STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. IO5 



for as is evident, both have helped make the profits. "In 1891, 

 after 5 years of profit sharing, individual accounts stood like 

 this : A $12 a week man who had worked steadily, had received 

 in addition to his wages, approximately $448; a $15 a week 

 man, $561. In August, 1893, perhaps you will recall the finan- 

 cial condition, wages were cut 25 per cent in the Nelson fac- 

 tories, with the consent of the employees. In January, 1894, 

 with the business revival, wages were increased to what they 

 were before the reduction and employees were voluntarily paid 

 in cash what they had lost by the cut." 



I wish time would permit me to tell you about the town of 

 Leclaire which Mr. Nelson started in 1890 in Illinois, just a 

 few miles across the river from St. Louis. The village is 18 

 years old, numbers 600 inhabitants and has no policemen, no 

 jail, no court and no crime. It would seem to be the best gov- 

 erned, the happiest and most prosperous community in the 

 world. As is evident, Mr. Nelson is possessed of extraordinary 

 business and organizing talent coupled with an equal genius 

 for judging and managing men. His long experience and suc- 

 cess has made him uncompromising in his hostility to the usual 

 "capitalistic" method of business and equally enthusiastic in 

 his support of "true co-operation." He has these many years 

 carefully studied the principles and watched the progress of 

 co-operation wherever found, both in this and other countries 

 and has become a firm believer in the fundamental principles 

 and methods of the so-called "Rochdale System," named after 

 the society of the Rochdale weavers, started in England in 1844. 



The Welchman, Robert Owen, was really the first great 

 apostle of modern co-operation. He accomplished wonderful 

 things with his own energy, resources and broad human sym- 

 pathy. But the movement was premature and the methods 

 adopted were not calculated to make its foundation sound and 

 permanent. 



It remained for the starving weavers of Rochdale, a few years 

 later, to give the principles as well as the name, to a movement 

 that has taken root and is rapidly spreading in all civilized 

 countries with every promise of lasting success. It is said that 

 at that time there were over 2000 people in Rochdale who had 

 to subsist on 46 cents a week. These weavers, 28 in number, 

 took heart and got together, forming a society and called it the 



