizations which have been involved in these and other similar united activi ties are to be congratulated over their increasing display of true cooperative spirit. Editor's Note:—In order that our readers may know what cooperators in Europe are thinking about, we are reprinting on the next 5 pages extracts from four articles which have recently appeared in their cooperative publications. Some words which are used are not common in America, such as the use of the word "Liberalism" for Capitalism, and the use of the word "Corporative" for Communism and Fascism. These articles emphasize in particular the increasing need of developing Coopera tion, and the danger of the temporary and necessary use of the State becoming permanent. COOPERATION AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION THE New Order which is to assure the maintenance of the future Peace of the World after the war is a subject of vital importance for humanity, and many opinions are being expressed as to the basis upon which it should be estab lished. The Malvern Conference Recommendations The following proposals which ema nated from a Conference convened by the Archbishop of York at Malvern are of special interest to Cooperators as they so dearly express a desire for an Order of society which the application of the Rochdale Principles is capable of as suring— 1. The industrial world as we know it offends at many points against the prin ciples which we have affirmed. To a large extent production is carried on not to supply the consumer with goods but to bring profits to the producer; arid the producer in turn is often subordinated to the purely financial ends of those who own the capital plant or supply the credit to erect or work it. 2. This method of ordering industry, which tends to treat human work and human satisfaction alike as means to a false end—namely, monetary gain—be comes a source of unemployment at home and dangerous competition for markets abroad. We have seen the unemployment of Germany cured by an armament pro gram, whether adopted primarily for this purpose or not, and have cured our own, though (even so) not completely, by the same means. The system under which we 132 Consumers' Cooperation June, 1941 From the Review of International Cooperation have lived has been a predisposing cause of war, even though those who direct and profit by it have desired peace. 3. The monetary system should be so administered that what the community can produce is made available to the members of the community, the satisfac tion of human needs being accepted as the only true end of production. 4. This status of man as man, inde pendently of the economic process, must find expression in the managerial frame work of industry, the rights of labour must be recognized as in principle equal to those of capital in the control of in dustry, whatever the means by which this transformation is effected. 5. In international trade, a genuine interchange of mutually-needed commod ities must take the place of a struggle for a so-called favourable balance. I.C.A. Declaration of Cooperation In January, 1936, the International Co operative Alliance published a Declara tion on the Significance of Cooperative Economy which sets out in the following six points how Cooperative Economy dif fers from Capitalistic Economy— I. It substitutes the service of the com munity for the profit of the individual, establishes a genuine interdependence be tween its members throughout the world and a means, through international asso ciation, of achieving equilibrium in the economic sphere between the needs of the people and world resources. II. It dethrones capital from the dic tatorship of economic life and puts in its place the Association of Mankind on the 133 basis of mutual and active participation in the enterprise. III. It provides in its economic de vice of "Dividend on Purchase" an im mediate financial benefit, and an access of independence to the Wage-earning Consumer. IV. It secures to the Agricultural Producer, among other benefits, relief from exploitation in the purchase of the machinery and materials of his industry, and also markets for his produce which yield him a reasonable return without exploiting the consumer. V. It confers direct benefits upon a very large section of the community ir respective of their social condition. VI. It provides a solution of the prob lems of employment, wages and general conditions of labour on the highest plane of advantage to the employees which economic conditions permit. Parallels of Principles and Practice It will be seen that the proposals of the Malvern Conference are in striking harmony with the Declaration of the Al liance, and that their goal can be achieved by Cooperative Economy. It is not sur prising that proposals of this character should emanate from such a Conference, for have not some of the greatest leaders of our Movement often emphasized that the Principles of Rochdale Cooperation had their birth in the Sermon on the Mount; and the basic Cooperative Prin ciple, "Each for all, and All for Each," is it not simply a variation in phrasing of the Second Great Commandment "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself"? THE ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION OF FREEDOM By Professor Louis de Brouckere, Former Professor of Cooperation at the University of Brussels (From The Cooperative News) the path which has already led the rural population of so many countries to such great success. Giving Freedom its Character and Force It would, perhaps, be well to recall briefly those of our principles which give this freedom its character and its force, the extent of which we are sometimes liable to forget. 