“Do you like your work?”
“It is very pleasant. Most of the work at the laundry is done by machinery and the machinery does five times as much work as the force we have there could do by hand. All the hard work is done by machinery. Then I have only to work seven hours a day, too.”
“How did you get so well settled?”
“The next day after the examination I was told to go to the office of the Domestic department on Commonwealth Avenue. I went. The gentleman in charge told me that when an active member paid a membership fee of $100.00 the company gave a labor check to her in return representing $100.00 worth of goods. He gave me the amount in such check and then directed a gentleman to take me and my children to number 800 Pine Street, where we should live. He hailed a passing motor car and we got on that and rode to this house, my children with me. The gentleman did not pay my fare, but I paid it.
“I was surprised that it only amounted to what would be two cents of my hundred dollars. I was quite surprised also to find that we were to have such a nice house. But there was no furniture in it then. I left my children with our neighbor, and went up to the department house and ordered these carpets, furniture and other things. They let me have them on time, with the understanding that they were to keep the title until they were paid for. I got a few groceries from the store and some meat and brought them home myself. The furniture came about 2 o’clock that afternoon and before supper time we were almost settled. A bell rang out there in the dining room and I found a telephone there. I answered it and found that the foreman of the company which I was told to enter had some directions. He said I was to go over to the ward office of the Department of Education, about two blocks from here, and report with my children at 9 o’clock next morning and then to report to him at 9:30 o’clock for duty. So I did, and all my little ones were taken and sent to school.”
“Are you then comfortable?”
“I am very, very happy. I never dreamed that such good would come to me after my husband died. But God has directed me here and I am very, very happy.”
The conversation continued a few minutes longer. All her little children, with bright and shining faces, came in to see me, and I was overflowing with sympathetic enthusiasm myself before I was able to tear myself away. And I thought to myself as I returned to my home that the joy our system brought to these comparatively humble people was the best indication that we were now, in truth, upon the threshold of a higher civilization; a civilization that uses all power, both mechanical and human, to lift up all humanity; a civilization which does not content itself by simply emblazoning the golden rule upon painted banners and church walls, but makes it the measure of every public act toward all men, women and children alike.
CHAPTER XII.
IDAHO ELECTS A SENATOR—PARALYSIS OF THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM—BLIGHT AFFECTS THE CAPITAL CITY—CAPITAL WITHDRAWS FROM THE STATE—A SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE—CO-OPOLIS ESTABLISHES A DEPARTMENT STORE AND HOTEL AT BOISE CITY.
Governor Thompson was inaugurated at Boise City January, 1903. There was no demonstration on the occasion, the Governor being sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme court of the state without display. The Legislature convened the same day, the Lower House elected its speaker, and the next day the various committees of both branches of the lawmaking body were appointed. The third day the entire political machinery of Idaho, with the exception of some minor officers and some members of the judiciary, was under the control of the Co-operators.