The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-12-14
CO. PERATrON AB0oN TO mankind
AME1at Can Be Accomplished BY
Cooperative Methods.

The following is the substance Of an
address Mr.. Main was invited to deliver
at the convention of United Mine Work
ers on "Co-operative Home Building" but
who arrived just as the convention ad-
journed:
1t is strange how slow mankind has
been to avail itself of the powers of CO.
operation and that in the light of per-
petual demonstrations Nearly every
thing worth mention among mankind is
accomplished by cooperation to great
er of less degree. Every work Of any
magnitude is performed wholly by CO.
operative methods. If a railroad is to be
Constructed, 1t requires the cooperation
of many men to accomplish it. After 1t
is built it requires a cooperation OF men
to keep it in repair, to operate its trains,
to look after its business ard manage its
affairs 1t is simply one great eo-opefa-
tive institution.
The same is true of every great enter
prise, the telegraph systems, the tele-
phone systems. the mines the factories
the stores. the banks, the hotels, IN iact'
almost everything is on the cooperative
plan. Even the government Is one great
cooperative systemi
What could man be or have without
the co-operation of his fellows. The
clothing he wears speaks Of cotton fields,
sheep. planters. gins. looms factories,
merchants railroads mines, iron Mills
inventors. etc, almost without end. Even
a knife to cut his bread tells that some
| skilled mechanic made it; that there was
| machinery and tools made for that pur-
pose by other skilled men, that there
were iron mines and men to dig the
ore. and coal mines and o.her men to dig
the coal and iron furnaces and men to
make the iron and convert it into steel
In fact every article we use. no matter
=. fe 1,o minds
and many hands.
Men are beginning to learn what Won
ders can be accomplished by cooperation.
The great insurance companies, with
their incomprehensible wealth, were built
no by co-operation. The trouble with
many of them is that the benefits We're
for the few
Cooperative methods are now being de-
vised TO benefit the masses. One of the
plans to which it is desired to direct at
teution is a plan to enable people to own
their homes and thus save the money
that ia annually wasted IN rents. For
wears many building and loan schemes
have been devised to accomplish this end
and most of them have been more or less
successful, but the greatest objection to
| them has been the enormous interest
! that a man paid who built on that plan.
| A cooperative plan has been devised from
which the item of interest has been prac-
| tically eliminated.
The plan is thisi A company has been
organized and Incorporated which issues
| certificates of one thousand dollars and
UPWARDS. and a man who desires to take
| o1it n thousand dollar contract pays a
fee of five dollars which fee goes into the
| expense fund of the company, and no
part of it Is ever returned. He then pays
| the company the sum of two dollars and
seventy-five cents per month, two dollars
goes into building fund to his credit fifty
! cents to the expense fund and twenty
five cents to the reserve fund. When the
| payments from the members reach to-
| tai of fifty dollars a month, certificate
number one is matured and the holder
| thereof may build or buy a thousand dol