Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-04

| The list of activities which are suscepti
BILE to cooperative enterprise is by no
means exhausted with the mention of CO.
operative selling and buying organizations
and manufacturing enterprises. Many
| other forms of cooperation have been
F, tried out either in large or a small way,
and have given gratifying results. One of
! the newest departures in that direction
| is in the use of an electric vacuum cleaner.
A half dozen housewives each felt the
| need of such cleaner, but neither of
them was able to own one herself. There
fore they agreed to pool interests and buy
one on the cooperative basis They
| bought it, and with it bought boy $
little express wagon. Each one of the six
| women now has the cleaner one day IN
the week. 1t is moved from house 10
house by boy. and in this way they are
able to have all the comforts of the own
ership Of a good vacuum cleaner, at the
price of a very Indifferent one.
| 1t has been proposed that cooperation
be applied to cooking by city housewives.
Knowing that there is but little more
! trouble and expense attached to COOKING
| for two families instead OF one, IL mas
been proposed that dozen fam1ieS 50
together. hire che good cook ana tue
necessary helpers. and equip community
kitchen. from which the meals could DC
served to the supporting families al cost
OF course. no form OF corporation Wouia
be i'm greater danger OF failing than this
one. The tastes of families. however
close their relationship. are bound to alt-
fer. and unless the cooperative kltcheH
could furnish different sorts of meals to
different families it would be almost sure
to fail. And the savings of cooperative
cooking would largely pass away II such
policy were pursued.
Some communities in the United States
! have solved many of tie problems of
rural life by CO.
Solve Problem operation One may
by Cooperation. farming resions in
many sections of the country and there
see cooperative telephone companies sue
cessfully opera ting big systems. some oil
these companies have thousands of share
holders. They are usually organized on
the federal plan; that is q dozen or more
local companies, each made up of mem
bership ranging from ten to several hun
dred. build their lines to some central
place and there join together in the pur-
chase and maintenance of a central ex
change
Each local company controls its own
internal affairs Just as each state in the
Union has control Ot those of its affairs
which do not concern the other states.
The general company is made up OF the
members OF all the local companies, and
it bears the same relation to the local
companies that the states bear to the
United States. The share of the expense
Ct each person who gets telephone
usually ranges from 50 TO So per tele
I,,,.1xl RI .f
the line He then pays for his telephone,
which costs him about S1J. All this out
lay he becomes an equal shareholder in
the local and general companies, and
his annual expense thereafter is about
81 for exchange service and 81 or s.: a
year for maintaining the lines and keep
ing his telephone in order.
Hundreds of these cooperative tee-
phone companies are scattered through
out the country and they give surprisingly
good service in consideration OF its low
cost. Sometimes some of the companies
get into sort of civil war among them
selves, and many local company has
been known to protest that an annual
switchboard service fee of Sc was too
high In most of these companies the
rates are uniform for business and fo1.
residence telephones, the theory being
that the business telephone renders as
much service to the residence telephone
as the residence telephone renders to it,
:. !:
Cooperative insurance companies for
protection against fire have long been
operated with success in
Scheme of many of the rural sec
tiOns 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 actual losses sustained Assessments
to meet these losses are made whenever
they occur. The result is that the farm
ers get fire insurance at unusually low
rates. The officers of the company are
paid only nominal salaries. and the ex-
penses of administration are negligible.
When a fire occurs the loss is appraised