THE WINE-MAKKKS' COKI'UKATIUN. .')27 



whose chief virtues were deceit and treachery, have in the 

 course of generations learned to confide iu others, and com- 

 bine in Trusts, against the world, and that some of our ances- 

 tors of only three centuries ago doubtless witnessed with 

 approval the burning of martyrs, it is perhaps not too much 

 to expect that a few centuries more may fit the world for 

 cooperation. The changes of social force, in nature and direc- 

 tion necessary to make universal cooperation possible, do not 

 seem to me greater than those that have taken place since the 

 dawn of history.* 



* My personal experience in cooperative work among farmers has possessed, 

 for myself, a sort of grim humor, and may be entertaining to others. It has, at 

 any rate, a certain educational value, and as I am in a position to write with 

 entire frankness, I give the substance of it for what it is worth, reminding my 

 readers that this was not a case of cooperation among or for absolutely poor 

 people, but among those quite able to protect their own interests if they 

 cooperated as they said they wished to. For many years I had been in charge, 

 upon. the Pacific Coast, of certain eastern interests which, in due time, devel- 

 oped into a Trust. The owners of the business never struck me as wicked men, 

 but simply as ordinary good citizens, wishing, like honest farmers and work- 

 men, to set the highest possible price for their product, and somehow compel 

 people to pay it. They were kindly men, prominent at the missionary box, 

 and elsewise in good words and works, but never, in any conference to which 

 I was admitted, was the public welfare made the basis on which prices were 

 fixed. I had no instructions to consider the public weal, and never did, but 

 got all I could, receiving therein the cordial support of my principals, with 

 complimentary telegrams upon the happening of a lucky stroke of business. 

 In the meantime, in my little personal world, whose attitude towards one does 

 so much towards making life cheerful or otherwise, I had evidence of general 

 good-will, with some special esteem and respect as for one concerned with a 

 Monopoly of some consequence for those days. I never heard of an unpleasant 

 word said about me by anybody, and I suppose I had not an enemy in the 

 world. Life was very rosy. 



"When I left that sinful employment, and was soon after born into the king- 

 dom of cooperation, I cheerfully accepted the tasks which were set me, 

 and discharged them with the same zeal with which, in my unregenerate 

 days, I had served the arch enemy. As unexpected obstacles arose, inbred 

 contrariness impelled me to strive to surmount them, in which endeavor I 

 worked harder than ever before in my life, or than I ever intend to again. 

 The aggregate wealth of the people who had asked me to serve them was far 

 greater than that of my former employers, while I was not rich, and in fact, 

 although I did not know it at the time, was quite poor. There was therefore no 

 reason why they should not pay or I should not receive compensation for what 



