The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1881-02-02
Cooperation.
A Lecture Delivered before the Ebrasy and
Reading Room Association, by S. B. Dole,
Esq, Thursday Evening, Jan. "a, 1881.

Mr.. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GES71EAEN: "The
housewives who watched that the kettle did not
boil over during ages past little imagined the part
that steam was 10 play, and the heads Of poor
families who have Joined in buying chest of tea
and dividing il amongst them, had little fore
seen that they were playing with power which
could turn the worker into his own employer, and
rearrange the distribution Of wealth among man
kind"
There is large room at Harvard College in a
large building where the students take their meals
Towards thousand young men sit down at one
time and eat good variety of well cooked, first
class food at q cost less than is charged in any
hotel or eating house in the neighborhood, and
probably less than the cost of similar style OF
living in families in that region. The secret of
this high quality and low cost is corporation
Underneath the dining-room is a huge basement
with storerooms ice-cosets, ranges, steam cooking
arrangements Of the most perfect description The
food is all purchased by the quantity at wholesale
rates and is cooked 1T wholesale rates by accom-
plished and ingenious cooks-we might almost say
engineers and chemists A competent head-stew6rd
at good salary makes the purchases and superln-
tends the preparation of food. There is system
and economy in every direction, and this army of
young men are thoroughly nourished in way that
not only makes distinguished athletes, but scholars
and statesmen as well, and at rate which is very
near TO the bare cost of living and which is sur
prising discount on what you and have TO pay for
our frugal fare of bread and butter and meat and
canned and bottled groceries. These students
form a cooperative society, combining together
for this purpose and putting their money
together for Its attainment
The advantage Of cooperation is SO familiar to
the world that ii is strange that the world has been
so slow in understanding and approaching its
wonderful power. The old roof-ralsing parties of
the forefathers of of in the early American
settlements, when the whole neighborhood would
turn cut to put the roof tmbers to the house which
one of their number was building, or the frolic-
some Hawaiian parties for treading and making
water-tight the bottom of new kalo patch, or
modern society fair or bazaar, examples of
how many hands make light work. and accom-
plish large results.
Men are at last waking up to the knowledge of
this social force. They have been accustomed to
that as the world increases in wealth and edu-
cation and refinement poverty with Its train of
evils also increases and establishes itself by
social law IN permanent headquarters. They have
almost taken it for granted that this great and
growing community of poverty is matter of
course and cannot be helped. The assistance
which has been given in the way of relief TO pau
perism has only served TO establish II deeper and
more hopelessly; what with poor-houses and asy-
lums for INDECENT persons and relief societies and
soup-kltchens, poverty has Its encouragements, or
at least Its compensations The real remedy, how
ever has begun, as all moral remedies must begin,
with the class needing II. The reaction of poverty
against its own situation has taken two move
ments which are somewhat similar in principle
cooperation and socialism. Socialism is
operation reduced to an absurdiiy or run mad. 1t
is cooperation on an universal scale, a scheme so
immense, so complicated and iinpracticable that
only half-insare Missionaries or despairing work
template 1t. Socialism would have the Govern
ment own and control all property and apportion
its benefits to all the members of society with
equality something after the smooth care and pre-
cision of a Shaker community. It's clear that the
honest believers in socialism must be found in the
ranks of those who own little or no property. II
cannot be expected that property owners can ever
be argued into contributing their whole property
70 a common fund for the public good. The call
of patriotism even would fail TO convert this class
As Theirs wittily remarked, you can easily "get
to die for his country, but you cannot get
him 10 make pig-iron for his country" This move
ment, however, which we call socialism, which
seeks 10 readust the relations of labor and capital
is rather natural reaction from the straits of
poverty IN which men find Reconsideration their
bound and helpless condition into which they have
settled the result of the tyranny Of capital and the
greed of organized monopolies; nd the first i'm
pulse is to an act of blind and hostile resistance
against the forces that threaten them. In other
words. 10 forever destroy the power of capital by
forever destroying the right of private ownership
of property, and lowering property owners and
raising ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 10 monotonous
level in which ali have an equal right of support
from the State, which becomes at once the public
almoner for the distribution of rations and the
public foreman or task-master for the apportion-
ment of work The system does not readJust the
relations of labor and capital, but destroys them
by making the ownership of property crime
against the State II would make man beast of
burden to be worked and fed, the State a stable
and the officers of Government grooms and coach
men. Socialism begins by robbing the sldllful and
industrious man of his accumulated earnings for
distribution among the lazy, improvident and un-
fortunate. Cooperation begins, not by confsca-
tion but by - free contribution toward a common
fund for a common object previously agreed upon.
Socialism is a despotisJn which would reach its
ends bv a ruthless destruction of the inalenable
rights which mankind has learned through the
sufferings aud struggles of ages 10 prize as the
best of its possessions Cooperation is d union
freely red into for the sake Of the accumulated
power which such union always confers.
AMONG a small but thoughtful of NOM
property-owners the reaction against poverty and
the threatening influence of capital has been in
the way of cooperation, probably the only way
for them. To oppose the tyranny of capitalists
they decided TO become capitalists themselves. As
Rome defended herself from the siege of Cartha-
genian armies by sending an army to attack
Carthage, 50 they made up their minds that their
only chance of success in defending themselves
from capital was in attacking capital on its own
ground or in other words, competing with i.
The success of the movements to this end has
been unexpected and magnificent. In 1544 seven
teen weavers founded the first cooperative store
in Rochdale, England, with a capital of one hun
bred and forty dollars-an average of eight dollars
and thirty cents apiece. Their stock consisted at
first of - pounds of butter, so pounds of sugar 6
sacks of fcur, sack OF meal, and , pounds of
candles, worth about eighty dollars. They kept
the store open only two evenings in the week ON
the start. in 1876 the society numbered $500 men,
bers: their funds, besides what had been drawn
out by Shareholders amounted TO $1,270000; their
business that year amounted to $3.50, of
store is the finest building IN the city. They own
property all the borough, and have streets of
houses built for the members. They have devoted |
two and one-half per cent. of their profits to an
educational fund, which besides sustaining science
classes and lectures, has given them fine library
of many thousand volumes, with reviews and |
costly books of reference, and fourteen we'll |
furnished reading rooms.
In 1852 eight workingmen in the town of Dur
ham raised seventeen dollars and half, or two |
dollars and nineteen cents apiece, which they in
vested in seven pounds of -four, little sugar, and
a box Of backing. Could any one have believed |
that from such a beginning cooperative COM
pany was destined 20 grow, numbering in 1877 or |
fourteen years after, 2643 members, with bust /
ness of S441537 per annum, of which S57 $50 were
net profits, and with a fund of SgS,044 and that |
during these hSst fourteen years S400,01O would |
be paid in dividends TO the members.
Other communities have not been slow to profit l
by the significant lessons which these experiments
have taught; but have eagerly followed the ex-
ample of these pioneer societies, and adopted the
tl~inciple of cooperation illustrated almost as
a cornerstone of social Independence. In 1873 |
there were two thousand cooperative societies in
England, numbering half million members, and
doing an annual business of $l00.0O10O0. These |
results have been obtained through the mighty !
force of the cooperative principle, aided by hon
est dealing in unadulterated goods and strict ad-
herence 10 cash transactions only.
These two early enterprises whose success was SO
marvellous began with store business IN which |