1. Cooperation has given a moral value to production; this is well ex pressed in the habitual formula—"pro duction for service, not for profit." From the cooperative standpoint man is no longer the means through which wealth is obtained—and for which he is ex ploited—but the object, and it is because labor supplies the needs of man that it has meaning and nobility; every rational economic organization must primarily concern itself with the needs which have to be met, and then decide how they can be satisfied in the best and fullest manner. IT WAS cooperation which first pro vided a full realization of the eco nomic organization of freedom. For nearly a century it has shown the way, and the value of its solutions has been strikingly demonstrated by success. What cooperation has already achieved in a wide domain can inspire other successful solutions in different domains. Wherever the cooperative movement has achieved its greatest successes, it pre sents itself in reality, as a federation of households. It creates the mighty "bas ket," around which the baskets of thou sands of housewives unite. It safeguards the independence of the small farms, while assuring to them the advantages enjoyed by the biggest enterprises. Coop eration will procure the same advantages for the households of the artisan and the small trader as soon as these sorely tried members of the so-called middle classes give up seeking their salvation in an im possible return to a dead past, and take 134 2. The preceding principle would be quite wrongly understood if it were in terpreted to mean that the producer must be placed in a dependent or subordinate position in relation to the consumer. Co operation does not forget that producers —that is to say, the great majority of men and women in the prime of life—can only be separated from consumers by an effort of abstraction. Within these two categories, which the economist distin guishes for the purpose of his exposition, are found the same individuals, and whoever has carried out to the full his duty as a producer has, by so doing, greatly strengthened his claim to an ef fective satisfaction of his needs as a con sumer. The same fundamental arguments have led the cooperative movement to apply very similar rules or organization for the Individuals which it groups as producers as well as to those which it unites as consumers. That was also the pre-occu- pation of the Rochdale Pioneers, not withstanding the difficulties which the circumstances of their times created. To day it is being achieved by the agricul tural cooperative societies and more fully by those "cooperative chains" in which the Association of Consumers distributes the produce of the Agricultural Society, produce which has been brought from its raw state to a consumable state by a series of operations also carried out coopera tively. Foundations of Freedom 3. Cooperation is essentially volun tary. It does not aim at compelling men and forcing happiness upon them against their will. It only appeals to reason in order to obtain voluntary members. Co operation belongs to the category of free associations which, during the past cen tury, have increased in every sphere of life, material and spiritual, which now count their members in tens of millions, arid1 which give such a new character to modern life. • 4. Cooperation is absolutely demo cratic. All authority emanates from the Consumers' Cooperation June, 1941 cooperators, and nothing is done without their decision and approval. 5. Cooperative democracy is as equali- tarian as it is libertarian. The members participate on equal terms in all decisions without regard to class or wealth. Each has but one vote, no matter how many shares he may hold. If any distinction is made between members as regards the distribution of social advantages, it is not based on the amount of share capital, but solely on the extent of a member's needs as shown by his purchases. 6. Cooperative democracy is also an interdependent democracy; "Each For All, All For Each." An ever increasing proportion of its surplus—which on ac count of its prosperity, it not needed for its business—is devoted to works of mu tual aid. It protects its members against ignorance by its educational activities and against the hardships of life by its in surance institutions. It considers its first duty to be the strengthening of that basis which is essential to all real social life— security. Nothing Succeeds Like Cooperation Anyone who knew nothing of coopera tive activities would probably think that these formulas represent only purely ab stract ideas born in the mind of some the orist. He might even smile at their ideal ism—not to speak of their naivity. But how amazed he would be to learn that, throughout the whole world, ever- increasing masses of the people are car rying on many of the transactions neces sary to their economic life according to these '"dreams," and that their organiza tions, far from being found in ruins, have had remarkable prosperity. Indeed, our Movement has plainly demonstrated the immense value of eco nomic democracy by the sole argument which is irrefutable; by putting it suc cessfully into practice. We can under stand the feeling of pride which led Charles Gide to say, "Cooperation is the only social experiment which has suc ceeded." 135 THE PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE COMMON GOOD By Dr. Ruf, Editor, LA COOPERATION Published by the Swiss Cooperative Union IT IS certain that the free play of "na tural laws," from which liberalism (capitalism) expected the common good, has led the world into the worst of chaos, and through this to a policy of State in tervention which cannot without injus tice be made a complaint against the State. Is it not incumbent upon the State to restore order? And is not the State called on to assist, in the last resource? It is a truism to say that intervention is born of the need to palliate the deficien cies of private activity, but it would be necessary to make it clear that in the ma jority of cases this deficiency is a synonym of disorder and abuse. One cannot de mand more from private initiative than the pursuit of the profit aims to which it is devoted, and which, when not checked, are generally only attained at the expense of the whole community. Private Interests the Basis of the Corporative Order The imperious necessity for an ulti mate organisation of economic life will, indeed, not be denied, and, consequently, of carrying out a preliminary grouping