The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-03-03

are usually organized on the federal
plan; that Is, a dozen or more local
companies, each made up of a mem
bership ranging from 10 to several
hundred, build their lines to some GEN.
trail place and there join together in
the purchase and maintenance of a
central exchange.
Each oca company controls its own
Internal affairs, just as each state in
the Union has control of those of it's
affairs which do not oncer the other
states. The general company is made
up of the members of all the local
companies, and it bears the same re-
lation to the local companies that the
states bear to the United States. The
share of the expense of each person
who gets a telephone usually ranges
from $15 to S25 per telephone in the
building and equipping of the line. He
then pays for his telephone, which
costs him about SIS. At this outlay
he becomes an equal shareholder in
the local and general companies, and
his annual expense thereafter is about
"a for exchange service and 50 or SO
a year for maintaining the lines and
H'' AL VI
Hundreds of these cooperative tele-
phone companies are scattered
throughout the country, and they give
surprisingly good service in consid-
Grafton of its low cost. Sometimes
some of the companies get into a sort
of civil war among themselves, and
many a local company has been
known to protest that an annual
switchboard service fee of So was too
high. In most of these companies the
rates are uniform for business and for
residence telephones, the theory being
the business telephone renders as
much service to the residence tele-
phone as the residence telephone rem
ders to it.
Cooperative insurance cow
for protection against fire have long
been operated with success in many of
the rural sections of the country. They
insure the property of the co-operators
at tWo-thirds Of it's value, and the
charges therefor are based upon the
losses sustained. Assessments
to meet these losses are made when
ever they occur. The result is that
the farmers get fire insurance at un
usually low rates. The officers of the
company are paid only nominal sal.
aries, n the expenses Of administra.
ton are negligible. When a fire oc-
ours the loss is appraised by repre-
of the insurance company
and settlement upon the basis If their
findings practically always is accented.
Some years the losses are rather
heavy, while in other years they ar.
nothing. The co-operators
are sure that they are getting
at actual cost, which is bet
ter han the best non-co-operative
company can offer.
GOOD roads movements We're in exis-
tence many years ago in several parts
of the United States, and in some sec
the co-operators learned to do
for themselves what the states were
not then able to do, and tina which
the federal government had not yet
thought of undertaking. Not many
years after the civil war many farm
ers, weary of the burdens inflicted
then by the mud tax, banded
together into cooperative
to build turnpikes of their
own. They realized that the state ,
finances were not able to bear the
strain Of such road building, and they
preferred to put up a few dollars and
contribute some work with their
hands and teams in an effort to
have a good road, rather than to do
nothing and continue to labor under
the mud tax.
The result was that local turnpikes
were established. The stock was
placed at S25 a share, and soon was
subscribed by the farmers contiguous
to the road. The officers were paid
nominal salaries, in one case the presi.
being paid $50 a year, the sec
and treasurer SIS, and the SUI
81 a day. Tolls We're fixed
hat they would keep up the road
and yield a small dividend. Since then
the tolls have been lowered frequently,
the road has grown better with each
succeeding year of the 40 of it's exist
ence, the farmers haul two tons where
they were able to haul one before, and
values have risen more rapidly along
this road than anywhere else in that
The enhancement OF values
has twice overpaid the cost of con-
struction.
The cooperative apartment house
has been tried successfully in New
York. Such a house is to be found at
the northwest corner of Sixty-fourth
street and Central park. 1t has 81
apartments, each inhabited by a person
Or family of prominence. Each apart
ment is a real home, planned to suit
individual tastes of it's owner, and
from the big entrance court to the last
detail of the big summer garden on
roof, everything in the power of
architect has been done to achieve
simplicity and quiet which the
desire.
Many fraternal organizations and
labor unions, inspired by the success
IF the International Typographical
union in the establishment of the big
printers home at Colorado Springs,
are establishing and planning to estab-
IlSh similar homes. The Colorado
for printers was established in
he early COS, since which time about
4 million dollars have been raised and
expended in building UP the institution.
The income now approximates 800, 900
4 wear. and the cost Of kpapinp the leo