Cooperation 157 



organization lines. Unless the producers and consumers 

 apply such remedies as lie in their hands, the abuses of 

 unregulated capital will lead to the state and municipal 

 ownership of public and semi-public utilities and in the 

 end to universal socialism. The plan of organization is 

 simple. The milk-producers of the country should form 

 a large number of local cooperative associations as the 

 citrus fruit-growers of California have done. These asso- 

 ciations may be formed independently, or they may be 

 organized around local associations which are already in 

 existence, such as the grange. These associations should 

 build stations where the milk of the members will be as- 

 sembled and prepared for shipment in accordance with 

 the most advanced sanitary principles of milk handling. 

 These local associations should not attempt to distribute 

 or sell the milk except in small places where the volume 

 of business is not too large for an association to act as a 

 distributing agent. The associations of a county or a 

 community should then federate and form a cooperative 

 corporation to act as an agent for them in handling their 

 common business problems, and these district federations 

 may then form a larger federation, incorporated on co- 

 operative lines which will furnish the facilities to be used 

 by the division federations in the distribution and market- 

 ing of the milk. The ultimate responsibility for determin- 

 ing the price for which the milk shall be sold to the 

 consumer should rest with the producers through their 

 local association, and the freest competition should be 

 preserved among them. The central organization or ex- 

 change is the medium through which information concern- 

 ing the markets passes to the district federations and 



