The Co-opolitan: A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho

by Zebina Forbush

The lawmaking power was to consist of the heads of departments and President and Vice-President, the former presiding at all legislative meetings and the latter, by virtue of his office, being a member of the Legislative Council with the right to speak and vote on all propositions.

Whenever twenty per cent of the men and women of the Association should petition the Legislative Council to declare any office vacant it was bound to submit the question as to whether such vacancy should be so declared to popular vote, and if a majority decided in the affirmative then the Council must declare it. The incumbent whose office or position was thus vacated was not eligible again for the remainder of his unexpired term and the full term following.

Officers found guilty by the Council of misfeasance or malfeasance in office were also subject to impeachment by the Council, who were required to pass on the particular charges submitted to them.

The legislative and judicial functions were both conferred upon the Legislative Council, and this body could initiate and complete legislation, but on petition of twenty per cent of all voters proposing a new law the Legislative Council was required to submit such law to popular vote and the decision of a majority of such voters operated as either an enactment or repeal. This action was effectual to permanently dispose of such law for five years. The constitution was also subject to revision, correction, amendment or repeal by the same method.

The constitution further provided that every person under twenty years of age should be in charge of the department of education, that no man or woman should in any event be required to work more than twenty-five years, but that after having contributed twenty-five years’ labor should become entitled to his full share of the profits distributed annually among members.

This constitution did not limit the right of the people to shorten the term of service if they so desired. It was deemed expedient to provide for two classes of industrials, wage workers and members. The former were such as were employed and paid reasonable wages. These were rarely employed except in cases of emergency. The latter were such as had paid an entrance fee and had been accepted as equal partners in the enterprise. The wage workers were such as enlisted in the Industrial Army for pay and they could not participate in the affairs of the society or settlement. But any one of these who was in good health and of sound mind could become a member on payment of the fee required and on enlisting in the Industrial Army subject to the laws of the society.

No person was admitted who was over fifty-five years of age except such person was able to contribute to the Association’s accumulated wealth an amount of property equal to the full annual dividend of the average member at the time of his application, multiplied by the number of years’ service required by members. In later years, as is well known, the constitution does not admit an applicant who is over forty except on the same terms.

The constitution was by no means a perfect one at the outset, but it was sufficiently elastic and stable in its provisions to admit of such amendments, without danger to its substantial features, as might, from time to time, be suggested by experience.

The most conservative force in society has been found to be, not the wise nor the foolish, but the majority which are neither the one or the other. These are not generally favorable to experimental legislation, and long before the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth Switzerland proved, by the operation of the Initiative and Referendum provisions of their constitution, that the people were disposed to accept changes in their social system with a caution that made progress slow, but retrogression impossible.

The first year of the Co-operative Commonwealth was a very successful one. We had May 1st, 1898, over one thousand persons, including men, women and children, in our city of Co-opolis, two hundred and fifty substantial cottages, an excellent public hall, a good hotel, a large and sightly three-story building containing our department store, postoffice and offices for our President, Vice-President and heads of departments; an excellent schoolhouse with graded school and a corps of eight teachers, consisting of our ex-clergyman, who became first principal, and teachers who were selected from among the wives of members. All the furniture used in our homes and buildings at this time was manufactured of such lumber as we had and was somewhat crude, but sufficient in all respects. In our department store were sold vegetables produced by us, consisting of potatoes, onions, beets, parsnips and all of the hardy variety grown on the old time “breaking” on Hacket’s ranch. We had home-made preserves and a quantity of dried fruit. The meat department was well supplied from our own herds of cattle or from the surrounding country, and from our flocks of sheep, which had largely increased, partly through natural causes and partly because much of the money received for membership fees had been invested in that direction.