The Detroit tribune. (Detroit, Mich.) 1935-1966, 1936-04-18
THE COOPERATIVE WAY
AND ITS CHALLENGE
(By r. NJ. GOLIGHTLY)

STEPPED in the competitive ideas
ficult to realize the difference be-
tween Cooperative trading and or
binary business. 1t is essential
that we grasp the fact that the CO.
operative way is not merely an ex-
pertinent in profit seeking for mere
profit sake. The real aim Of a CO.
operative society is to supply its
members with the necessities of
life in such a way as to entirely
eliminate the profit motive, which
is the primary motive of all pro-
fit business. Through the cooper
alive way service motive" is sub
stituted for profit motive.
We might go back $500 years
ago to the city of Athens, Greece.
There we find a man who for thirty
one years was considered the first
citizen of that city because he
knew how to inspire his fellows,
draw them together and unite
them in a cooperative bond to build
the worlds finest highway to
truth, beauty and harmony. He
was an idealist, but was likewise
a practical man. Out Of this prim-
tive wilderness of life, in a bar
barrie age where ignorance and
slavery held sway, without the sus-
tanning and inspiring influences Of
religion as we know 1t, Pericles
gathered his people about him,
united them, taught them to work
and set them to creating and work
ing tremendously.
He busted himself in bringing
out talent where it was thought
non-existant, making opportunities
where none had been known until
he set the land humming with in
dustry in a hundred lines. He
built theatres, temples, and public
buildings more beautiful than any
ever seen. Their ruins, after the
lapse of twenty-five centuries, are
still the charm and marvel of the
civilized world. He and those
working with h I'm built up a litera-
ture, a philosophy, an art, a form
of oratory, a style Of poetry, an
architecture which the world has
since held up as examples of per-
lection.
Pericles proved beyond a doubt
What can be created by the united
will and work of a determined
people with PROPER LEADER
SHIP, through COOPERATION.
If we In rnrs ricn, and wonder
full country, should properly and
unitedly make it our task, we could
do a hundred times better than
Greece did. If from this moment
hencefortb we resolve 10 make
all our efforts cooperative and
lend our united strength and will
toward the highest development OF
body and soul, we could create and
build a cooperative Commonwealth
that would be the glory and de-
light of the human race. We have
followed and worshipped the gods
Of gold, silver and the profit mo-
tives, until these images we have
bowed down to, are crumbling be-
fore our very eyes. We must fight
for a changed order and write a
new book of freedom, the title of
which is Real Cooperation. Those
of us who have been long fighting
in the obscure trenches unnoticed
must continue to make men real
ize that the only hope for the flu
ture is Cooperative Action, and not
the old "dog eat dog" system OF
competition which has led us all
to degradation, and left 100000
more orl less permanently unem-
ployed today; that this world can
be made a literal heaven by the
development of men and women In
20 superior being; that poverty
and war can be outlawed; that the
love of a man can become the uni
versal creed-this is the way Of
Cooperation and its Challenge.
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