"The advantages which might be derived from a single united administration of all the railroads are doubtless somewhat analogous to those we derive from the post office, but in most other respects the analogy fails completely and fatally. Railway traffic cannot be managed by pure routine like that of the mails. It is fluctuating and uncertain, depending upon the seasons of the year, the demands of the locality, or events of an accidental character. Incessant watchfulness, alacrity, and freedom from official routine are required on the part of a traffic manager, who shall always be ready to meet the public wants." W.S. Jevons (reprinted in Selected Readings in Public Finance, by C.J. Bullock, p. 103).
V
THE TRUE ANTIDOTE FOUND IN CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT
There is one term, the use of which is anathema to the Socialist, and that term is "human nature." He never wishes to meet or discuss this in an argument, and with good reason, for it has been shown that it is only by ignoring human nature entirely, both in theory and in practice, that Socialism can make even the semblance of a reasonable showing. But another term, which the Socialist especially likes, is "co-operation," and that is one to which he has no manner of right. Cooperation is a social movement, the impulse for which comes from within the human heart, while Socialism as already stated, is essentially a working together only as the result of outward direction and dictation. The first is the act of a free man; the latter results from the obedience of a political and mental slave.
We Americans have made one of the greatest successes of history along the line of political co-operation. Our whole democratic type of government is based upon this principle as a foundation. But we have done little toward the free and successful use of co-operation in business or production. It is here that our British cousins have far exceeded us even though we have outdistanced them, we think, along political lines of activity.
It was shown in The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin for January 25, 1918, that this co-operative movement in Great Britain has developed to such an extent that at the present time distributive societies there number some 3,500,000 members. The turnover of these societies last year amounted to $605,000,000, to which should be added $350,000,000 from the co-operative wholesale and the hundred distributive societies. As a contrast to this, the American people have been so filled with the individualism necessary to the spirit of the pioneers who in reality have been "subduing a continent" that they have failed to realize what a wonderful field for efficient, popular effort the commercial and industrial activities of the country offered if we only would adopt the principle of co-operative organization. Probably one of the greatest lines of development after the war will be this co-operation between producers and consumers. In no other way can those activities and profits of the middlemen, which are more or less unnecessary, be entirely eliminated.