Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1944-03-03

Wouldn't you patronize your
own grocery store, if you own
ed one? And if the profits from
your nearby gas station were
returned to you, you wouldn't
deal elsewhere, would you? If
you owned an apple orchard
you wouldn't go to the fruit
store for apples.
And if you worked in your
own store with your partners
in business, you would be able
to vote yourselves pay in
creases, too!
SERIOUS BUSINESS
Now if this sounds silly to
you, just wipe that smile off
your face, because it is serious
business and true as can be.
am speaking of something
which the United States gov
ernment supports and encour-
ages, and the program isn't
communistic either.
One seventh of the worlds
com m cree is carried on
through consumers coopera-
tives. Sweden is one country
which is practically 100 per
cent cooperative, and they
don't have depresSions nor re-
cessions either.
THE important fact about a
cooperative is that the Gus
toners own it," according to
coop literature. And one of
the best features is that no
matter how much stock you
own in the coop, you still
carry only one vote-and that
sounds like democracy at its
peak
While we're all wailing and
sobbing about prices being sky
high, with the Little Steel
Formula and reactionary gov
ernmental bureaus holding
down our wages, we're shoot
ing at the sparrows and watch
ing the elephants go by.
But who's going. to start it?
AS a matter of fact, it has
been started long time ago,
and spread throughout the
world, extending from Eng
land to Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, and Finland, to name
few countries where il has
been strongly established.
The Rochdale Cooperative
is an institution whose history
captures the imagination of
anyone who looks into it. Our
government has spent millions
in educating the people in the
cooperative movement, par
ticularly in the western part
of the United States.
Why should you give your
money to a stranger whose
only regard for you is his love
for your dollars? In Local IL
alone there are $4,000 mem
bers who earn a total of 81
100000 weekly. What if even
one-tenth of us were to spend
$40 per week In collective buy
ing?
IN TOLEDO
AS matter of fact, we have
a consumers cooperative right
here in Toledo, where a small
band of men and women with
vision have given generously
OF their time and effort trying
to help the working people
combat those who are bleeding
them year in and year out, ex-
plotting the fact that human
beings require nourishment to
survive.
Walter Reuther, National
UAW Vice President, recent
ly exposed the dirty work of
our national food combines
which fought subsidies in or
der to effect an immediate
eight per cent rise in food
costs. This grocery monopoly
is one of the most vicious in
the world, and the surest way
of protecting the consuming
public is by the formation of
cons IN ers cooperatives
whereby the customers them
selves make the profits from
their purchases.
We talk about grade label
ing but the only place you'll
find it is in the cooperative
grocery stores. We are being
cheated daily by fancy trade
names--every housewife can
attest to this fact, and every
breadwinner is paying through
the nose and forced to like it.
Wake up, fellow workers,
and vote yourselves a raise by
reducing your cost of living
through the consumers COOP
erative movement. Let's form
a committee to investigate the
picture, so that we can buy
things wholesale and cut out
the middleman's profit. Don't
throw your money away, be-
cause after the war you'll need
1t. The consumers cooperative
movement is the answer to the