of enterprises and professional branches. But the suggestion will perhaps be per mitted that, even if these economic cor porations thus established are capable of carrying out useful coordinating and ad visory functions, they will, nevertheless, in virtue of their nature, preserve their initial objects, which remain of a private order. By what sudden grace would these private and, as a rule, conflicting interests •inconditionally subordinate themselves to reneral aims ? The professional order, un fitted by definition to identify itself with the general interest with which it claims a connection, cannot do so except through its subjection to the State. And it is thus that liberalism, in preparing the way for Stateism, finally produces a kind of to talitarian monster. The question of knowing to what ex tent this political system, revolving upon powerful private organizations, will itself be in a condition to bring about the tri umph of the essential principle of public well-being, and which, for us, is incar nated in the consumer, remains to be answered. Cooperation—The New Order Is this order desirable in the eyes of cooperators? Let us flatly answer, no. How far it is from and contrary to our idea of order as expressed in Coopera tion, which alone, in our opinion, re flects the general interest. For it is cre ated precisely as a result of the need for true order which aims at ensuring for all, without restriction or injustice, the satis faction of legitimate requirements. By its action it alone provides the concrete proof that it knows how to harmonize private with social aims while serving both. Starting from needs, the Cooperative Movement provides a sound division of work, production and distribution. It is the Cooperative Order, a positive notion, which prospers through the free adher ence of individuals and their active and fraternal participation in the common task without waste or antagonism. With out the Cooperative Movement there would be no real order but that imposed by the compulsion of power, in other words, the eternal jungle, more or less policed. COOPERATION AND THE STATE From: "KOOPERATOREN" Published by Kooperativa Forbundet of Sweden VER large areas of the world, ide- to this end envisages collaboration based ological development is in many 0 on freedom and' free-will between con- places in sharp contrast to those ideas of democracy which, during the rise and expansion of the Consumers' Movement, constituted its proper "living space." As to the organization of economic life, this, in conscious or unconscious assimilation with authoritarian thought, has taken an increasingly compulsory form with un mistakable features directed precisely against the creative idea of Cooperation. Even in the democratic countries, na tional economy, following the outbreak of war, was partly clothed in the garb of compulsory organization in order to with stand the effects of the crisis. There is, however, a risk that the democracies themselves will not be able to keep apart the two sharply distinct forms of state compulsory organization, the corporative philosophy of the New Order and the crisis order imposed by necessity. Vigorous propaganda of ideas on the part of the Cooperative Movement is, therefore, necessary in order to make clear the difference. On one hand, we have the economic philosophy which sees in self-sufficiency a necessary step towards increasing the power of the State, and regards its effects upon the standard of living of the individual as something quite subsidiary; on the other, the opin ion which sees the raising of the standard of living as the aim of economic life, that is to say, which consciously endeav ours to uproot poverty and backwardness, and as one of the most important means sumers and between the countries, within the framework of an appropriate interna tional division of labour. Accordingly it becomes all the more important that propaganda of coopera tive ideas should drive home and make clear to the members of the Movement that the present compulsory economic or ganization is a necessary evil which has come upon us as a result of the crisis, but which is totally undesirable. All the sac rifices and privations which war economy imposes on the individual should give food for thought, and the obvious pos sibility that, even in the democratic coun tries, a large measure of State influence upon national economy will remain. There is nothing to be said1 against this on the part of the Cooperative Movement. As long as the State is truly democratic it cannot have any interest in restricting the Movement's freedom and the right of all citizens to free economic organiza tions, strong in action. The real interest of the Government in democratic coun tries should, therefore, be to aim at strengthening all forms of practical col laboration between consumers. But, at the same time, it must be assumed that in democratic countries after the war all unnecessary compulsion over economic life will be abolished, and that the Co operative Movement, like other forms of enterprise, will have much greater pos sibility than at present to function to the advantage of the community. . 11 136 Consumers' Cooperation June, 1941 137 THE TRAIL TO CO-OP FUN AT LONG last, the cooperative move ment has recognized and given rec reation the place it deserves. The social needs of cooperators can be filled throughout the nation by well-organized programs of cooperative recreation. The principles of recreation for fun and for the satisfaction to be gained from crea tive activity have been accepted and put into practice. As a result, many coopera tors have been introduced to folk danc ing, crafts, dramatics, games, group sing ing, etc. And what fun they've had playing ! But are all the recreational needs of our friends filled by these community groups? No. Everyone deserves, particu larly during the spring, summer and fall, to spend his time outdoors in the coun try. And have we a means at hand by which we can spend our week-ends and vacations in the open and also in a co operative manner? I should say we have. Hosteling