The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1897-06-19

! him to wage-slavery shall be broken,
and that unfettered, disenthralled and
emancipated, he may expand to the full
stature of a free man, receiving, by
right divine, the proceeds of his toll.
1t is dispensation that ushers in the
Cooperative Commonwealth, not at
once in it's full orbed noon, but mora
properly it's sunrise, it's morning, it's
beginning.
Cooperation is not a word newly
coined. It is as old as the tower of
Babel, erected by the tribes in the plain
of Shinar, when men believed they
could build a tower whose top might
reach into heaven, a majestic folly, but
demonstrating, nevertheless, what may
be accomplished by cooperative effort
These cooperative workers did COM
plete their tower, they did lay the foun-
datiOnS of Babylon and their tower,
though it's top did not reach the skies,
stood for a thousand years one of the
great wonders of a great city. And
men now, as then, are interdependent
and the term cooperation illustrates
the idea, and debate upon the law of
mutual dependence is not required.
1t is a fundamental law an automatic
truth, the only question to be debated
being, is the purpose of cooperative
effort wise or otherwise? Is it a va
gary or a verify? No scientist, no
philosopher, no statesman, no philan-
thropist ever has in the past, does in
the present, or will in the future pro-
nounce cooperation a vagary, hal
lucination unworthy of consideration.
Cooperation presupposes q condition,
as applied to Industrial affairs, in which
men work together in harmony for one
another's prosperity, happiness and in
dependence, a condition in which no
man is master and no man a slave, a
condition in which a mans brain and
Drawn and soul are all his own and not,
as under the wage system, another's.
I would have no one deceived. Here,
in this presence, should be mindful of
the practical. The ultima thule of CO.
operation, the Cooperative Common
wealth, is perhaps in the distant future,
not, however, in the dreamland of the
enthusiast, but entirely within the
realm of the possible. s
We are here to deal with initials and
among other things to find a location,
spot favored by nature. in climate
salubriOus and soil which will yield
abundant haryests of food products for
man and beast. Any one of several
Western states, which are sparsely
settled, and where the people are
largely in sympathy with the enterprise
can be selected for the beginning. In
vitations, cordial and heartfelt, have
been extended by thousands of citizens,
including governors of states and
others eminent in public affairs. The
state decided upon, we propose to coll
onize it with men and women tho
roughly imbued with a knowledge of
economics as applied to Industrial
affairs, men and women whose phil
osophy has taught them to deal with
the movable and the attainable, men
and. women of profound convictions
who point to the 10000 monuments OF
cooperative success that line all the
pathways of civilization, the profits Of
which have been snatched from the
builders to enrich those who owned the
wage-slave, while the toilers, despoiled
of their rights lived on as they are liv-
ing today, by permission of those who
control all opportunities and dictate all
conditions. @' I
There are those who believe, and I am
one of the number, that it is practicable
to inaugurate a change of program.
and that the time is ripe for begin
ming. ~
There may be those within the sound
of my voice who expect the CO.. Opera
tive Commonwealth to advance and
power without the aid Of human en-
deavor Not so, my friends. 1t means
hard work. It involves moral and
physical courage of the highest order
It presuppOses earnest convictions LIS
goal is Industrial independence, an In:
dependence the world has never known
until cooperative labor, solving every.
problem and surmOunting every Ob7
stacle in industrial affairs, achieves
emancipation for it's votaries. ~,
I need not be told that the term In
dependence is a much used ana mucn
abused word It may stand for much
or for practically nothing at all. Under
the operation of the wage system there
is no independence for those. who toll,
because independence means exemp-
ton from control by others, the d1rec-
ton of ones own affairs without inter-
ference.
Dealing with the subject from this
point of view, there is not in the United
States a wage-wOrker who IS lnde-
pendent. He must not only work 10
live, but always under conditions dlc-
tated by another person. His life ana
the lives of those dependent upon nus
work are absolutely under the cOntrOl
Of others.
True it is, borne down by the exac-
tons of masters, the toilers have
struck in the hope of securing emancl-
patton, but when the struggles were
over they found themselves in the
grasp of the same old system, more
heavily manacled than before. me
chains which bound them, unbroken,
gnawed deeper into their fesh-into
their very souls, and the contest mas
served to deepen the impression that
the fight for independence has mace
them still more dependent and that
thew are pariahs in their much vaunted
Land of the free and home OF the
brave E.
Such conditions have aroused
thoughtful men within and without
the ranks Of labor, and the consensus
of opinion is that there is one way out
of the labyrinthian pathways In Wnlcn
toilers have Travelled for centuries, IN
which poverty has kept abreast OF
progress and is now SO far In advance
that a remedy must be found and ap-
Dlied without delay. The antidote IS
believed to be cooperative effort on the
part of all toilers. BY cooperation they
can work out their own salvation, their
REDEMPTION and independence by
cooperation they can burst through
every enthralment, break every fetter,
rise superior to present environments,
and produce such change as shall
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