The Maccabaean
cratically elected committee on management appoints the store manager and has charge of the affairs of the society. The members of the co-operative stores are overwhelmingly working class in their character, and the management committees are also very largely composed of the manual working class.
iii > Fine . Such a co-operative society grows larger. Presently it owns its own store and distributes to the members all of their foodstuffs, clothing, and household goods. When the number of such societies has increased the members find that the amount saved from the total amount of purchases they are making is so great that they can unite in the organization of a wholesale society, and thus take the next step and cut out the profit of the wholesaler. And when still more societies have grown up and the membership has become sufliciently great, the wholesale society, instead of buying from the importer and manufacturer, imports and manufactures for itself. When this last step has been taken the economic problem is solved; the gamut is run; the consumers’ revolution is attalIned.
Buying commodities at the cost of production is not the final purposes of the Co-operative Movement. It aims at more important things. It takes advantage of the organization of people who have common needs, and introduces insurance against sickness, death, unemployment, accidents, and old age. It provides pensions for motherhood; makes loans to members; carries families on credit in the event of strikes and lockouts; provides housing, recreations, clubhouses, medical and nursing care, hospitals and sanitariums, and goes into all of the needs of the people.
The money for these social purposes is that same hitherto unavailable quantity—the difference between the cost price and the selling price—out of which is made the financial success of individualistic captains of industry and commerce. It is that money which is the basis of profiteering. Co-operation eliminates the vicious profit-making motive.
This difference between cost and selling price aggregates more to the Co-operators than to the private tradesmen for
THE HERO
many reasons. Competitive business must advertise and employ expert salesmen; it must sustain the uncertain losses of the credit system; it must offer “specials” and undersell its competitors; it must sustain enormous expenses incidental to placating political parties and influencing legislation; and it must carry on its wasteful methods of delivery and administration. The co-operative society, with the assured constant purchases of its members, suffers not such handicaps. Its savings are necessarily greater. Its increase of expenses are only those arising from purchasing pure commodities and from giving labor higher wages and better conditions. A proportion of these savings always goes to the common welfare, a proportion to educational purposes and propaganda, and a proportion ‘se set asıde far exnansioan and develoanment.
Still greater benefits than these accrue to the co-operator. It is not alone that the things he needs are made more easily accessible to him; that he is freed from the dangers and costs of diseased and adulterated food; that he is spared exploitation by the vicious agencies of profiteering; that pensions, insurance, and housing are made possible for him; and that recreations, art and education are rendered accessible. Co-operation does a greater thing than all these. It awakens in the soul of man a new spirit. It makes him a co-operator. It takes hold of the fundamental and primitive instinct—to help one’s fellowman, to be kind, to be generous, to render mutual aid—and encourages them. It teaches people to work together for their mutual benefit. It shows that the concern of one is the concern of all, that no man can cheat or be cheated without his neighbor also suffering. From him it asks but this: that, in joining a co-operative society he pledges himself to promote the new social and moral order toward which Co-operation is aiming.
This is not a theory nor an utopian dream. It is a statement of a fact. It has all come to pass. All over the world co-operative societies are growing up and doing these things.
The people laugh that see him pass With stoop and dragging heel: This hero bears no shield of brass, No sword of steel. He bears a sack upon a back That’s bent with toil and shame; His shield a beard, a visage weird, His sword — a Name! His lips are like the lips of death, His eyes are like the dawn; With prayers and prophecies his breath Is halting drawn. He tasted death a thousand times, His feasts he spiced with fears; His sabbaths kept were counted crimes, His wine was tears.
They offered crowns, they pressed him sore! He shunned the golden trap: For he was true to God, and wore A strange black cap. For just a word he might have stept Gay-robed with wealthy churls: But he was true to God, and kept His oily curls. And honors—for some holy seeps Of water on his back— He might have bought; but still he keeps His humble pack. Are princes saved with hardihood? Or kings, with gold for liege? This stumbling hero has withstood A world-old siege.