PROGRESS
Alphonse Desjardins of Levis, Province of Quebec, has demonstrated that coöperative credit associations are applicable, also, to at least some urban communities. Levis, situated on the St. Lawrence opposite the City of Quebec, is a city of 8,000 inhabitants. Desjardins himself is a man of the people. Many years ago he became impressed with the fact that the people’s savings were not utilized primarily to aid the people productively. There were then located in Levis branches of three ordinary banks of deposit—a mutual savings bank, the postal savings bank, and three incorporated “loaners”; but the people were not served. After much thinking, he chanced to read of the European rural banks. He proceeded to work out the idea for use in Levis; and in 1900 established there the first “credit-union.” For seven years he watched carefully the operations of this little bank. The pioneer union had accumulated in that period $80,000 in resources. It had made 2900 loans to its members, aggregating $350,000; the loans averaging $120 in amount, and the interest rate 6 1/2 per cent. In all this time the bank had not met with a single loss. Then Desjardins concluded that democratic banking was applicable to Canada; and he proceeded to establish other credit-unions. In the last 5 years the number of credit-unions in the Province of Quebec has grown to 121; and 19 have been established in the Province of Ontario. Desjardins was not merely the pioneer. All the later credit-unions also have been established through his aid; and 24 applications are now in hand requesting like assistance from him. Year after year that aid has been given without pay by this public-spirited man of large family and small means, who lives as simply as the ordinary mechanic. And it is noteworthy that this rapidly extending system of coöperative credit-banks has been established in Canada wholely without government aid, Desjardins having given his services free, and his travelling expenses having been paid by those seeking his assistance.
In 1909, Massachusetts, under Desjardin’s guidance, enacted a law for the incorporation of credit-unions. The first union established in Springfield, in 1910, was named after Herbert Myrick—a strong advocate of coöperative finance. Since then 25 other unions have been formed; and the names of the unions and of their officers disclose that 11 are Jewish, 8 French-Canadian, and 2 Italian—a strong indication that the immigrant is not unprepared for financial democracy. There is reason to believe that these people’s banks will spread rapidly in the United States and that they will succeed. For the coöperative building and loan associations, managed by wage-earners and salary-earners, who joined together for systematic saving and ownership of houses—have prospered in many states. In Massachusetts, where they have existed for 35 years, their success has been notable—the number, in 1912, being 162, and their aggregate assets nearly $75,000,000.
Thus farmers, workingmen, and clerks are learning to use their little capital and their savings to help one another instead of turning over their money to the great bankers for safe keeping, and to be themselves exploited. And may we not expect that when the coöperative movement develops in America, merchants and manufacturers will learn from farmers and workingmen how to help themselves by helping one another, and thus join in attaining the New Freedom for all? When merchants and manufacturers learn this lesson, money kings will lose subjects, and swollen fortunes may shrink; but industries will flourish, because the faculties of men will be liberated and developed.
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President Wilson has said wisely:
“No country can afford to have its prosperity originated by a small controlling class. The treasury of America does not lie in the brains of the small body of men now in control of the great enterprises.... It depends upon the inventions of unknown men, upon the originations of unknown men, upon the ambitions of unknown men. Every country is renewed out of the ranks of the unknown, not out of the ranks of the already famous and powerful in control.”
THE END