Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-09-01

HOuICelQlness. HnEU the 0tdSh- ast1
the spy, and the scab fail 70 halt or
. ganization among the workers, the
employers invoke the company un-
ion" When these methods fail, the
. masters resort to their open shop
campaign, injunetions, and a dozen
other expedients. But labor Is re-
. sourceful also. And the workers,
during the entire history of labor or
ganization in the United States, have
never displayed keener intuition
for fundamental economic facts than
some tens of thousands Of them In
all parts of the country are now show
ing.
Building for Themselves.
This advance guard of the Amen-
can labor movement realize the com
paartive ineffectiYeness Of repeated
mass onslaughts upon the strong
holds of capitalism at the point OF
production alone, and has organized
flank movement which at once
, doubles labor's strength. These
fighters ask, why continue to batter
at the iron gates of the enemies city
, demanding entrance? Did we not
build this city which they are cor
rnpting? Let US build another for
ourselves, greater and more beautiful
than theirs"
And in the cooperative movement
they are making their modest begin
ming, experimenting with the little
store, the federation of many little
stores into wholesale, the workers
milk company, the bakery for the
. manufacture of bread, the local laun-
dry company, the cooperative hous-
ing association, the workers bank,
: and dozens of other enterprises. In
short, they are trying their hands at
the capitalists own game. Often they
tumble. Occasionally they are tripped
up by a shrewd promoter who has
come from the enemies ranks to be-
tray them. Always they hold to a
vision of a movement whose expan-
sion will carry them back from re-
tail business to wholesaling, and ulti-
mately to production tself-produc-
ton controlled by and for the use OF
the workers.
American Cooperation lnvoiced.
At the present time we can count
about 5000 of these consumers CO.
operative societies in the United
States, with a total membership APP
preaching half a million men and
women, and with an annual turnover
of some S200,000,000. Such an &C
complishment has not been easy, for
it requires nerve, idealism and loyal
ty to compete successfully from the
verv beginning against such perfect
grocery machines as those of the
Atlantic a. Pacific Tea Co., or the
PIGGY Wiggly Corporation.
Examples of successful co-opera-
tives may be found in Seattle, Los
Il flAxyaln.HI
Paterson, Providence and scores OF
other cities and industrial towns.
Through Strikes to Cooperation.
Most of the so-called railroad
towns in the country have their lit
tie Railroad Workers Cooperative,
the fruit of unceasing educational
work carried on through few of tn.
! Brotherhood journals. Dozens Oh
mining towns In Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Illinois and other states are just as
well developed, each center of co.
operative propaganda and an ex-
ample of cooperative achievement
for the immediate countryside. Many
cooperative bakeries laundries, ETC.,
owe their origin to strikes. Those in
Little Rock, Arkansas, in Lynn, Mass,
in Seattle, in Newport, Il. l., and in
i. Lawrence, Mass, found the inspira-
ton and the impetus for their CO.
operative association during a wage
, fight with the employers.
Among the Language Groups.
The majority of these better socl-
cites do an annual business ranging
from 100000 to million dollars.
Bloomington, Villa Grove, Staunton,
Calumet, Sault Ste. Marie, Lehigh-
ton, Reading, are few of the small
er communities which have co-opera-
tives of considerable size. Milwaukee
has a society little more than Is
months old, which surpasses most OF
these in annual sales; already boasts
) of four stores, and has the whole
hearted backing of Mayor Dan Hoan,
, and the Socialist administration of
; the city.
Centers of Finnish population in
the East, such as Brooklyn, Worces-
ter, Fitchburg, and Maynard, have
gone in for intensive cultivation of
cooperation. In some of these cities
the Firms are applying cooperation
to almost all of the major commercial
activities that touch their lives-milk
distribution, bakeries, grocery stores,
butcher shops, banking, restaurants,
club rooms, housing and even news
y papers. Chicago and Cleveland each
have a Bohemian society running
four grocery stores.
The Unions Go Into the Milk Business
Equally effective work is being
done directly by local labor organ
izations. In Minneapolis, the Frank
lin Cooperative Creamery is a direct
outgrowth of lockout by the pri
vate milk corporations. Starting
business in March, 1921, with only
1921 900 of capital, this organization
has expanded so rapidly that at the
end of the first year its wagons for
i distribution purposes had increased
e from Is to so in number, and its
It sales had reached one and half
Y million dollars year. Here the
workers, by setting up democratic
e cally controlled milk business of their
o own in opposition to that of the
5. bosses, have not only won a wage
i victory, but have actually put the
II masses of Minneapolis in control of
n their own milk supply, and are grad
ually forcing the autocratic corpora
8 tons out of business.
!. In the winter of 1922 the locked
II out milk drivers of Cleveland began
II to organize a similar cooperative.
J They are now putting up their cream
cry building and are about ready to
begin business.
I al