Zebina Forbush

“ In Idaho we have made land the chief feature of our enterprise, and I maintain and, in fact, know, that we could never have succeeded in any marked degree if we had not done so.
A commonwealth which has not the title to its own land is like a house suspended in the air. Even the co-operative societies engaged in manufacture and distribution manufacture and distribute what comes, primarily, from the land.
When they receive the raw material to manufacture or distribute it has been handled by a number of traders, brokers and other middlemen and its price increased oppressively. ”

“ Braden is as famous in her sphere as Senator Thompson is in his. Having written, as the world knows, five novels of the highest merit, all of which have been received with extraordinary favor, the Association has rewarded her by remitting her entire term of service in the Industrial Army. This has not had the effect of silencing her muse by any means. She is as industrious as if both fame and fortune were wanting. The fires of true genius do not require the inspiration of greed to make them burn more brightly. ”

“ On the table lands which rise north and south of us our herds and flocks shall graze.
“You can see, my brothers, that if we fail in our enterprise the fault will be in us and not in nature. The duty which lies before us is to work in harmony. We must encourage competition in all lines of mental, physical and spiritual progress. But we must rid ourselves of competition in the simple acquisition of property. We must encourage individualism in all that makes men practical, self-reliant and manly. We must destroy it in all that makes men grasping and unsympathetic. ”

“ The competitive system might not be objectionable if it would do the same. But it does not permit fair competition. It demands that a man be industrious, but gives him no chance to work. It permits a few to monopolize land, water, power, money and all the sources, means and machinery of production, and then asks the disinherited and landless ones to compete when competition is impossible.
“The system called competitive is not competitive. It is a system whereby a favored few are permitted to rob the many. As for the perils of that system developing character, I admit they do. ”

“ The Co-operative Commonwealth is founded upon the theory that all men can as well habituate themselves to conform to higher as to lower standards. The individualist, the theoretical democrat, urges that our system will tend to destroy self-reliance and to weaken the individual man. The same proposition carried to its logical conclusion would abolish all co-operative effort, and as society, even in its lowest forms, rests upon co-operation, all society is, if judged by that standard, but weakening in its effects. But whether co-operation makes men weak depends upon its purpose. ”

“ I have hoped that the Co-operative Commonwealth developing in like manner, slowly but surely, might with very different motives and for different purposes, become strong enough to take the government and wield it for the common good of all. If I mistake not, the time has come, the Commonwealth is equal to its purpose, and we may assume our political rights. If we win in the election now approaching the state of Idaho will become a co-operative state. Our aim should be to establish our system without encroaching upon the constitution of the nation. ”

“ But the private department stores, labor-saving machinery, trusts and monopolies, which continue to exact tribute from and oppress the people for private gain, are our unconscious and unintentional allies, and the thousands of good citizens who yearly move westward to avail themselves of the opportunities which exist in the Co-operative Commonwealths called into being by the success of the Co-opolitan Association do not fail by their correspondence to light the fires of the new and higher civilization in every city and hamlet of the nation. ”

“ You have been taught that it is desirable to have property stand in your name. In the competitive system to own property makes you the object of attack. It is dangerous. You are always fearful that somebody will rob you. If you own none, in the competitive system, you are despised, no matter what your personal merits may be.
“Yet you can only use what you own and you can do no more with what you borrow.
“Why should you wish to own it, then, if you only get the use of it in any event? In the co-operative system it has been found convenient to have individuals own certain things. ”

“ I am sure that none rejoices more than I do for the safe arrival of our party in this beautiful valley. But my mind is not with to-day nor yesterday, but dwells with the future. The project which has brought us here is, in the light of all history, an exceedingly ambitious one. Failure, it is true, cannot result injuriously, but success will be a beacon light of hope to those many millions of men and women who are denied access to nature’s countless bounties. ”

“ The defeat of the bond and credit laws had the effect of placing the Co-opolitan Association and the co-operative system on an enduring basis. The entire world now realized that it was an assured and successful system and in every state in the Union the tendency was toward the enactment of laws favorable to co-operative action on the part of the laborer. Nearly all the states, seized by the spirit of the hour, began to discuss the propriety of calling a constitutional convention and reforming their systems of state government upon the model of Idaho. ”

“ It is the human heart overflowing with bitterness at the injustice of men and classes. Ere the pillars of the temple tremble and the walls of the temple fall upon us, we offer a remedy and ask that it be applied. In justice to ourselves, let me say, that we propose this remedy experimentally. We do not, by any means, know whether the human system is capable of receiving it, but we are absolutely certain that it can do no injury. ”

