606 APPENDIX. 



We must encourage the cooperation of those whose sacritices do not procure for 

 them just satisfactions, while vigorously restraining that of those who are 

 getting what they do not earn. I recognize that the object of the farmers' 

 Raisin Trust of California is to compel me to pay the highest possible prices for 

 my raisins, just as that of the Sugar Trust is to compel me to pay the highest 

 possible prices for my sugar, and yet I would support the one and subdue the 

 other, because the one, at present, seeks justice, and the other injustice. When- 

 ever the Farmers' Trust attempts to do injustice, as it will if it ever has the 

 power, I would subdue that also. I think it very desirable that farmers come 

 to take this broad view of cooperation, and hence include in this appendix a 

 few facts regarding cooperation by others than farmers. 



In regard to the general statistics of cooperation in the United States, it 

 must be said that there is the same lack of information that exists in regard to 

 cooperation among farmers. One cause of this is the lack of proper legislation. 

 One of the first things .to be done in this country in the cause of cooperation 

 is the drafting of a proper law for the regulation of cooperative societies and 

 their registration under it. Such a law would provide for compliance with 

 certain conditions ■ essential to security and stability, define the rights and 

 obligations of membership, and provide for registration and regular annual 

 reports. This is done in older countries, and is necessary here. Such a law, 

 when drafted, could be passed without dilficulty, by a little organized eflTort 

 in all the states. In California, and probably in some other states, no 

 proper law could be passed, except after a constitutional amendment. In 

 Appendix D will be found references to a few books giving such information 

 as there seems to be about cooperation in this country. I sought to obtain later 

 information, but could get little or none. The following letter from Mr. N. O. 

 Nelson, of St. Louis, which is all of value which I have been able to get, is 

 given in full because of its general interest, although not intended for publica- 

 tion, and referring to various matters not closely connected : — 



St. Louis, Mo., March 22, 1899. 

 Dear Mr. Adams : — Cohn & Co., musical instrument makers, Elkhart, 

 Ind.; Proctor & Gamble, soap makers, Cincinnati, Ohio; Spencer, Trask & Co., 

 bankers, New York, are the only profit-sharing concerns of consequence that 

 now occur to me in this country. [Mr. Nelson should have included his own— 

 The N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co., Leclaire, 111., e. f. a.] The system keeps 

 growing in France, and still more so in England, where an active propaganda 

 IS carried on by an association. The plan was adopted by a considerable num- 

 ber of concerns in this country in the later eighties, but was abandoned by most 

 of them in the course of a year or two. there are, no doubt, a great many 

 scattered over the country, which have been given no publicity. There was an 

 association formed in 1892 under the leadership of N. P. Oilman, author of 

 " Profit-Sharing between Employer and Employees," but it was abandoned for 

 lack of sufficient support. Fifteen hundred dollars is the largest salary paid to 

 P]nglish cooperative managers. Mr. Fawcett, who has long been the head of 

 the great Leeds Society, with its 33,000 members and annual business of about 

 five million dollars, gets this amount. He is of a caliber to easily command 

 ten thousand in private employment. J. T. W. Mitchell was chairman of the 

 English Wholesale for twenty-one years, building it up from one million to fifty 

 millions a year. He never took beyond one thousand a year, and out of this 

 he bfjre some incidentals connected with lecturing trips and attendance on 

 meetings, where his expense account was overlooked. He was a man of so 



