We Americans have made one of the greatest successes of history along the line of political co-operation.  Our whole democratic type of government is based upon this principle as a foundation.  But we have done little toward the free and successful use of co-operation in business or production.  It is here that our British cousins have far exceeded us even though we have outdistanced them, we think, along political lines of activity.

It was shown in The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin for January 25, 1918, that this co-operative movement in Great Britain has developed to such an extent that at the present time distributive societies there number some 3,500,000 members.  The turnover of these societies last year amounted to $605,000,000, to which should be added $350,000,000 from the co-operative wholesale and the hundred distributive societies.  As a contrast to this, the American people have been so filled with the individualism necessary to the spirit of the pioneers who in reality have been “subduing a continent” that they have failed to realize what a wonderful field for efficient, popular effort the commercial and industrial activities of the country offered if we only would adopt the principle of co-operative organization.  Probably one of the greatest lines of development after the war will be this co-operation between producers and consumers.  In no other way can those activities and profits of the middlemen, which are more or less unnecessary, be entirely eliminated.

I have it on good authority from members of the American Federation of Labor that fully 95 per cent of its membership is opposed to Socialism, and that the Socialistic 5 per cent is largely among the laboring men of the Pacific Coast, with possibly a few in the Middle West, especially Kansas.  This latter is probably an after effect of the old “Populistic” craze of the early ’nineties.  On the other hand, American labor is feeling the need of cooperative action, not only as regards themselves, but also as regards capital as well, and Mr. Gompers has proved himself of the stature of real statesmanship in appreciating and advancing this idea in the most patriotic way since the war began.  Individual laboring men with whom I have talked say they “like the working together” that Socialism advocates, but after explaining their position more fully, in nine cases out of ten it is found that they utterly repudiate the dictatorial, outwardly-directing theory upon which Socialism stands, and in reality desire the advance of this spirit of co-operation.  Thus they look upon a bonus from profits as merely a partial gift on the part of corporate management.  What they desire is profit-sharing, as standing for a recognition of the just right of labor to a larger part of the just proceeds of its work.  Thus probably the greatest antidote and enemy of Socialism is profit-sharing, and after all it is only a recognition of the fact that production is the joint work of both capital and labor, that both are requisite and necessary, and that their whole success is based upon this spirit of co-operation.