The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1915-06-05
LOYAL SUPPORT IS LACKING
Farmers Make Failure Of Cooperative
Organizations Because They Do
Not Stick Together.

Cooperative organizations fail for
many reasons; one, because they are
often not really cooperative in their
character, but are in the nature Of
corporations, in which one man, or
set of men, gets an underhold and
finally strangles them.
Another reason is that our people
are not yet educated up to a point
where they will hold together, IL some
opportunity for special profit is not
offered. We are sorry to notice in
one Of our exchanges the failure Of
very prominent cooperative egg as
ISOLATION AS long as they stuck to-
gether, the members as class re-
ceived several cents a dozen more for
their eggs than they had been In the
habit OF receiving, because they were
always furnished fresh and clean, first
class in every way, says Wallace's
Farmer. AS soon as the society was
strong enough to affect the profits OF
the merchants of the town, these mer-
chants began to offer higher prices to
enough of the farmers to render tho
cooperative organization ineffective.
Just as soon as they get the cooper
alive enterprise out Of business, they
will begin to exact, and are in fact now
exacting, the same profits as before,
and the quality of eggs from that COM
munity will decline.
This is the same plan that is worked
by some of the centralized creamer-
les, for the purpose of breaking up the
cooperative creameries in the state
of Iowa If the creamery organization
is not very large or strong, and few
men can be induced to leave it by
being offered higher prices for cream,
or higher test, which is only another
way of cheating, sooner or later the or
ganization will fail. Its operation be-
comes more expensive. The fixed
charges remain, but the output Is not
so large; hence is put out at a great
er expense.
Why is this? Simply because farm.
ers have not got the get-rich-quick
microbe out of their systems. This
microbe is worse than the germ Of
hog cholera or of foot-and-mouth dis
ease, because it does not affect ami
| mails but men, and affects them In
the very vitals of their character.
| Whenever farmers get ready to stand
together and be loyal to their associ-
alton, that association will succeed,
but until they are ready to do that, CO.
operative associations will fail.
When anyone enters into an organ
ization, he is in duty bound to loyalty
support it, even in the face of tempta-
tons to immediate temporary profit.
Let us learn that character is infinitely
more important than gain. The way
to get rich quick is to get rich slow
by helping each other to get rich.
This helps to build up character. Dis
loyalty to a cooperative organization,
or any other enterprise we have agreed
| to support, but more especially a CO
operative enterprise, Is destructive to
| character.
| Another way of breaking down the
cooperative enterprise is to SOW dis
cord among brethren. That's an old,
old story. Solomon, we remember, had
something to say about the meanness
of a man who sows discord among
brethren, and he might have added,
helps to SOW it by listening to insinu'
atoms against those with whom he
is working. This is true in social life
as well as in cooperative enterprises