the reconstruction of society, but by its development on natural lines. Towards this end it would not be impossible to construct an affirmative program, doubtless involving changes almost fundamental in our conceptions of some property rights, and therefore involving changes in fundamental law, but still based upon sound economic and ethical principles, and with due recognition of the infirmities of human nature. It would deal, among other things, with the subjects of inheritance, conservation of unearned increment, acquirement of public utilities, discouragement of the use of long credit, and similar methods of restricting the power of concentrated capital. Some thinker will evolve such a plan, and some leader of men will take it up.

In the meantime, and under present conditions, since the nature and, in a great measure, the standard of the farmer's life is irrevocably fixed by his natural environment, he denounces as unjust and impossible any reconstruction of society in which the standard of life which he is compelled by unchangeable conditions to adopt, shall not be made the basic standard whereto the lives of all other classes shall be adjusted. He objects emphatically to any, even tenative, proposals which shall compel him to exchange, against his will, more than one day of his labor for one day's work of him who makes his shoes or builds his house. He denies that such reconstruction is just or necessary, or that the evils of crowded society can be cured in that way. He recognizes those evils as well as those with which he is himself afflicted, and is ready to join in all rational-even if radical-measures for alleviating them; he declares that such measures are humanly possible, and can be formulated along the lines which the evolution of civilization has always followed, and that he will not join in or consent to a program in which the first step is au act of injustice to himself. Personally, I suppose that things will go on as they are now until gradually the organization of one class forces counter-organization in self-defense, and that, last of all, when survival without organization has become impossible, the farmers themselves will unite, formulate their demands, present them for the consideration of other classes,

and finally compromise as seems just to all interests.

But

they will not become Socialists; for agricultural life and work can not be carried on under the Socialistic program, or any program which withdraws the stimulus of individual reward for individual effort.

BOOK SEVENTH.

The Fruit Marketing Societies of California.*

W

CHAPTER I.

THEIR CHARACTER AND OBJECT.

HILE the object of this volume is rather a study of principles than a record of events, there are some peculiarities attending the development of cooperation in California which are well worth the study of the student of social movements; and as no comprehensive description of the California societies, or of those similar to them in other states, has ever been published, it seems desirable to include a brief sketch of the most prominent of them here.

It is obviously, as things go, an easier operation to buy than to sell, and to save than to gain, for there is required less expenditure of vigor, which, in the main, is the controlling element in human performance. That which is easier for the individual is also easier for an organization, and a French writer on cooperation, therefore, very properly remarks, in speaking of the French agricultural syndicates, which are, in the main, cooperative purchasing societies, that, marketing being the highest exercise of the art of cooperation, it is the last function which he expects these syndicates to undertake.

*See Appendix F for list of societies.

Cooperation develops in each country according to the local necessities of that country, which will invariably indicate the line of least resistance. The conditions attending fruitgrowing in California have been such that the cooperative element among fruit-growers was at once plunged into the most difficult of all cooperative undertakings, which it was compelled to attack without experience in cooperation, and with little or no knowledge of the art of marketing. The movement, with many ups and downs, has proceeded steadily from the first, the co-operative fruit* sales in 1898 having reached, in round numbers, the sum of $5,000,000. While no one can safely predict its immediate future, its work up to this time, which has attracted no attention from any writer upon cooperative affairs,† has been such as to warrant a brief description.

When one once becomes impressed with the law that necessity, and necessity alone, will induce cooperation, and that the unit of cooperative life is the industry, and not the locality, it at once becomes interesting to note and compare the spasmodic outbreaks of the movement in different and distant countries. While cooperation, when once established, has more or less tendency to spread from established centers, it is, after all, always the result of social pressure, and is sure to appear when the pressure is sufficient. The British artisan suffered under the oppression of the retail dealers in the necessities of life, and the result was the magnificent system of

*I do not include cooperative dairying, for the reason that, with a good deal of effort, no one has ever been able to gather statistics whic' are even approximately correct.

† Mr. Charles H. Shinn wrote, in 1888, a brief monograph entitled "Cooperation in California," which was published, among other studies in cooperation, by the Johns Hopkins University Press. My good friend Mr. Shinn, whose information is very wide in most things, was apparently so interested in the literary possibilities of some picturesque attempts to found cooperative colonies of the Brook Farm order, that he entirely overlooked a substantial cooperative business concern that, even as he wrote, was selling nearly a million dollars' worth of fruit each year, and which had been prominently discussed in the press since 1885.

co-operative stores, which necessarily grew up in a spirit of altruism, and which systematically foster the altruistic spirit from the instinct of self-preservation. The French peasantry, tilling, in small holdings, a soil which has been cropped for a thousand years, felt their greatest need to be economy in the purchase of fertilizers and tools, and the result was the agricultural syndicates for the purchase of fertilizers and the purchase and rent of farm machinery. The thrifty people of Denmark felt their greatest need to be the perfection and economical production of a product for which their country was best fitted, and the result was their remarkable success in cooperative dairying. The peasantry of Germany were groaning under the oppression of petty but conscienceless usurers, and the result was Schutze, and Raiffiesen, and their people's banks. Until lately, the rural people of the United States have not been enduring particular trouble of any kind, and, hence, have been unable to cooperate-a fact which neither Professor Bemis, nor Professor Ely, nor Professor Warner, nor any other of the learned men who have discussed early failures in cooperation in America, have seemed to realize. At last, the fruit-growers of California, who were confronted with a great fruit product for which they owed money, but which they could neither eat nor sell, found it necessary to work together to create and maintain the necessary markets. The pressure has made them cooperate.

I was actively connected with this movement for about three years as a leader. Since that time I have been one of the rank and file. I know all those who are now leaders in the movement too well to make it possible to give the individual mention, which always adds to the interest of a narrative, for I have learned that one's recollection is seldom to be trusted in such matters, and I know that in giving credit I should make errors, which would be excused in a stranger, but for which I could hardly hope to be forgiven. There are many men now active and prominent in cooperative work, but of those who were so in the early days, when active friends were needed more than now, I dare mention but a few. In the organization of the California Fruit Union-the earliest of