The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1943-09-10

CndlTHldIl VI Ille OOlIllllIJee U
construction of The Co-opera
told President Roosevelt anC
other government officials.
Cowden sent to the Presiden
! and Secretary of State HUI
and to H. H. Lehman, director
of the Foreign Relief and Re
Mobilization Operations, a re
port to demonstrate how use
full the cooperative organiza
ton could be. The report
made of maps and statistical informa
ton, showed cooperative factories o.
producing units, great warehouse:
and distributing units, and vital out
lets in the occupied countries.
The International Cooperative Com
mittee, of which DIR. James p. War
basse, president emeritus of The Co
operative League, and Leslie e. Wood
cock, manager of Eastern Co-opera
tive Wholesale of New York, are
International Conference on Postwar
Reconstruction through Co-operatives
The conference will be held in Wash
ington on October 10. Cooperative
representatives from many of the oc-
cupied countries of Europe will par
ticipate.
| ain just five of the countries which
are now occupied, the countries of
| Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium
and the Netherlands, there were APP
proximately 100000 trained employees
and directors of cooperative enter
prises before the war" Cowden said.
There were some 10000 retail and
wholesale cooperative business or
CARNATIONS and also great warehouses
and manufacturing cehters or fac
tories. These will be available to
carry out any rehabilitation program
that is proposed. No comparable
democratic machinery exists or could
be created.
Next year, in 1914, we will cele-
brate the Centennial of Rochdale, or
in other words a century of develop
ment of the modern co-operatives and
cooperative movement" Cowden said.
1.-THE co-operatives are ready for this
world crisis, ready with century of
successful experience to offer to the
world Just as in other critical world
periods, people turned for help to or
CARNATIONS and institutions and phi
losophies which were proved success
full, the people of our day are turn
ing, naturally, to the co-operatives."
Cowden said reports to The Coop
erative League of the USA, which is
the American member of the Inter-
national Cooperative Alliance and
which represents some 100000 to
100000 persons in the United
States, justify the belief that coop
erative organizations in occupied
Europe have not been destroyed.
"They could not be destroyed,
Cowden said "You just cannot des-
troy cooperative organization. 1t
may destroy itself, but no force can
destroy it, They will revive quickly
because they are made up of people
who have learned a lesson through
mutual understanding and through
constant daily business practice. The
members of co-operatives will just
meet again and go back to work and
that is something no other business
can do so readily"
Using map of Denmark, Cowden
showed that there were $4,000 fam
lilies engaged in cooperative enter
prise and that they constituted a pre-
ponderance of the families of Den |
mark. More than 10000 farmers were |
enlisted in co-operatives. Similar |
maps were shown of other countries !
What is true of Denmark is true |
Of all those countries" Cowden said |
Here is a great international organi- |
zation waiting on the world to use it
for the public interest. These coop |
arative organizations are, as the Wall |
Street Journal stated editorially, |
agencies which are always practicing |
democracy" That is important. Here |
are the finest and most democratic
If commercial organizations, which
are public in character, because no
can be selfish and re-
main a cooperative. Through these
we have private or non
or non-political ownership
md operation of business and yet we
also have operation of business in
he public interest rather than in the
selfish or personal or private interest.
Thus, through co-operatives, we get
business which makes
lemocratic-business possible"
Cowden was very optimistic that
eaders of the world were turning rap
dly to co-operatives to lead the way
o an economic order which would
make for world peace.
Informed leaders of the world and
people who want to be informed as
o the march of people towards bet
er world, should be aware of what
s happening in the world. The most
observers tell us that the