THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN WISCONSIN II 



took their meals, though members who preferred to do so could eat in their 

 own apartments. Each member was charged board and lodgings at cost 

 price, which never exceeded 75 cents per week. Though the community 

 was a small one comprising only about 180 persons belonging for the most 

 part to the working classes, it was not without its men of ability. Three of 

 its members were State Senators one of whom was a candidate for the 

 Governorship. 



More than thirty co-operative communities were founded in the United 

 States within a few years of the founding of the Wisconsin Phalanx. Each 

 venture in turn came to an untimely end, ascribing its failure to debt, or 

 poor land, or sickness, or to litigation over property rights, disputes over 

 leadership, or religious dissention. The Wisconsin Phalanx had none of 

 these difficulties to contend with ; yet it failed with the rest. Noyes, in 

 his History of Americaii Socialisms, concludes that the verdict must be that 

 it " died by deliberate suicide, for reasons not fully disclosed. " 



The history of the Phalanx is instructive in view of the fact that we 

 shall presently be examining a modern scheme for a co-operative neigh- 

 bourhood, and we shall thus be able to see how far, and in what direction, 

 the co-operative idea has travelled since 1850. 



The Purchasing Agent System. 



The first real attempt at co-operation among Wisconsin farmers was 

 the Grange organization for co-operative purchase through appointed 

 State agents. From about 1870 to 1877 the National Grange devoted most 

 of its energy to the formation of these purchasing agencies, and these years 

 cover both a sudden rise to power and an equall}^ sudden decline of the 

 Grange as a national organization. In each State the subordinate Granges 

 combined to support an agent who assembled the orders of the local asso- 

 ciations and bought wholesale, in carload lots whenever possible, from the 

 manufacturers who offered the best terms. Staple supplies for the farm and 

 the home — - wood, oil, nails, wire, tea, coffee and sugar — ■ were bought in 

 this way at a substantial saving to members. The number of members in 

 Wisconsin and the value of the orders placed for the six 3'ears from 1875 

 to 1880 were as follows : 



Year Number of Members Value of Orders 



1875 18,653 $ 38,194 



1876 18,427 115,882 



1877 17,640 164,445 



1878 7,093 86,391 



1879 5>5^'6 61,334 



1880 4.651 55.560 



