The Dickinson press., 1911-12-09

lowing this line of thought, it is worth
while to glance briefly at various
phases of cooperation.
Looked at broadly, cooperation has to
do with what is termed either distribu-
ton or production. The first is the uni
ting of a group who will act for them
selves as consumers or as agents. There
are many illustrations of this, as for in
stance the Fruit and Grain Growers As.
sociations, and the creation of cooper
alive stores. The producers cooperative
enterprises are by no means numerous.
They are engaged in furnishing jointly
capital. labor and management. It has
been q failure in most instances be-
cause of small capital. poor MANAGE
ment. and lack of market for the ma.
terial. But if this much may be said
of producers cooperation in the field
of manufacture, quite as much may be
said of the efforts to carry out c0-opera-
ton in agriculture. The cultivation of
the soil Jointly has been limited, so
far as l know, to the efforts of COM
munal organizations. such as are found
in the Amana Society in Iowa AMI else
where, so that little attempt has really
been made to carry on agriculture or
the direct cultivation of the soil by CO.
operative methods, while on the other
hand there have been various methods
attempted in the field of distribution of
the product among the farmers. Per-
haps the best example of this effort is
found in the case Of cooperative cream
cries. Milk can be sold to consumer
directly or to middlemen and a
facturers. but where the cooperative
creamery is organized the producers of
milk and the manufacturers of butter
may be one and the same group. So
successful has this movement been, that
now there is a tendency to develop a
second step through the creation of
sales agencies for the protection of the
cooperative creameries, and this has
been successfully carried out for the
last two or three years. For many years
men have talked about the handling of
grain and the abuses to the trade invol-
we'd in it. Before the sos and during
that decade hesweighine and carting
and docking of grain were a constant
source of irritation. There were calls
for the state ownership of elevators, for
their regulation. and while legislators
were willing to engage in the latter,
they left to the farmers the develop
ment of elevator companies for themsel-
yes. Great difficulties of organization
and the money market were finally
overcome in many instances, so that
today there are at least 1. 800 co-opera-
tive elevators in the United States,
whose property is valued at sixteen
millions of dollars. AS in the case of
the creameries, there is now a move.
ment toward the creation of terminal
elevators that shall act in some meas
ure as regulators of the market. In
special industries. like that of fruit
growing. the cooperative movement
has reached enormous development. In
California there are at least $50 such
organizations, shipping hundreds Of
carloads of fruit annually. They have
solved the marketing problem through
their organization and saved millions
of dollars in freight. commissions and
returns. Having lowered the freight
rates in their contests with the rail-
roads, they are now fighting jointly the
insect pests of California fruits. Pro-
gress in n direction o % opens the
door tt new phases of the problem, and
this is what has happened in the case
of the fruit growers association, as it
happened in the case of the CT eameries
and the handling of grain, in the de-
velopment of supply companies to furn-
ish boxes and other equipment.
For years consumers, not only among
farmers but among factory operatives
also, have felt the necessity of securing
lower prices and better quality of goods
for their money. They have been en-
couraged in this attitude by the history
of wholesale cooperative societies in
England, and little by little the idea
has been extended in the United States
until today there are a considerable
number of such stores doing business.
They have failed here and there because
of poor management, misunderstanding.
insufficient support, and the fact that
they had no outside connections with
the great purchasing world. The Right
Relationship League, an organization
of some years standing, now attempts
TO guide the development OF the coop
erative store in many directions and
steer it clear of the many rocks that
have wrecked it in the past. Here and
there efforts have been made to carry
on the organized sale of meat animals,
and it has been found that great saving
could be effected, better arrangements
made about commissions, and a very