A REMEDY FOR TRUSTS
Albert Sonnichsen, General Secretary of the Coöperative League, tells in the American Review of Reviews for April, 1913, how the Swedish Wholesale Society curbed the Sugar Trust; how it crushed the Margerine Combine (compelling it to dissolve after having lost 2,300,000 crowns in the struggle); and how in Switzerland the Wholesale Society forced the dissolution of the Shoe Manufacturers Association. He tells also this memorable incident:
“Six years ago, at an international congress in Cremona, Dr. Hans Müller, a Swiss delegate, presented a resolution by which an international wholesale society should be created. Luigi Luzzatti, Italian Minister of State and an ardent member of the movement, was in the chair. Those who were present say Luzzatti paused, his eyes lighted up, then, dramatically raising his hand, he said: ‘Dr. Müller proposes to the assembly a great idea—that of opposing to the great trusts, the Rockefellers of the world, a world-wide coöperative alliance which shall become so powerful as to crush the trusts.’”
COÖPERATION IN AMERICA
America has no Wholesale Coöperative Society able to grapple with the trusts. But it has some very strong retail societies, like the Tamarack of Michigan, which has distributed in dividends to its members $1,144,000 in 23 years. The recent high cost of living has greatly stimulated interest in the coöperative movement; and John Graham Brooks reports that we have already about 350 local distributive societies. The movement toward federation is progressing. There are over 100 coöperative stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and other Northwestern states, many of which were organized by or through the zealous work of Mr. Tousley and his associates of the Right Relationship League and are in some ways affiliated. In New York City 83 organizations are affiliated with the Coöperative League. In New Jersey the societies have federated into the American Coöperative Alliance of Northern New Jersey. In California, long the seat of effective coöperative work, a central management committee is developing. And progressive Wisconsin has recently legislated wisely to develop coöperation throughout the state.
Among our farmers the interest in coöperation is especially keen. The federal government has just established a separate bureau of the Department of Agriculture to aid in the study, development and introduction of the best methods of coöperation in the working of farms, in buying, and in distribution; and special attention is now being given to farm credits—a field of coöperation in which Continental Europe has achieved complete success, and to which David Lubin, America’s delegate to the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome, has, among others, done much to direct our attention.
PEOPLE’S SAVINGS BANKS
The German farmer has achieved democratic banking. The 13,000 little coöperative credit associations, with an average membership of about 90 persons, are truly banks of the people, by the people and for the people.
First: The banks’ resources are of the people. These aggregate about $500,000,000. Of this amount $375,000,000 represents the farmers’ savings deposits; $50,000,000, the farmers’ current deposits; $6,000,000, the farmers’ share capital; and $13,000,000, amounts earned and placed in the reserve. Thus, nearly nine-tenths of these large resources belong to the farmers—that is, to the members of the banks.
Second: The banks are managed by the people—that is, the members. And membership is easily attained; for the average amount of paid-up share capital was, in 1909, less than $5 per member. Each member has one vote regardless of the number of his shares or the amount of his deposits. These members elect the officers. The committees and trustees (and often even, the treasurer) serve without pay: so that the expenses of the banks are, on the average, about $150 a year.