The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-12-14
OUsTING THE MIDDLEMAN.

The movement which has begun in Seattle to establish a cooperative store is certainly justified by condi- tions. Notwithstanding it's proximity to the farm products which form the basis of the necessities of life, Seattle prices have been artificially boosted by certain conditions.
 Briefly those were restrictive or dinances preventing hawking and bedding, high rents altogether be- yond the population growth ana business development, and the dell berate efforts of the commission and retail men to withhold commodities from the market thus to enhance the price.
 Efforts have been made to over come this condition with city mark cts. city docks and legislation which kept the commission men nominally within bounds,
 But those efforts improved condi. lions hardly any, and the higher costs of living still pressed heavil! upon the workers of the Spirit City
 Moreover, the farmers, truck or stock or grain, did not get the bene- it of these high prices. Someone else did. Thus potatoes sold for as high as S1.39 and the growers got hardly half that amount. Berry growers in the western valleys made about $4OO from their farms, per aunum. That is the statement of Paulhamus president Of the Puyal- Iup Valley berry growers association, A condition of this kind naturally forced resentment among the farm CTS who watched enormous prices asked for their produce while they had to sell it for a pittance.
 The prevailing idea that the farm CTS and orchardists were rolling ill riches is not correct Their poverty prevented them holding out for higher prices and they had to take what they could get. With berries under sixty cents crate, no munifi- cent fortunes are in sight, and the rest of the farmers and ranchers fared little better.
 The other day the members of the Washington Grange and the Central Labor Council of Seattle determined to start up a cooperative store. This will have a bona fide liat Of custom CTS to start with of rot less than 27,OO0. It is quite clear that it will enable the farmers to get higher prices for some of their products, and bring those products in touch with the consumers who will also pay less than they are now paving, They propose to oust the middleman and the commission man and sell di- rect to the consumer.
 That idea is really very old. The first cooperative store on gigantic scale can trace back its history over one hundred years. It has been success in a variety of places, but in the majority of sections similar at tempts have not met with the same success.
 It appears that the success of this cooperative movement is manifested just so long as there is real co-ope- ration and the cooperative store eaters to the members of that move ment directly and chiefly. But as it has often happened when the members of the movement find that they receive dividend from their store, they begin to insist that the management increase this prsflt and hence it spreads out beyond the range of actual cooperation and be- comes just as much interested in profit-making for it's promoters as any other corporation. And the end of it is that it becomes stock com pany whose members are privileged as to prices and still more privileged as to profits.
 Further than this, there have sue E ceeded jealousies and dissatisfac- tions with the management when the lean years cut down dividends and the profits were small.
 The chief utility of a cooperative store may readily be granted to be psychological rather than material. It can be used to prevent any seri- ous artificial combines controlling