Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1923-01-12
COOPERATIVE
LOYALTY BEATS
MILK TRUST

The fascinating story of how the
FRANKLIN Cooperative Creamery, or
gained by the consumers of Minnea-
polls, came to grips with the milk
trust in price-cutting war, and
finally beat the trust, is told by The
Cooperative League. This creamery,
owned by 5000 consumers, and demo-
eratically controlled by them,9 has
been making great inroads on the
milk business of Minneapolis. Prices
were cut down almost to cost, and the
surplus earnings were distributed
back among the consumers by the CO.
operative. This led to four of the
largest private milk companies of the
city combining into the Northland
Company, to present a united front to
the powerful consumers dairy.
On December lst, the farmers adj
vanced the price of milk one cent a
quart, and the Franklin Cooperative,
which bases its prices on the cost of
milk and production, had to advance
price accordingly. But the recently
organized milk trust Of Minneapolis
waited until the very day when the
Franklin Cooperative informed its
customers that the price would be ad-
yanced in accordance with the in
creased cost of milk, and then pub
lished in all the newspapers of the
city a statement that their recent con-
solidation would enable them to sell
milk at the old price. This was
equivalent to declaration of a price
cutting war on the consumers dairy,
and it was met with emergency meas
ures.
Immediately the employees of the
Franklin Cooperative met and yolun-
tarily decided to work for nothing I'M
til the price war was won. The CO..
operative then decided to cut the
price of milk one cent below the price
of the milk combine. Within three
days the new plant of the Franklin
Cooperative Creamery was swamped
with so much new business as to make
it impossible to take care of all or
ders. And by that time the milk
trulst had sent emissaries around to
plead with the Franklin Cooperative
to let up on them. The price war was
called off, with the Franklin CO.
operative far ahead with more bust
ness than they ever had before, with
public opinion on their side, and with
their employees lined up so solidly
with them as to be willing to forego
their wages for an indefinite period
in order to beat, the milk trust.
The dairy workers employed by the
Franklin Cooperative thus demon
strated that they had not forgotten
their experiences at the hands of
private employers. For it was a gen.
eral lockout of the milk workers in
Minneapolis and st. Paul in 1919 that
led these workers to form the CO.
operative dairy, which is controlled by
the consumers, as a means for secur-
ing for themselves fair working con-
ditions at the union scale, and for
the consumer unadulterated products.
The consumers, too, are whole-heart-
eddy supporting their own enterprise.
Recently the directors attempted to
increase the BUSINESS by sending a
letter to each of its 5000 stockhold-
ers, requesting them to report on
certain Sunday morning to go out and
solicit customers for the new plant
which had been opened up. The re-
suit was even more gratifying than
was expected. Long before the ap-
pointed time, a large number of mem
pSta "cie oh manu-, anu nunuItus kept
coming during the day. 1t took half,
a dozen men working far into the
night to route the new customers.
and the dairy could not get enough
milk to supply them. As a result of
the loyal effort of the members to
secure new customers, rs new wagons
were kept busy up to capacity.
1t is just such faithful support of
the workers and the consuming public
that has enabled the peoples own
milk company to grow until it is now
doing business of 81 5000 annual
ly, supplying 10000 families. 1t is
no wonder that Cooperation is a
thorn in the side of the milk trust of
MinneaDolis