FU\I)A.\fKN'TAL RULES OF COOPKRATION. 213 



you will be compelled to sell regardless of the market. Money 

 is bound to control. It is therefore of the utmost importance 

 that when loans have to be made, as will ordinarily be the 

 case by marketing associations during the crop moving period, 

 they should not be accepted from any person or firm having 

 any possible interest adverse to that of the association, or 

 whom the association may wish to control or direct. When 

 you have borrowed money of a man, he controls you, not you 

 him; under no circumstances, therefore, should advances be 

 accepted from commission firms. The pro})er source from 

 which to obtain necessary loans is the local bankers whose 

 prosperity is always in a direct ratio with that of the com- 

 munity in which they do business, and who, in spite of much 

 po})ular prejudice against them, may almost invariably be 

 relied upon to supply, so far as })rudence will permit, all funds 

 legitimately required for temporary use. They are nearly 

 always the ablest and most disinterested advisers in financial 

 affairs, that a cooperative society can have. It is distinctly to 

 their interest that all legitimate business enterprises in their 

 community shall prosper. 



No man can successfully prosecute a business which he 

 does not himself understand. The owners of a business are 

 those who put money into it. Whoever puts money into a 

 business which he does not understand is almost certain to 

 lose it.* There are no business maxims more important to 

 cooperators than these. They supply the standard wliereby 

 those cooperative enterprises which are safe can be distin- 

 guished in advance from those whicli are dangerous. 



The topic requires some elaboration. In a cooperative 

 society the average of the personal equations of its members 

 will represent a certain degree of ability and exporience, which 

 will be quite accurately reflected in the Board of Directors, 

 and which changes very little from year to year. If the society 

 is organized to transact, on a large scale, business which each 



* That the small investors in British Cooperative Societies do not lose their 

 money is due to the fact that in Great Britain the cooperative movement has 

 developed some wonderful men, — I might say a wonderful race of men. We 

 have not, in America, yet developed cooperators with business capacity of first- 

 rate caliber who will practically donate their services to their fellow-men. 



