Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-12-31

can find. If you should doubt this.
kill a few caterpillars or other insects,
or a mouse, or even a bird, if you are
wicked enough, and place them near
nest OF ants, and see how quickly
they consume every atom that can be
consumed. Medical students have
often taken advantage of this fact and
placed the skeletons they wish to
have cleaned in their way, that they
might eat up the flesh which the seal
pei could not cut away.
My friend, Mary Treat of Vineland,
the naturalist, has given me a most
remarkable instance of mutual aid
among ants, witnessed by herself in a
battle between q nest of slave-hO1ding
(Formica sanguinea) and colony
of black ones. After watching the
battle as it ragged all the afternoon,
at dusk she picked up ten red, pitted
against ten black ants, in deadly en-
brace and placed them where she
could observe them by lainplght. 1t
was a full hour before a single red
warrior had despatched his black an
tagonist. After it had torn off the
legs, it looked around to see where it
could help comrade, and, choosing a
case where assistance seemed most
important, it seized the head of its
comrades foe, bit it off, and then
went to another and another, till it
had aided its comrades in killing all
their own antagonists. This little in
significant creature knew the value of
association in ant warfare, and did
not wait for an invitation, but offered
its services when its own special foe
had been despatched.
This was an instance of association
for the destruction of foe We often
see the same thing in human beings.
Proceeding further we find that
a large part of life is one of associa-
ton. Men and women band them
selves together for every conceivable
purpose, and for promoting all sorts
of schemes, good and bad, which
could not be achieved in any other
way. We have churches for promOt-
ing moral and religious culture,
schools for promoting education, be-
nevolent societies to promote chart
ties, and clubs for securing pleasures
which could not otherwise be had
In business we combine capital and
industry for promoting commerce and
trade, for building railways, for car
rying on banking, for securing higher
wages by labor unions, and for hun
dreds of other objects.
Great progress in science was never
possible so long as scientific men were
isolated from one another. It has
been by their coming together in soci-
cites where they could exchange
knowledge that great advances have
been made. The association of the
leading scientific men of the world in
the Royal Society of England, the
Academy of Science, France, and many
others that might be named, has been
a most potent factor in all scientific
progress SO familiar are these mat
ters to YOU that l need not dwell up
on them longer.
| wish now to speak of one modern
form OF association that has attracted
wide attention. | refer to coopera-
ton. The term cooperation and
the word association have literally
about the same significance, but in
recent times the former has to a great
extent become a technical term hav-
ing a special meaning. According to
Holyoke, one of its chief apostles, it
may be defined as a system of COM
merce and industry consisting of So
cieties of working people who have
necessarily little surplus capital, III
which the business profits of a store
are given to the purchasers, and the
profits of workshop are given to
the workers.
Cooperation is not communism on
the one side nor state socialism on
the other. 1t is a voluntary system
of social economies implying the band
ing together of a larger or smaller
number of persons or societies for mu-
tual profit, either in the purchase and
sale of commodities for consumption,
in the manufacture of commodities
which may be in demand, or for Dor
rowing or lending capital, as in
banking.
1t may be of interest, in passing,
briefly to note the important fact
that cooperation for these three OBJ
ects has been highly developed N
three European countries. In Ger
many, for instance, we have coopera-
tive banking for the benefit of the
working class. These banks are or
gained on principles adapted to
workingmen, and not to large capi-
talists, and have become very useful.
In France cooperation has devel-