workers' coöperatives received this treatment, the coöperatives of the middle classes were generally unmolested and progressed materially. In Italy the government after the war was particularly favorable to coöperation, but with the rise of the Fascisti the movement suffered severely from its hostility and attacks. Coöperation was weak in Russia before the World War. After the Russian revolution, it was claimed that the Russian coöperative movement had grown to be the largest in the world. The Russian Soviet government absorbed the coöperative enterprises which ceased to flourish. For this reason their autonomy was later restored, and coöperation in Russia represents to-day one of the dominant forces in the industrial life of the nation. In the Central Union a large part of the various coöperative undertakings are united. In 1923 the union was composed of 90 provincial and regional unions, 704 district unions, and 27,409 consumers societies. In addition to the union there were some 4,600 independent Rochdale consumers' societies with a membership of 3,500,000.3

Coöperation is part of the life of the people in many other countries. Coöperative enterprises are federated in an International Coöperative Alliance which represents 25 countries and has some 30,000,000 members. The purpose of this alliance is to collect and disseminate information concerning coöperation in all countries, to promote friendly relations between its members, to forward education in coöperation, to collect statistics concerning the coöperative movement, and to promote international trade between coöperative concerns. The alliance holds conferences at appropriate times. Since its foundation in 1892 it has held ten such congresses. The committees of the alliance meet more frequently, and it represents an important factor in the coöperative movement.

COOPERATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Reasons for Slow Development in the United States. In comparison with European countries coöperation has made but slow development in the United States. This is partly due to the distrust which has been aroused in this country by spurious cooperative undertakings and partly to the nature of the people. It has been one of the mistakes of coöperation in this country that it has deviated from Rochdale methods in many instances. The failure attendant upon many of these ventures has made Ameri3 Warbasse, J. P., "Coöperative Democracy," pp. 414-419.

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cans wary of coöperation whether actually founded on Rochdale principles or not. But a worse influence than the failure of partial coöperatives is that exercised by spurious schemes which claim to be coöperative but in reality lack all the features which characterize the true movement. They are established to enrich their projectors at the expense of the working classes who invest their savings thinking they are joining a Rochdale coöperative. In the second place the nature of the American people and of the country has retarded the growth of the movement. Coöperation thrives best in communities of long standing where the people know and trust each other. In the United States the population is more fluid. American youth seldom settles in the town of its birth but tends to follow the call of opportunity and advancement. Native-born Americans incline toward a spirit of laissez faire rather than coöperation. Only in recent years has the ideal of public interest begun to replace that of individualism. The average American-born person still has ambitions for himself and his children. He expects a measure of success in whatever he undertakes to do. Often his ambitions remain unfulfilled, but his ideals, his nature, his independence are not conducive to a willingness to sacrifice what he thinks will be his private gain for public advancement. If successful in business projects, he naturally does not welcome coöperative enterprises whose customers receive all the benefits of the business rather than the entrepreneur. Such enterprises, when they do not actually undersell the capitalist, virtually do so. The profits are returned to the consumers and in this way prices are lowered. United into boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and merchants' associations, American capitalists oppose this new enemy to the profit system. Through efficiently developed chain stores, federated and extended over a large area, they have lowered prices and forced a difficult competition on the smaller, less strongly developed, and often isolated coöperative store.

Immigration has been both an enemy and a friend to coöperation in the United States. The arriving immigrant has often been the impelling force back of the migrating native population. He keeps communities in that fluid state which prevents the growth of coöperative ventures and results in a mixture of races with different customs and languages, a poor foundation on which to build coöperation. On the other hand immigrants from countries where coöperation is well established have brought their coöperative ideals to the United States and have been instrumental in starting coöperative societies here.

Agencies Promoting the Strength of the Movement. While coöperation has not progressed rapidly in the United States, the growth of industry and the changing character of the people and the country are laying the foundations for the extension of the movement. Coöperative enterprises are endorsed by the American Federation of Labor, by more radical workers, by political parties and church organizations. The coöperative League, a federation of the coöperative societies in the United States, has done much to stimulate interest in the movement. The purpose of the league is to collect data concerning coöperation in the United States. It gives advice to coöperators, makes studies of different societies to ascertain the reasons for their success or failure, prepares material for courses of study and publication. The league conducts a school, promotes legislation favorable to the movement, and tries in every way to educate the people to the possibilities latent in combined effort for the mutual good of all.

