CO-OPERATION. 



245 



real estate held, from the work of hired help, 

 or from outside ventures undertaken by the 

 association, are apportioned according to the 

 stock that is, equally among all the members. 



These eight companies, employing about two 

 thirds of the 600 coopers in Minneapolis, are 

 all organized on the same basis, and have been 

 uniformly successful, having a steady local de- 

 mand for their products from the largest flour- 

 ing-mills in the world, and, excepting one de- 

 falcation of a few hundred dollars, have lost 

 nothing of the several million dollars that dur- 

 ing the past fourteen years have passed through 

 the hands of their more than fifty treasurers. 

 Owing to less need of expensive foremen, merely 

 to see that they attend to their work, and 

 owing further to their readiness, when forced 

 by competition, to work on half-wages rather 

 than stop, these coopers are recognized as able 

 to undersell any private shops in the city ; hut 

 the latter are sustained by some of, the millers 

 to guard against any possible combination to 

 raise prices among the co-operative companies. 

 The effects of this form of organization upon 

 the morality and thrift of the men are extraordi- 

 nary. Most of the coopers are now strictly tem- 

 perate, and they are worth, in a large majority 

 of cases, from $2,000 to $4,000 each. The 

 average wealth of the 90 members of the old- 

 est company is at least $3,500. There is also 

 a successful co-operative cooper-shop at Dun- 

 das, Minn., and one at Milwaukee. In the lat- 

 ter city is a flourishing co-operative association 

 of plumbers which is increasing its capital in 

 1888 to $50.000. In 1886, the date of the latest 

 full returns at hand, the business amounted to 

 over $70,000, and included three fourths of all 

 the journeyman-plumbers in the city. By dis- 

 pensing with most of the foremen, these co- 

 operators save nearly one third in the cost of 

 plumbing. Profits have been largely divided 

 on the basis of wages, but a part has gone to 

 increase the capital. In 1886, the plumbers 

 of Xew York city tried to organize co-opera- 

 tively, and, according to one of their leaders, 

 who has fallen heir to the business they were 

 fast building up, they would have attained as 

 great success as in Milwaukee, if they had only 

 had the patience to wait a little longer and to 

 work in harmony. At Lynn, Mass., is a co- 

 operative shoe-factory, the Lynn Knights of 

 Labor Co-operative Boot and Shoe Company, 

 established in 1886, which is doing a successful 

 and rapidly growing business with a capital of 

 $8,000. After paying 5 per cent, interest on 

 capital, and devoting 10 per cent, of the profits 

 to a sinking fund, and as much more to a co- 

 operative fund to assist other co-operative en- 

 terprises, the remaining profits are divided 

 equally between capital and labor. Each work- 

 man gets his share of the labor dividend, in 

 proportion to his wages. 



Most of the other co-operative manufactur- 

 ing companies, give no dividends to labor as 

 such, but the stock is in many hands, and the 

 stockholder has but one vote. The following 



are the most successful, and from their history 

 of five to twenty-one years, give evidence of 

 reasonable stability: Stoneham Co-operative 

 Shoe Company, Stoneham, Mass. ; Wakefield 

 Co-operative Shoe Company, Wakefield, Mass. ; 

 Kingston Co-operative Foundry Company, 

 Kingston, Mass. ; Leonard Co-operative Foun- 

 dry Company, Taunton, Mass. ; Somerset Co- 

 operative Foundry Company, Somerset, Mass. ; 

 East Templeton Co-operative Chair Company, 

 East Templeton, Mass. These six companies, 

 with a capital of $125,000, do a business of 

 about $500,000. Outside of Eastern Massa- 

 chusetts the most successful are the Solidarity 

 Watch Case Company, in Hope Street, Brook- 

 lyn, with 110 employes and $67,000 capital, in 

 1887; the Fulton County Co-operative Leather, 

 Glove, and Mitten Manufacturing Association, 

 of Johnstown, N". Y. ; the Co-operative Collar 

 and Cuff Company, of Troy, N. Y., with a 

 capital of $15,000, and business of nearly $40,- 

 000, in 1888; and the St. Louis Furniture- 

 Workers' Association. The sales of this latter 

 in 1887 nine years after beginning business 

 were $116,520, and the wages paid, mostly to 

 stockholders, were $43,421. 



Co-operative Building and Loan Associations. By 

 far the most important and successful form of 

 co-operation in the United States is that of 

 the Co-operative Building and Loan Associa- 

 tion, sometimes called merely building associa- 

 tion, or, as in Massachusetts, the co-operative 

 bank. Beginning about fifty years ago in 

 Philadelphia, and attaining to strength there 

 in the decade of 1850-1860, they have been 

 spreading rapidly since 1875 in Pennsylvania, 

 New Jersey, Massachusetts, Western New York, 

 Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, and many other 

 Western States, and are now reaching into the 

 South. The capital of the co-operative bank 

 is limited to $1,000,000, in shares whose full 

 value is $200 each. The shares are not paid 

 for at once, or within a short time of begin- 

 ning business, as is usual with corporations, 

 but are paid at the rate of one dollar a month, 

 a new series of shares being issued semi-annu- 

 ally and annually. This would require two 

 hundred months, or sixteen years and two 

 thirds for the payment of a share, but for an- 

 other feature of the system. The money ac- 

 cruing to the treasury from these monthly 

 payments, and from all other sources, is loaned 

 every month to such of the shareholders as 

 offer the highest premium. The profits from 

 these loans and premiums furnish the divi- 

 dends, which usually amount to between six 

 and seven per cent. Every one can borrow 

 for aid in building or buying a home, to the 

 amount of the par value of his share, but no 

 more. As security he must offer his shares 

 and such other property as may appear to the 

 directors sufficient. They will lend nearly up 

 to the full market value of such security, while 

 the savings-banks are only allowed to lend to 

 the extent of 60 per cent, of the assessed value 

 of the real-estate security. It may be asked 



