Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-12-22
Observation-Disclosures.
THE BIG IDEA
Observation-Disclosures.

For three days, during the last
week Of October, over one hundred
delegates, representing local coop
erative movements and labor organ
izations, were gathered together in
Chicago, to discuss an idea.
Among them were men widely
known in other fields of activity:
Warren S. Stone, Chief of the Bro
therhood of Locomotive Engineers;
Mayor Hoan of Milwaukee; John II.
Walker, the Illinois, labor leader;
Father Reiner, of Marquette Univer-
sity; Andrew Bower, of the Pennsyl-
yania State Federation of Labor;
Thomas j. Donnelly, representing
labor in Ohio; w. C. Lansdon, repre-
West, and a dozen other familiar
names.
1t was the one idea that had
brought all these men and women to-
gether. 1t will be noted that practi-
eally all of them represented men
and women who have to toll for a
living.
What is the idea that seemed inn
portant enough to these busy people
to give up three days and, in most
NaoSct but AiHiC Ithuiftu lot lOilR
railroad journey to talk it overY
None of them are mere takers.
They have all done things. Is 1t
cheaper groceries? That idea of CO.
operation will not get out of the
heads of most people, regardless of
education. In fact, the so-called in
tellectuals have that belief stronger
than simple folk.
Had these people come together to
nominate candidate for a political
party, there would have been great
deal of newspaper notoriety. Most
people are intensely interested in po-
licital nominations and elections be-
cause they think they are helping to
give man fatter job than they can
ever hope to get themselves. and for
the moment they feel like wealthy
employers. Aside from that, 1t makes
not the slightest difference to most
of us who gets into office.
The idea that was earnestly dis
cussed at Chicago means thousand
times more to you and me than who
fills the political jobs. As we have
| said over and over again, Co-opeN-
ton means something more than
| cheap groceries. A law office Is the
lie ~
grocery store is the training school
for Co-operator.
Cooperation means whole, but
gradual, Encouragement, of our entire
economic and industrial system. I'm
fortunately it awakens interest slow
| ly because it begins with small things
Eat the bottom-grocery stores, for
instance. Politics awaken enthusiasm
! because they make loud noise--at
| the top.
The Chicago gathering was any,
thing but revolutionary meeting.
You do not find representatives of
the Catholic Church at revolutionary
| meetings. Revolutionary meetings
| also attract the interest of many peo-
pie, because they also make loud
noise on top of things. Yet the So
cial changes these people were dis
| cussin gwere much more fundamental
| than those proposed by revolutionary
| meetings. For they concerned you
| and me, and not only the people who
fill the political jobs.
| The big idea which interested all
these people, Cooperation, differs
from the ideas offered by the politi-
clans, in that it gets down to brass
lacks. Whether we should join the
| League of Nations, or whether the
Turks should get back into Constan-
tinople, are matters of some import
ance, and we ought to be interested in
them. But they are not of immediate
Importance, compared to the question
of whether you can send your boy
to school another year, or whether
you are going TO be laid off for a
couple of months this winter.
short article can't show you how
| Cooperation will solve these ques-
tons, which are so personal to you
and me. A twenty-foot shelf of books
can't show you, if you don't want to
learn how. But Cooperation does
| do that-it solves those personal
problems. The reason ii takes Co.
operation so long to solve them, how
ever, is because most people are not
interested. That is the big job be-
fore us now-getting people to real
i2e it. Unfortunately Cooperation
can get ahead only as fast as that
job progresses.
Cooperation is the biggest idea
before the people of all countries just
now The Powers of Europe tried to
conquer the Bolshexik in Russia. but
failed. But the Co-operators of
Russia, when the Bolsheviki gave a
huge gulp 10 swallow them, forced