The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1917-05-24
OPEN FORUM
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COOPERATION

Your State Secretary in condemn
ing al forms Of cooperation makes a
very grievous mistake. That mistake
lis due to the fact that in large
country like America, you do not
Iget the same chance to view the OPP
Ierations of the capitalist, as you do
i'm a small place like Ireland. Many
Ior the Soci}Iists in Ireland laughed
hat the ideR of the cooperation, and
Isad that it would be impossible to
have cooperative colonies, and if you
Ibid they would be part and parcel
lof the system, and as such would
mot be in any way conforming to the
Socialist doctrines But in the year
ll913, they received a lesson which
convinced them Of the practical nee
Iessity of having cooperative stores,
Especially in the matter of foodstuffs.
when we were out on strike the en-
lployers of Dublin brought pressure
Ito bear, and the big firms refused to
supply our men and women with food,
we offered firms like Liptons',
Lyons, cheque for $250,000 and
asked them to forward the food at
once to Dublin, they refused to do so.
But fortunately there is in Great
Britain a Cooperative Wholesale So
cety, and they Immediately got to
work and within twenty-four hours
they had ship load Of goods on its
way to the city of Dublin. Let us
realize that no matter how much
philosophy we may knew, that when
we come up against the realities of
life, we are forced to recognize them,
no matter how distastefui they may
be. We have got to get the worker
before we can ever hope to achieve
any real propaganda, and l sug-
gest the work of the Irish Transport
Union could be followed here in
America. When the girls Of our
Union were locked out and unable to
secure work, the men said, why not
let these girls make shirts for US to
wear land let them have the profit
instead Of The master. The girls
got to work, and as a result the mas
tiers cf Dublin did not feel inclined
70 lock many girls out, they saw
that they were losing trade by do
ing so. We also had own own thea
ter, SO members of the Union went
to their own theater, and paid to see
their own comrades acting. The
profits went to a school clinic which
was carried on for the benefit of the
members and their wives and chill
dren. 1t gave medical attention,
and from that they purchased their
own park and sanatorium. With the
growing of the Union, these things
will become more and more developed.
BY this method, you get the worker
Oh the job, when he has finished his
work, he still finds sufficient inter
est in the Union, even after he has
Ic1L WOlh. LIS WllOIS me Is DOuilu
up in the Union, you get him along
with his fellow-workers, they work
and play together, and there you
have the FELLOWSHIP. From the
Union hall we carried on all our
election campaign, we got the gov
eminent to look after the housing
problem, and as a result many slums
were condemned and the result was
decent housing was commenced for
the workers. All this is due to CO.
operation, and l have searched in
vain to see whether Marx talked of
cooperation in Das Capital, but be-
cause he doesn't mention it, why
should we ignore it. Marx states in
his criticism of Fuerbach: "The
standpoint of the old materialism is
bourgeois society; the standpoint of
the new, human society, associated
humanity"
That being so, let us get together
and | suggest that there is going to
come time when the American
workers will be faced with the same
proposition as the Dublin workers.
Let us take warning, form co-opera-
tive societies, not colonies away from
everybody else, but in our midst,
but whilst doing that, let us keep our
eye upon the goal-The Cooperative
Commonwealth.
Jack Carney, Associate Editor of
The Irish Worker, Chicago.
"a DIN IOtnN II IL II, L ~ Il, n, q,