Housing 147 



millions they make prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the 

 superior methods of cooperation over unorganized methods? 



You do not see the Standard Oil Company allowing the 

 price of oil to fall below what it costs to produce it or the 

 Steel Trust or the Tobacco Trust or the Bread Trust or 

 any trust allowing prices to fall to a point at which it costs 

 more to produce the commodities than they will sell for. 

 This is all done by cooperation and organization. 



You do not see the cold storage interests handling your 

 eggs at a loss. But when the; price of eggs falls to a point 

 at which they cannot be marketed at a profit, although this 

 condition is due to your lack of cooperation and organiza- 

 tion, you denounce the trusts and demand that they be 

 destroyed. If this were a comedy instead of the tragedy 

 which it really is, you would be the laughing-stock of every 

 grammar-school child. 



When we stop to consider the wonderful undertaking 

 accomplished by the government at Panama through coopera- 

 tion and organized efforts, the solving of these three little 

 problems of the poultrymen would seem very simple; so 

 simple, in fact, that it seems a mystery why proper methods 

 are not immediately adopted. By the failure of the poultry- 

 men to adopt these measures, millions of dollars that would 

 otherwise go directly to them and to the consumer are 

 going to those who produce absolutely nothing, but who, by 

 handling the poultryman's goods for him, take most of the 

 profits for themselves. They are enabled to do this through 

 their cooperation and organization. If the poultrymen should 

 cooperate and organize and employ the better business 

 methods of cooperation, they would keep for themselves the 

 profits that are now going to others. The millions that would 

 go to them as producers would be lost to those who now 

 handle their goods. 