“ These concerns, establishing themselves in every industrial center, absorbed nearly every industry. It was impossible for the individual, the small capitalist, the man, to compete with such institutions, and yet those who were the greatest gainers from them were the most zealous advocates of the competitive system. Wanamaker’s vast department stores in Philadelphia and New York city were good illustrations of what the co-operative institution, employed against the competitor, could accomplish, both for the one man who owned it and against the many who were asked to compete with it. ”

“ The Co-operative Commonwealth was conceived by men who believed the human race capable of advancing to the highest ideal of civilization. It never depended, for its success, upon those philosophers who chose to believe that because they themselves did not feel the pinch of want therefore none others need feel it, nor of those philanthropists who were always going about giving that sort of temporary relief which only served to make the source of poverty all the more prolific and the cause all the more obscure. ”

“ Co-operative enterprises have been successful in many commercial and mechanical pursuits. As a rule such enterprises have failed so far as land and its cultivation are concerned. But there is no apparent reason why they should be less successful than are the enterprises of commerce and manufacture. Our purpose is to combine all laborious or productive occupations. Behold, my brothers, this beautiful valley! God has secreted in almost every inch of its soil the gift of productivity. Yonder the mountains tower above us. God has made the forest to yield fuel and lumber for our use. ”

“ They, perhaps, honestly believed that it was fatal to progress to raise mankind to an elevated plane and let the battle be waged for moral, intellectual and perhaps spiritual supremacy. In Co-opolis our system eliminated the mere material world as an object of competition, and pursuing the law of our nature, we sought to excel in intellectual pursuits, matters of taste, athletics and what tended to personal improvement. It was not long before the Co-opolitan began to be known as being possessed of good manners, taste in matters of dress and even polish. ”

“ I reply that the Brotherhood throughout the United States has contributed much to our enterprise by purchasing our surplus products and disposing of them in eastern markets. But better than this we have never lost the labor power of one able-bodied man during all this time. The confidence of the Brotherhood in us was due to the magnificent generalship of one great man, and that one great man was and is John Thompson of Co-opolis. ”

“ When I say this I do not want to be understood as expressing favor for any plan whereby the thoughtful, conservative statesmanship of modern society is to be set aside, and experimental statesmanship is to be substituted for it. I am convinced that the social system which Christendom accepts to-day is the best which humanity has ever employed, and that it would be the worst of crimes to destroy it without furnishing some practical model for a new and better one. ”

“ The Agricultural department now—1909—had under its control three million five hundred thousand acres of land devoted to agriculture, five hundred thousand acres devoted to fruit and at least eight million devoted to grazing.
The Co-opolitan Association was and is the most successful farmer in the world! No wonder! There stand between it and the consumer no middleman and no manufacturer. Its own labor manufactures most of its own farm tools and machinery. It feeds, clothes and shelters its own farm hands, and both produces and manufactures food and clothing. ”

“ I confess that, even then, the vastness of the power of co-operative labor to overcome all obstacles was not fully comprehended by me. I had as yet but dimly recognized that the combined strength of labor directed to the accomplishment of a definite purpose was simply irresistible. Business in the competitive world which involves the sale and delivery of large accumulations of property, real or fictitious, is transacted upon a ridiculously narrow financial basis, and must necessarily be conducted with extreme caution. ”

“ However enjoyable such life may seem for a season there comes a time, and that speedily, when the novelty wears off, and life in the civilized world is all the more pleasurable by comparison. So you descend into the regions of commercial competition; the waste regions and desert lands of speculation; the world where old men and women are left to die in poverty after a life of usefulness; where little children, innocent of wrong, are trained daily to sin, or are starved to death in sight of plenty. ”

“ We give the child his education and an opportunity equal to the best when he becomes a man. We insure these things and the husband and father is relieved from all worry on their account while he lives. Is not this worth many times the riches of the competitor which are so ready to vanish and leave wife and child in the ranks of abject and despised poverty.
The twentieth year of the Co-operative Commonwealth is indeed a proud one. ”

“ But the application of electricity to nearly all locomotion had enabled the city to preserve its streets from being marred and rendered unsightly and dangerous by street railroads. The electric motorcycles, bicycles and tricycles, operated by storage batteries, which plied rapidly along the smooth and clean asphalt streets, were the pleasing harbingers of that system by which we are now enabled to travel on similar roads throughout the length and breadth of fair and favored Idaho. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The present business and financial depression, spreading as it does throughout most of Christendom, has produced a feeling of unrest among those classes of people who feel it most. This unrest is admitted by all who have eyes with which to observe, and minds with which to analyze, to be fraught with danger. It threatens our security, it threatens our homes, it threatens morals and religion, it threatens the stability of our institutions, the existence of the republic and the durability of Christian civilization. ”