FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — FART V:il. OZO 



cial standpoint. Take Secretary Wilson's figures oi cxpoi's .:' jn-.ports 

 for the year 1902, leaving out farm products, and we have u.i :!; verse 

 balance of sixty-two millions, but when we include farm products there is 

 a balance in our favor of two hundred and seventy-five millions — and in 

 1903 the adverse balance is sixty-five millions and including farm prod- 

 ucts three hundred and seventy-six millions in our favor. 



CO-OPERATION. 



Lewis Richards, before Winnebago County Farmers' Institute. 



To co-operate is to work together. Co-operation is found only where 

 all who may be connected with or interested in a certain work or purpose 

 labor together for the general advancement of that work or the accom- 

 plishment of that purpose, not where the members of each consider the 

 welfare of its members without any thought of the general good. 



Such efforts on the part of classes or departments, though sometimes 

 called co-operation, is combination, and results only in class or race 

 prejudice. 



Co-operation in the creamery business or dairy industry is where 

 all concerned work together for the advancement of the creamery and 

 dairy business of that community; not where the creamery owners co- 

 operate for the good of creamery men, the butter-makers for the benefit 

 of their profession, nor where the producers combine for themselves 

 as against all others. 



There is a vast different between co-operation and combination. 

 Combination suggests an agreement, prompted by selfishness to advance 

 the interest of the individual. Co-operation suggests an agreement 

 prompted by a spirit of fraternity and good will to advance the interests 

 of all. As I look at the two words, combination should be prohibited 

 or restricted by law, but co-operation should at all times be encouraged. 

 There should be co-operation between capital and labor, between em- 

 ployer and employe. 



A railroad should be managed in the interests of its stockholders, 

 its employes and its patrons, and not for any one of these classes against 

 the others. 



The creamery business should be managed in the interest of the 

 owners, the employes and patrons. The butter-makers, haulers and pa- 

 trons should all be interested with the manager in building up and main- 

 taining the business and improving the quality of the product. 



Let me refer you to articles sometimes written in papers and to 

 men living in your own cummunity who have adopted the unamerican 

 policy of condemning the character and questioning the integrity of all 

 capitalists and business men. They condemn even the Supreme Court of 

 our land, the President of this great commonwealth, and the Congress of 

 the United States, they would have us believe, is made of boodlers and 

 enemies of the common people. 



