CO-OPERATIVE CAPITAL 



known. There are nearly five thousand bnilding and 

 loan associations in the United States. They have more 

 than one million six hundred thousand members, and 

 a paid-in capital, gathered mostly in very small sums, of 

 over six hundred million dollars. They have put roofs 

 over the heads of two hundred and sixty thousand Amer- 

 ican families. 



Both for the lender and the borrower colonization 

 with co-operative capital is safer and better than urban 

 house-building with co-operative capital. A twenty-acre 

 irrigated farm, with an industrious family working upon 

 it under good direction, is better security for a loan than 

 a twenty-five foot lot in the suburbs of New York with 

 a house upon it. It is such because of its greater and 

 more certain productive capacity, and because the man 

 who has borrowed the money to make a farm is more 

 certain of employment than he who has borrowed merely 

 to build a house. 



The man who borrows to build the house is usually 

 dependent upon others for his living, in the sense that 

 he is employed to work for wages. His income may be 

 interrupted at any moment by the strike, the lockout, 

 or financial panic. His employer may die or become 

 insolvent. A new labor-saving machine or a new ship- 

 load of Italian immigrants may send him into the streets. 

 When he gets old the house does not snstain him. When 

 he dies it does not sustain his loved ones. 



The man who borrows to make a home on the irri- 

 gated lands of the West works for himself and cannot 

 be discharged. He is on the road to complete eco- 

 nomic independence. Even in hard times he is sure of 

 his living. Labor-saving machinery works for him and 

 s 273 



