"As another important factor, connected with the question of this kind of insurance, it should be well understood, that after reaching the age of retirement, our members do not cease to be valuable productive workers, either for the financial gain of the colony, or for the general welfare of the movement, which the colony represents. On the contrary, in many cases, their services are liable to become more valuable than ever before. Between the ages of fifty and sixty, they remain subject to assignments to serve on committees, to act as traveling agents for the company, to represent the company as lecturers and organizers, for the spread of the movement; to act as aids to the teachers in the schools and the numerous clubs. They are also eligible to election as town, county, state or United States officials. In committee work, connected with the store and the various factories, their riper judgment, based on many years of experience, would prove especially valuable: often by timely advice, they would be able to save for the company in one transaction, an amount in money more than equal to their entire wages for the year.
"In another way their services would prove equally advantageous. With such an increase of leisure, there would come to these retired co-operators, a desire, and the opportunity, to enter more actively into the practical work of the scientific clubs. If inclined, they could take up all kinds of scientific research; making themselves especially useful in the practical, productive and profitable work of the educational, microscopical, chemical and photographic clubs. Those who had a talent for invention, could then devote as much time, energy and thought to it, as they chose. To aid them, they would have the advantage of an acquired skill in the use of tools, and of all kinds of complicated machinery, which would be a part of the outfit belonging to the thoroughly equipped machine shop at their disposal. In the laboratory, they could find the books, maps, and drawings, necessary to bring them up to date in any line of invention which they might choose to enter.
"Taking these important factors into consideration, we discover that our co-operative inventor, would be armed to conquer his subject by a magnificent equipment, such as an ordinary inventor could not hope to command.
"So ably reinforced by the advantages enumerated, our corps of inventors, of both sexes, would be inspired by a labor of love. Unbiased by any selfish motives, they would be working for the farm and for humanity. With no cause to distrust their fellows, they could openly discuss their discoveries, without fear of having them stolen; consequently, they could have the willing assistance of all the inventive minds in the colony, in developing and perfecting their original inventions. This would be an experience utterly unheard of, in the annals of an industry based on the competitive system. It would be the beginning of co-operative invention as an art. It would mark another great step in harmonious, practical and profitable co-operative thinking, that would lead to discoveries of vast importance to the world; discoveries that could not be made in any other way. It is difficult for even the most enthusiastic optimist to imagine, what a revolution in the inventive world, will follow the introduction of such superior co-operative methods; or what wonders will be wrought by them, before the close of the first half of the twentieth century!
"Let us consider what they might do for our superannuated farmers. Quickened by such an added potency of perfect, co-operative, mental, conditions, our inventors would naturally aspire to still higher achievements. Each year they would be able to produce many valuable inventions, which could not be used by the farm, but which could be sold by the company after being patented, for good round sums in cash! In this way it becomes evident, that our old members might prove the most prolific cash producers on the farm. It is even possible, and quite probable, that the sale of one invention, might bring to the company, a sum of money, more than equal to the combined pensions of the retired co-operators for one year. From this particular source, would flow an additional fund for educational work in pushing the movement before the public.
"Viewed in this light, to be retired on two-thirds pay at the age of fifty, is simply a matter of justice! When justice is done, the mission of charity is finished!
"In considering the growing interest in the insurance question among people of the outside world, we find great numbers of laboring people, and of small farmers everywhere, who are beginning to understand that it is a question of vital importance, an open gateway through which they may gain access to the broad fields of abundance. Every day, both by observation and experience, they are taught that without the aid of some special insurance, nine out of ten who start in business fail. Also, that nine farmers out of ten, who start with a meagre capital, after twenty years of constant toil, find themselves the slaves of some money lender who holds a mortgage on the farm. These mortgages are largely the result of a hopeful struggle on the farmer's part, in a last vain effort to compete with the expensive methods of syndicate and bonanza farms.
"No wonder the average worker is anxious to discover some method of insurance, that will safe-guard him against the disasters which have overwhelmed so many of his predecessors! No wonder these workers come to believe it possible, that out of a given number of say one thousand men, who start in life without capital, except such as they possess in ordinary health and strength; at least fifty per cent are liable to die in the poor-house, or in some way become helpless dependents on charity! Against such an alarming proposition, the average optimist or plutocrat, cries out, impossible! No, No! In this Republic, such things could never happen! Besides, how preposterous! Don't you know, that the general prosperity of the country was never greater than now! Why the wealth of the nation is growing at a marvelous rate! Never before, were fortunes made so easily! The way is open for every industrious man; no matter how poor he may be at the start. If people come to want in the midst of such golden opportunities, they have only themselves to blame.
"By way of an answer to these optimistic assertions, let us apply the figures collected by Prof. A. G. Warner, published in his 'American Charities.' In this book he has tabulated the results of fifteen investigations, both in this country and abroad, into the actual causes of poverty. These investigations embrace over one hundred thousand individual cases, found in the cities of Baltimore, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, London, England, and seventy-six cities in Germany. In the causes of poverty stated, eleven per cent are due to intemperance, ten and three-tenths per cent to other kinds of misconduct; while seventy-four and four-tenths per cent are due to misfortune, such as poorly-paid work, lack of work, sickness, etc. Here, we have actual proof that seventy-five thousand in the ranks of this vast army of poverty-stricken people, were reduced to such straits, by causes which they could not control. How dreadful the significance of these terrible figures! What a blot they become, on the fair page of progress achieved by the nineteenth century! What a warning to the people of the twentieth! What an indictment against existing, social, and industrial conditions! What argument could be more convincing, or demand more imperatively, the immediate adoption of co-operative methods, which offer absolute insurance against the recurrence of such calamities?
"As relating to the insurance question, and by the way of a contrast between competitive and co-operative methods, let us consider the following statement.