The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1914-07-10
COOPERATIVE IDEA
ROCHDALE TRIUMPH
British Movement Started in
1843, First to Demon
strate Mutual
Economy
INITIAL CAPITAL WAS ONLY $4,000
Purpose Identical With Hundreds OF
Societies That Proceeded, Success
Found i'm Different MethOd-Cre.
dit Competition Met.
BY Hector MACPHERSON


Corvallis, Ore, Aug. 12-(SpeciaD
NO student of cooperation can af-
ford to ignore the Rochdale co-opera-
tive store movement of Great Britain.
He may be especially interested in
the application of the principles of
cooperation to agriculture, and be
tempted to pass over the British
stores as foreign to his subject. 1t
is true that the English Rochdale
stores are almost entirely confined
to the wage-earning classes of the
great centers of industry. But it is
also true that the Rochdale move
ment, and its success have supplied
the inspiration for most of the rural
cooperation, which it was our mis-
sion in Europe to investigate.
In the first place, the Rochdale pi-
oneers were the first to demonstrate
that cooperation is an economically
safe and efficient method of carry
ing on business enterprise. This was
generally regarded as doubtful pre-
vious to the opening of the little
man who doubts the variability of
cooperation today either does not
know the facts, or has been infected
with the germ of the classical eco
nomist to a degree which places
him beyond the help of any serum
or antitoxin known to modern
science.
UocSsoiSfc Chow ScnUn
The political economist of the clas-
steal school scorned the whole move
ment. "Laiessez faire, let things
CO." he said. Free competition, ac-
cording to him. would secure the low
est prices and goods free from adul-
iteration or fraud.
But things did not work out in the
cut-and-dried fashion predicted by
the economist. 1t was felt that prices
were outrageously high, while the
merchandise was often unfit for use.
Many were inclined to lament over
the good old days before the indus
trial revolution when the workers of
England had been scattered over the
whole country, most of them owning
small holdings of land, and producing
at home almost everything required
to satisfy the simple wants of the
time. Each knew exactly what he
was using because he had himself
controlled the process of its making.
But the days of home industry had
gone never to return. With the
change the old axiom, "If you want
a thing done we'll, do it yourself, p"
was robbed of much of it's signifi-
canoe.
1t remained for the Rochdale move
ment to rehabilitate the old axiom
and give 1t an application adapted to
the changed conditions of modern in
dustrialism.
Initial Capital $40
Those early pioneers, 2S in number
whose combined savings for a year
amounted to the manificent sum of
$40 as the initial capital for their
enterprise, were certainly ambitious.
Their bylaws showed that they ex-
pected to become their own store
keepers, their own landlords, their
own manufacturers and their own
hotelkeepers. They also outlined
plans for the purchase or rental of
lands for agricultural purposes. In
short, they aimed at nothing less
than complete revolution in the
existing order of society. To quote a
passage from the preamble: That
as soon as practicable, this society
shall proceed to arrange the powers
of production, distribution, education
and government"
Considering the number of coop
erative enterprises which had arisen
and gone down to failure within the
previous five or six decades, the
plans of the Rochdale pioneers sound
ed like the vaporings of extreme
Utopians.
Why was it, then, that Rochdale
succeeded where others had met on
ly failure and bankruptcy? 1t was
not due to difference of purpose. The
contention of the champions of the
co-operatice movement had always
been that the advantages of improv-
ed business and industrial methods
rightfully belong to the masses. Their
aim was to secure a fairer distribu-
ton of the social income. They were
working for business and industrial
order which would make it imposs-
BILE for favored few to bask in lux
ury at the expense of the many who
pinned in poverty.
Method Essential Difference
In their general purposes, then, the
Rochdale pioneers were identical
with hundreds of other societies
which had preceded them. The es-
sential difference was one of business
method.
Looking over the failures of the
past the little group of pioneers found
that the wreckage was heaped about
two deadly reefs. One doomed up
clear and distinct, and, was easily
named the Credit Dealers Cliff. Just
across the narrow channel ran low
jagged ridge, not So CLEARLY defined,
but none the less dangerous. 1t was
finally described as Disloyalty Rift.
Between these rocks each fair CO.
operative craft had found itself at
the very outset of it's voyage Many
of them had early detected Disloyalty
Rift, and in their anxiety to avoid
its danger had steered close to the
other side of the chained. They were
soon stranded and had added their
water-logged cargo of bad debts to-
the plentiful debris at the base Of