The 20th of May, 1917, completed the service of thirty-six members. Twenty years before our little company of fifty, under the leadership of John Thompson, had entered Deer Valley and established our camp on the present site of Co-opolis. Since then fourteen of that company had passed to “that country from whose bourne no traveler returns.” The thirty-six who remained were nearly all of them high in the councils of the Association and some had achieved reputations which extended beyond the limits of Idaho.
We who composed that little company were, on this twentieth anniversary, released from the burdens and duties attaching to the Co-opolitan system, and thenceforward were entitled to come and go at will. Wheresoever we chose a habitation in the state the Association undertook to provide us with suitable houses, and, our income continuing as large as if we were still employed, we were expected to, and could, pay the rental of the house and our living and other expenses without stint.
One dollar of credit, as represented by the labor-credit check, was neither depreciable nor appreciable by the act of interested or disinterested persons. Abundance or scarcity of any product, as measured by the demand for it, was the determining factor of price. Our credit dollar was invested with large purchasing power because co-operation produced abundance and guaranteed to each of us a quantity of any needed article, and a quality of comfort, pleasure, convenience or accommodation equal to the fair exchange value of labor.
The thirty-six whose service ceased on this anniversary were men who were devoted to the principle of co-operation and ready to make any sacrifice to the success of the Co-opolitan Association. Most of them had lived comparatively frugal lives. For fifteen years the income which they had derived from their service had been twelve hundred dollars per annum at least. This was allowed them on the books of the Association and the labor-credit checks were delivered to them each month, as to all workers. If they failed to exhaust their month’s credit during the month the surplus remained with the Association.
We have no banks. We have no money and no department which makes a business of handling money. We have no occasion to deposit or store labor-credit checks.
No man has any claim with us upon anything but the fruits of labor. These we hold until he calls for them, and we pay him no interest for their use. In fact, we have no use for what he leaves with the Association. We prefer to have him take it and consume it himself. The Association, for instance, has a menagerie and circus which it sends from city to city. We see no reason why a man who desires to see such an exhibition should refrain from doing so from motives of frugality. The Association prefers that the admission fee be taken out of every labor-credit check. Of course this does not usually happen, because the members do not always desire to witness such an exhibition when it appears.
If a man is frugal and spends but little of his monthly credit he does not lose it during his life. It is a matter of prudence to save something, so that he may use it if he goes abroad, and the Association holds itself ready to furnish him the money of any nation if he makes the proper application for it.
But if a man dies his unexhausted credit is canceled. He cannot will it to his wife or children. The wife is given a place in the Industrial Army and his years of service are accredited to her, so that if he has served ten years up to the time of his death only fifteen more are required of her, or ten years if he or she should be a member of the Grade of Honor.
As for children, if they are members of the Educational department and are left orphans they are allowed the father’s portion until they arrive at age, when they enter the Industrial Army. These provisions are necessary to co-operative success. To permit a man to leave his accumulations to his son or daughter takes from them the incentive to labor. They cease to be useful or acquire a superiority which nature did not give them.
We insist that all should be equal in the start, and that they have no advantages which they cannot create for themselves.