RETAIL COOPERATION 253 



NELSON CO-OPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, INC. 



Food Suppliers 



OFFICE, 506 SO. PETEES STREET. CREAMERY, ERATO ST. 



WAREHOUSE, 511 SO. PETERS ST. BAKERY, ELYSIAN FIELDS AVE. 



61 RETAIL STORES 

 4 MEAT MARKETS 



In August, 1917, N. O. Nelson of the above concern 

 writes in answer to my request : 



"It does not take 2500 words to tell all I know about 

 Cooperation. I trust the inclosed may be serviceable for 

 your book, and shall feel proud if it is. 



" I am doing my job here for two very practical reasons ; 

 first, the immediate service of reducing the cost of living 

 to say 15,000 families, mostly poor; second, to introduce 

 economy in retailing. 



" The readers of such a book as yours are well aware of the 

 wasteful ways of retailing goods. In every town and city 

 there is a multiplication of stores, advertising clerks, teams, 

 and other incidentals. 



"Likewise there is a lot of middle men and drummers, the 

 buyers at the producer's end, the wholesalers or middle 

 men at the consumer's end, with speculator and landowner 

 at both ends. All of these have to be supported by the 

 system, and the dear consumer pays for it. 



" The Cooperative store system, which was started in Eng- 

 land 73 years ago, eliminates most of these waste expenses. 

 The system has kept spreading at an astonishing rate ; in Great 

 Britain there are now 3^ million members, and more than a 

 billion of sales a year. Other European countries are full 

 of these stores. Many of the retail stores have from twelve 

 thousand to fifty thousand members; their sales run into 



