THE CO-OPOLITAN
❧
A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho.
BY
ZEBINA FORBUSH.
“’Tis coming up the Steep of Time
And this old World is growing brighter.”
—_Gerald Massey._
CHICAGO:
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY.
1898.
Copyright 1898
By CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY.
Library of Progress. No. 26. Quarterly. $1.00 a year. February, 1898.
Entered at the Postoffice, Chicago, as second-class matter.
PREFACE.
This volume is given to the public without other excuse than the simple
fact that it has been written. If it is read it may do some good, but in
any event it cannot do injury. If it is not read the hour which knew it
will pass with it, and countless hours, like waves in Time’s ocean, will
roll on multitudinously, with their burdens of good and evil, and pass
also.
Because the writer believed he had a thought to express, which, if
heeded, would help, in some slight degree, to right human wrongs, he
ventured to offer it in this form. He had discovered by experience that
no radical and permanent reform can be successfully effected without the
consent of what are called “the substantial business interests” of the
established system.
He has also observed that the system now in operation is constantly
undergoing changes, and that our predecessors in its control, of a
quarter of a century ago, would scarcely recognize the system by which
we live to-day. These changes have been accomplished through evolution
only. Numbers count for nothing. Millions submit readily to the will of
one.
Education counts for everything, and if we had been taught that to stand
on our heads an hour a day was essential to salvation most of us would
observe that form without question. Some, however, are superior to error
and are strong enough to be and to do right. But these are scattered.
They argue with their unthinking neighbors and are ridiculed for their
pains. Such methods never did succeed and the world is as much out of
gear with righteousness to-day as it was in the dark ages.
This is the trouble with political Co-operation. It cannot succeed
except in a very slight measure. Why? Because industrial and commercial
education are against it. Because the Industrial System is against it.
Because the great, the powerful and strong are against it. Political
Co-operation has no money with which to compete with the competitive
system. Righteousness without money is a will-o’-the-wisp as against
Mephisto, with millions in the competitive system.
Co-operation must enter the lists with means and weapons similar to its
opponents, or else it will fail. Therefore the writer proposes that the
profits of co-operation be matched against the profits of competition,
and if co-operation can “win out” then the profit system is dead.
Let us raise the cry of Industrial Co-operation against Industrial
Competition, and then go to work. When we are strong enough we will do
what Industrial Competition in the form of corporations and syndicates
has done. We will become political. Industrially we can grow as all
industrial institutions have, and when we are grown to a magnitude which
forces recognition, the world is ours and again belongs, not to a few,
but to all of us.
This little volume is designed to show, in part, what an opportunity we
have to plant the flag of Industrial Co-operation on American soil and
defend it as it cannot be defended in any other country.
Yours Fraternally,
THE AUTHOR.
THE CO-OPOLITAN.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THE YEAR 1897.
During the entire existence of the great American republic no year
seemed more hopeless to the masses of its people than the year 1897.
It is true that the dark hours of conflict, when separation from Great
Britain was sought at the cannon’s mouth, and later, when civil strife
nearly rent the nation in twain, seemed, to superficial observers, to be
more fraught with danger.
But the problems of those times could be and were readily understood.
Success to the arms of the patriots, in the one case, and the Unionists
in the other, was a simple solution, although distressing in its pursuit
and difficult of achievement.
But this year was one which was the culmination of many years of
singular abundance, blessed by nature in almost every conceivable way,
and yet by a strange contradiction of circumstances full of sorrow,
distress, hunger and poverty.
The wealth of this, the richest country in the world, was made valueless
by reason of the belief on the part of its people that it must borrow
the right to use that wealth from other nations. The supplies of food,
clothing and materials of all kinds were vast, and yet the inhabitants
for some cause were not able to obtain them, although their needs were
great. There were now a few rich and many—very many—extremely poor.
It was this strange, contradictory, confusing and incomprehensible
condition which made men hopeless. Where to look for help, what to do,
the cause, the consequence, the evil and the remedy, were all subjects
of agitation and deep concern. Everybody except those few who were
satisfied with any condition which did not disturb their own happiness,
had views on these subjects and had conceived of some remedy. And the
multiplicity of these views and the innumerable varieties of remedies
proposed, seemed to aggravate the general despair and produce an
increasing paralysis of action.
It was in January of that dismal year that I found myself in the great
city of Chicago. I, too, had been affected by the universal depreciation
of property, so that a fortune of fifty thousand dollars, which I had
inherited from my parents, was now dubiously estimated to have dwindled
to something like ten thousand dollars. I knew it was not my fault.
Bank stocks, railroad stocks and mining stocks, represented the bulk of
my poor, deceased father’s savings and investments.
Much of this could not attract buyers at any price. Some could not be
given away. The rest was convertible into gold at a few cents on the
dollar.
But I was too young, being only twenty-five years of age, to become
despondent over the loss of money, and I had traveled so extensively
about my own country and seen its countless opportunities that I felt a
certain elation in the prospect of building up a fortune of my own.
So that, although a stranger in Chicago, with no friends nearer than
Massachusetts, and without the smallest idea of a plan for the future, I
yet had a firm belief in God, man, my country and myself.
I did not even doubt the system which had robbed me of my fortune, and
was inclined to look upon all who denounced it as hostile to the best
interests of mankind.
My education was, in a large measure, responsible for this. Born in
Salem, Massachusetts, one of the oldest, sleepiest and most conservative
of American cities, educated in her schools and in one of the staid old
colleges, for which New England was justly famous, how could I have
imbibed anything but ancient, sleepy and conservative theories of
political economy, and fine, staid and somewhat musty notions of the end
and purpose of man?
It is true that my extensive travels had broadened me somewhat mentally.
They had taught me the value of individual men and had rather
obliterated sectional pride, which I was willing to confess was the
besetting sin of the average New Englander; they had made me acquainted
with manners and customs and had produced in me a capability of
adjusting myself to delicate situations.
But this sort of breadth, while excellent and serviceable, did not
render me tolerant of ideas which were at variance with those commonly
accepted. My distinguishing characteristic, on which I prided myself not
a little, was an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the history and
resources of my own country. I mention this particularly now, because I
had occasion, later on, to turn my knowledge to a very useful purpose.
I was inclined to remain in Chicago. There was no reason for it which I
had defined to myself, and I really believe that, of all the dismal
places I had ever seen, Chicago was the most dismal at that time. I did
not have any occupation, attraction or hope to keep me in this maelstrom
of the human ocean.
I did not like it. I had no friends in it. I did not seem to find
companions. Indeed, I was happy in being alone, and enjoyed a certain
discontent, which was productive of thoughtfulness, and which set me to
expressing my thoughts on paper.
Governed by an instinctive prudence, which is characteristic of the New
England mind, I had selected a room in a respectable private house,
where there were also two other roomers, and took my meals at a
neighboring restaurant.