The two elements which have done much to forward coöperation in various parts of the United States are the farmers and the immigrant population. The Farmers' Educational and Coöperative Union is primarily a producers' organization and as such has no place in the consumers' movement. It is active in some thirty states where it has organized the farmers into productive societies. The societies sell their goods directly to the consumer, eliminating the expensive middleman. The phase of the union's works which directly bears on consumers' coöperation is its activity in promoting consumers' coöperative enterprises for the benefit of its members. The Nebraska state branch has organized about 200 farmers' grain elevators, 125 coöperative stores, 3 large centralized creameries, 3 livestock commission houses, and a cooperative wholesale supply house in Omaha. The work of the Nebraska branch of the union has been duplicated in other states, notably Kansas. The elevators, stores, and creameries are all organized on the Rochdale plan. Shares are sold to persons desiring to become members of the coöperatives, a limited rate of interest is paid on these shares, one vote is allowed each member, and the surplus is divided among the members according to their patronage. Farmers have also entered other fields of Rochdale coöperation. There are about 2,000 coöperative fire insurance companies in the United States run by and for the farmers. These companies charge only about half the rate of ♦ Data furnished by Herron, H. L., the Farmers' Educational and Coöperative State Union of Nebraska.

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the profit-making concern. Coöperative telephone companies, laundries, and flour mills represent additional phases of the farmers' activities. While the farmers, particularly the native-born agriculturists, are perhaps the most active class in promoting coöperation in the rural communities, in the cities and towns the foreign-born element lead the movement.

Geographic Development. Coöperation has slowly spread throughout the United States both in the city and country. Of course there are vast deserts where coöperation is unknown. The movement is yet so weak that thousands of persons have never come in contact with it; but a checkered pattern of coöperative enterprises extends from one end of the country to the other. There are about 3,000 coöperative distributive societies. There is no national wholesale similar to the English Coöperative Wholesale, but there are district wholesale societies which are owned and controlled by groups of local societies. In addition to distributive societies there are a variety of other enterprises. The most numerous are the building and loan societies, which are not true Rochdale coöperatives though they have many valuable cooperative features, and the credit unions already described.

Tracing the coöperative movement geographically, New England has about seventy-five distributive societies. Coöperative banking has a good start in Massachusetts. Coöperative creameries, which collect milk from farmers, treat it in their establishments, and deliver it to consumers, have also made a place for themselves in this state.

The middle eastern states have about 250 distributive societies situated mainly in Pennsylvania and in the vicinity of New York City. New York also has several coöperative banking organizations and what is really unique, three coöperative schools in which the pupils represent the members, select, and direct the faculty. These schools prepare for college and for regent examinations and give business and general cultural courses at less cost to the pupil than the ordinary profit-making school engaged in the same line of work.

Illinois, one of the group of central states, has about 100 societies. Most of them are connected with the Central States Cooperative Society which has a wholesale house at East St. Louis. The Illinois societies are composed largely of coal miners. They are fairly representative of our best American distributive societies. They have a membership of about 250 in each society, a turnover of $160,000 a year and a dividend on purchases of from 4 to 7 per cent quarterly.

The Scandinavian element in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota has been active in forwarding coöperation. The hundred societies in the northern part of these states are composed largely of Scandinavians. Fifty of these societies are combined in a wholesale, the Coöperative Central Exchange at Superior, Wisconsin. This wholesale supplies merchandise to its members, manufactures a peculiar bread biscuit in demand in Finnish societies throughout the United States, and runs a school offering training to persons desirous of becoming directors of coöperative enterprises.

One of the successful societies of Northern Michigan has 400 members. Although only in existence since 1912, it owns its own building, conducts a bakery, two meat markets, four branch grocery stores, and has a turnover of $300,000 a year. Two of the largest coöperative societies in the United States are located in northern Michigan. These societies have a membership of over 1,000, a small number when compared with the large British societies whose membership runs into the thousands.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Franklin Coöperative Creamery Association was opened in 1920. It was established by dairy workers who had suffered a lockout in the course of an industrial dispute. In 1922 the creamery was supplying 30,000 families with an average of $1,500,000 worth of dairy products a year on a strictly coöperative basis. After this creamery went into operation there was a lowering in the price of milk in Minneapolis of three cents a quart. Improvement was made in the quality of milk sold with a subsequent and visible reduction in the amount of infant mortality and disease.

Neither the Southern or the Pacific states can boast any great number of societies. The movement is not unknown to either locality. But the success of the early societies was not great, and they died out largely because of the apathy of their members. The Negroes in the south are becoming interested in cooperative enterprises, and a new birth of independent coöperative societies seems to be taking place in the far western states.5

5 The major part of the data regarding coöperation in the United States is taken from Gide, Charles, "Consumers' Coöperative Societies," Chapter I by James Peter Warbasse, "Coöperation in the United States," and Warbasse, J. P., "Coöperative Democracy," pp. 428-438.