The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1881-12-24


Charlottesville, Nov. X.
Letter from the Manager ct tlae
st Louis Branch of y. VIC. a.
OFFICE ST. LOUIS BRANCH OF THE S
w. Co. OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION,
ST. LOUIS, Dec, E, 1881.
Editor Patron. They are begin
ming to appreciate the advantage
of central Associations. Make your
orders as large as possible and send
the money or produce, and get up
to car load lots as soon as practical
Bile. There are some articles we
furnish which bring no profit at all
to the Association.
The people are reading more and
the retail stores on the cooperative
plan are generally making good
report of themselves, and new ones
are constantly forming and report,
ing ready to unite in the great move
ment that has in store certain good
to those who will unitedly, and re-
gardless of receptions and decoy-
ing influences, start and patronize
cooperation at home. Merchants
all over the Southwest and South
and most of the Northwest come
here and buy goods and take them
to their respective country and
town localities and sell them to the
people, who may just as well unite
and have store of their own and
save that which the merchant would
make in profit on their custom to
those stores. If a merchant can
make by getting the profit on goods
bought at wholesale and sold at re-
tail the same people who buy can
save and thereby make to them
selves by saving that what the
merchant would make off of them.
Are you too rich to want it? We
have favorable and encouraging
reports from our New Orleans
Branch and from Galveston. When
we all get to working as one-as
we are one-and the retail stores
established all over the country, as
they are fast doing, and all unite in
their business as one, which is the
great point to be gained, and the
one we labor for all the time, then
what power there is in the COM
bined commerce will be in the
hands of the people who become
the commercial power, and all ad
| NIT there is power in commercial
circles, power in commercial COM
binations. Will you step to the
front and become that power? BY
combining your means, small it may
be though from some, yet all from
each that each can invest, will
make enough to establish and con-
duct the business of every neigh
borhood throughout the length am
breadth of the entire land. Men do
gain in commerce, then 60 into
commerce every one of you, by in
vesting together, and select some
one or more to conduct it for you,
and all the rest go on proc ucing or
manufacturing and keep your hired
man IN the store as your servant to
wait on you at your own wages, in
| place of being servants to those
now in stores who are constantly
gaining by your servitude to them.
| We do not say these things in any
unkind spirit, but in a spirit pant
ing for freedom from this system OF
business, and we would not have ii
understood as an unkindness toward
| men in business but we want free
dom from this exhaustive system of
competition which is founded and
| conducted upon the principle that
it makes gain to the one who fur
nishes the means, the labor and the
| brain to conduct it; and in practice
it does it. But the people have al
ways stood back and let the few do
it, and that few get the gain. What
| we insist on is that the many shall
in their own interest come to the
front, furnish the means and take
and conduct the business, and
thereby each reap his share of the
profit. Have it conducted if you
choose by the very men now in
business, but upon salary and with
your own money then you have a
right to The profits and you become
commercial power.
Go on, Mr. Editor, and present
this matter before the people, as you
only know how to do, and you will
| have greater reward than Van
derbilt or a Stewart, who simply
gained the renown of being rich,
and got rich by doing the very
thing individually we are trying to
do collectively, that is 20 do bust
ness in their collective in place OF
individual capacity, and save what
| a Vanderbilt or Stewart would
make Off of them. And as you go
make the types say it is 81 cents
per pound that galvanized steel
/ fence wire can be furnished at in
| place of 81 cents by your earnest
friend, w. MAXWELL.