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STATE GRANGE OF ILLINOIS. 91 



CO-OPERATION* 



CIIKAP TKANSPORTATIdN AND TUEIU UELATIONS TO OUR INDIVIDUAL 

 PKOSPERITY, THEREFORE NATIONAL. 



Once let those great questions be ritrhtly and correctly understood with 

 tiie view of justice to all humanity, and we shall then learn what a mutuali- 

 ty of interest there is at stake. I advance this as a basic principle, " That 

 all Ciipital {or present wealth) is tlie Harvest of past labor." That is, it is 

 that part of the product of past labor that has been saved, put into the 

 srrainery, or into real estate, or into bonds, or into buildings and machinery, 

 etc. This is an axiom that will stand the test. Therefore, please get it well 

 fixed in your minds beiore going further. '^Capital or Wealth is the 



harvest of PAST LABOR." 



Then let us advance this principle: " That all labor has an equal right 

 to an equal sJuire in all the wealth (or capital) that it (labor) creates." 



That principle is simply that old one of Jefferson's, which proclaims 

 " Equal and exact justice to all." If this accords with your views, then 

 let us print these principles upon our flags and banners. Let us nail 

 them up at every cross road, that all travelers may see, read, learn and 

 proclaim them. This principle that " all labor has an equal right to an 

 equal share of all the wealth it creates," is the very essence of co-opera- 

 tion. This principle must be put into j'our political platforms, and every 

 candidate for office should be required to subscribe to them or be retired 

 to private life. 



Our nation is divided into two great classes, viz. : Producers and Con- 

 sumers, and the large majority of these classes are both producers and 

 consumers combined. There is a duality about it. The farmer or planter 

 who produces wheat, corn, pork, provisions, cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco, 

 in turn becomes a consumer of the manufactured articles of cloth, utensils, 

 farming and plantation implements, and part of his own productions. 

 The artisan, skilled laborer, and laboring men and women are consumers 

 of agricultural products, also of their own productions. And they in 

 turn become producers of cloths, mowing and reaping machines, stoves, 

 machinery of all kinds, etc., etc. So we see we are nearly all in turn pro- 

 ducers and consumers, each interest clearly related to the other. That 

 wliich affects one, reacts upon the other. For instance: If the farmer 

 gets ten cents per bushel more for his wheat, this increases the cost of a 

 barrel of flour nearly one dollar. If the price of flour advances, the 

 manufacturer of cloth, of mowing machines, etc., must pay his help 

 enough more to enable them to buy it. This makes the price of what he 

 manufactures still more costly, and in turn that comes back to the farmer 



•An addrcHB delivered by K. II. Kurub.son, before the Patrons of Husbandrj-, at their 

 annual meeting, December, 1875. 



