As for the other states of the Union, the co-operative system is gaining ground every day. In the United States Senate there are forty Co-operative Senators. In the House of Representatives there are one hundred and forty-three Co-operators.
Through the influence of Idaho the United States government has purchased and now operates five transcontinental lines of railroad, and it is probable that it will, in a few years, acquire most of the lines which are sufficiently valuable to warrant their operation. It owns all the telegraph lines in its territory, having purchased them as early as 1908.
Nearly all the cities of the country have become the owners of their own public utilities, such as street-car lines, telephone, gas, electric and water systems and plants, and from the income derived from them have almost succeeded in relieving their citizens from the burden of taxation.
But the private department stores, labor-saving machinery, trusts and monopolies, which continue to exact tribute from and oppress the people for private gain, are our unconscious and unintentional allies, and the thousands of good citizens who yearly move westward to avail themselves of the opportunities which exist in the Co-operative Commonwealths called into being by the success of the Co-opolitan Association do not fail by their correspondence to light the fires of the new and higher civilization in every city and hamlet of the nation.
This success is one which Idaho and her people are, at this time, disposed to credit, in a somewhat larger degree than history will or should approve, to the immortal senior Senator from Idaho, Hon. John Thompson, and his associates of twenty years ago. All honor, indeed, to them!
But I maintain that conditions, circumstances and a great nation of intelligent, honest, industrious and comparatively temperate laboring men and women made their work possible in America when it could not have been successful in any other country in this world.
I do not say this from motives of patriotism. I say it because it appears to me that the reasons to support the allegation will be recognized and approved when stated.
In the first place, there has never before been any extensive experiment with industrial co-operation for the benefit of the workers engaged in it, where land was the basis of all operations, except in ancient Peru.
It is unfortunate that history has been so far deprived of the records of that wonderful country, by the destructive fanaticism of its Spanish conquerors, that the details of its system must remain obscure.
But happily the indisputable fact remains to give courage to co-operators who do battle in the dark corners of the world that Peru was a co-operative or socialistic state, and that its people were happy, prosperous and contented.