furnishes the answer. For hosteling, besides being the most eco nomical mode of traveling and enjoying the beauties and wonders of nature, is also a truly cooperative way of living. Much more so than our daily existence at home, at work and even at play. "What's that you say? What is hos teling and how can it affect me? And what do you mean when you say it's more cooperative than my present activities?" Let's Go Hosteling Suppose, instead of just answering your questions, you come with me on the trip I'm planning for this week-end. I'll bet we have swell weather, probably we'll get a swim in, arid certainly we ought to get a good coat of tan. I'll tell you what to do, meet me tomorrow night and we'll decide where to go. You see we do our own planning. Is that a date? Swell. Gosh, I thought you weren't going to show up. But now that you're here, let's get down to mapping our route. I just got the 1941 copy of the American Youth Hostel handbook and boy, oh, boy, it 138 lists lots of new hostels in different sec tions of the country. And I found some swell new ones near us. How would you like to bicycle out to the hostel at Sussex? It's a dairy farm and the houseparents are real friendly people. What's that? Oh, sure. All the hostels are different. Sometimes they are barns converted into hostels, or else a building that wasn't used. But one thing they all have in common, the houseparents are folks who love to have us around to talk to and play with. It's agreed then ? We'll bicycle out to Sussex—that's only forty miles, an easy trip in a day. Of course, if you wish, as long as its a week-end trip and we're not going from one hostel to another, we could go directly to the hostel by car or train. Ordinarily, if we were going from one hostel to another, as we do on our vacation, we'd have to travel under our own steam. I'm glad you'd rather bike though. It's fun to see the country side at a leisurely pace. Well, I'll drop a card to the hostel and let them know we're coming. I guess there'll be a bunch of other hostelers there. It's quite a popular hostel. By the way, you'd better wear a minimum of clothing. I think I'll just wear my shorts and a pair of sandals, although I'll carry a shirt to wear going through towns. Be sides that, all we'll need is a sheet sleep ing sack and a plate, cup, knife and fork. That's one advantage of hosteling. We can travel light because all the heavy equipment, such as pots and pans and blankets are already at the hostel, and we can use them, if we have a pass, for the nominal fee of 25c. a night and 5c. fuel charge. Oh, didn't you get your pass yet? Send to the AYH, Northfield, Mass. right away because you'll want it for the week-end. It will cost you two dollars for the year, although if you were under 21, it would only cost you a dollar. And it's worth it! Hostel Hospitality And so after an interesting ride on secondary roads, taking our time and en joying the sights, and an invigorating swim in a stream we saw beside the road, we arrived at the hostel at 5 o'clock— the time most hostelers pull in from their day's travels. The houseparents greeted us warmly and after giving them our passes, (they sign them before we leave) we prepared our bunks and then decided to set about preparing supper. There were three other fellows and four girls already at the hostel and we all decided to pool our food and have a co-op supper together. The meal passed in hilarious fashion, en livened by the dry slow humor of the housefather, who had been invited with his wife to eat with us. My friend was truly impressed with the spirit of com- araderie evidenced on such brief acquain tanceship. After the meal, we all put to, and had the dishes cleaned up in a jiffy. Make Your Own Fun "Now," said my friend, "what will we do for fun tonight? Is there a movie in town?" The other hostelers laughed and said that my friend must be new at hos teling. With that, one took out an old fiddle and in two shakes of a lamb's tail, we were running through some square dances we all knew. After awhile, we tired and sat around the fire singing all the folk songs we could remember, turning in at 10:30 for a good night's sleep. Up bright and early the next morning, we all had breakfast together (the two meals costing us each 38c.) and then, two of the hostelers who weren't in a hurry decided to stay with us awhile and do some repair work that was needed on the roof of the hostel. The carpentry my friend and I had been doing with the co-op crafts group came in handy. We had a good time puttering about and then with our two new friend's, we hiked back to the city together. Once back in the city we parted, after arranging to get together for another trip soon. Later that evening at Play Co-op I overheard a very enthusiastic voice raving about the benefits and fun of hosteling to a small circle of interested listeners. Of course it was my frierid. This is what he was saying: Group Action for Group Good "You don't know what you're missing. All the fun we have here folk dancing, singing, doing crafts, playing games, etc. were crowded into one week-end of hos teling just as naturally as you please. And what swell friends I made. You know, when I started, I wasn't sure Frank knew what he was talking about when he said that hosteling was more cooperative than anything else I did—but do you know— we all worked together as a group for the group's good (and there's no racial or religious discrimination in hosteling, either). We pooled our resources and bought our food together, lowering the cost of our meals for each of us, and we all felt that the hostel was our re sponsibility and we pitched in with vim to clean it up and a few of us stayed and did some repair work in the morning. And gee, each of us contributed to the evening's entertainment — but no one acted as an individual, it was just the way we play here." f "'V- ;-;y...>V ".•'-!,!"r*" -" " •*.- , Consumers' Cooperation June, 1941 139 HERE'S AN IDEA— FOR GETTING YOUR NEWS ACROSS IT HAS been said that one picture is worth 10,000 words. By whom it was said and under what circumstances would