Cooperage

“ Thus co-operation, growing ever firmer at its centre and ever wider in its circumference, is the true vocation of man in Society: but such a co-operation is only possible by means of progressive improvement, for it is only in relation to their ultimate destination that men are one, or can become one. We may therefore say that mutual improvement,—improvement of ourselves by the freely admitted action of others upon us, and improvement of others by our reaction upon them as upon free beings,—is our vocation in Society. ”

“ They are recognizing the fact that, not competition, but co-operation, reciprocity, is the great, the true power,—to climb, not by attempting to drag, to keep down one's fellows, but by aiding them, and being in turn aided by them, thus combining, and so multiplying the power of all instead of wasting a large part one against the other. ”

“ War, manufactures, commerce, business, politics, education, have all been reduced to system. Nearly all the great factors of civilization, except religion, philanthropy and reform, have in some comprehensive way laid hold of the strength which comes from organization. The next great step to be taken, and for which a thousand interests wait, is the organization of churches into coöperative relations which will enable them to meet the higher needs of our civilization. ”

“ If we sustain co-operation, we will call upon co-operation to sustain us; and all the settlements throughout the Territory will be represented, just the same as the Saints to-day are represented in the Church through the Presidents of Stakes, and we will try to do right ourselves, and then we will try and see that they do right. We will sustain them with good, honest efforts, and we want square up and down operations on both sides, carrying out the principles of co-operation honestly and truthfully before God and man. ”

“ Valdepeñas is the largest town in the Campo de Calatrava, an extensive plain north of the Sierra Morena. Its commerce developed rapidly in the last quarter of the 19th century, largely as a result of improvements in its communications by road and rail; the population in the same period increased by more than one-third. Valdepeñas contains large distilleries, tanneries, flour mills, cooperages, and other factories ”

“ Let each one of us, each class, each sect, each nation, each group of nations, do all that is humanly possible to foster that spirit, to further mutual {267} understanding, to breed confidence in one another, and to co-operate for the weal of all. ”

“ I rely with the utmost confidence, also, on your cordial support, and co-operation, in upholding a system of law and government from which we have derived inestimable advantages; which has enabled us to conclude, with unexampled glory, a contest whereon depended the best interests of mankind, and which has been hitherto felt by ourselves, as it is acknowledged by other nations, to be the most perfect that had fallen to the lot of any people. ”

“ They say that the attempt to realise the ideal of a new state of society which, like the Millennium to the early Christians, exalted the minds of the Pioneers, is now-a-days confined to the search after more comfort or large dividends in a word, they say that co-operation, instead of being a religion, is no more than mere business. ”

“ But in actual life it is oftener the latter that is prominent in our relations with our fellow-men. We—the category of co-operation—is at least as fundamental in all human thought and language as I and thou, the categories of mutual exclusion. That you and I are mutually complementary factors in a wider whole of common interests, is at least as early a discovery of mankind as that our private interests and standpoints collide. ”

“ And within Nations, there has been conflict of classes, class and caste war, and all this modified and softened by a growing sense of a common good, until Competition, the characteristic of the Path of Forthgoing tends to change into Co-operation, the characteristic of the Path of Return. ”

“ Can we, by any device, draw this submerged humanity into the light and make them real partners in the social order, not partners merely in the political life of the nation, but, what is of more importance, in its economic life? ”

“ That the coöperation into which men have gradually risen secures to them benefits which could not be secured while, in their primitive state, they acted singly, and that, as an indispensable means to this cooperation, political organization has been, and is, advantageous, we shall see on contrasting the states of men who are not politically organized with the states of men who are politically organized in less or greater degrees. ”

“ Some of you have carried the idea of co-operation for economic ends farther, and have used the power which combination gives you to erect village halls and to have libraries of books, the windows through which the life and wonder and power of humanity can be seen. Some of you have light-heartedly, in the growing sympathy of unity, revived the dances and songs and sports which are the right relaxation of labor. ”

“ The leaders in the societies themselves insisted upon a better sensing of social responsibility, which meant simply the better realization of one principle, co-operation, the signpost to the second stage of growth. ”

“ First, by a vivid conception that cooperation is designed, provided for, and expected. We are children of God; there can be but one great end through the ages in the universe. There should be cooperation of every force. ”

“ Co-operation, then, is of two kinds, inward and outward: co-operation between the interests of others and of ourselves in the motive to our individual action; and co-operation of our action with the action of others to accomplish objects too vast for private undertaking.—Both forms of co-operation are in principle the same; they strengthen and support each other. ”

“ And this message, that could go forth alike to the Camorristi and the Nihilists; to the Free Masons and the Good Templars; to the Trades-unionists and the Knights of Labor—to all those masses of men moved by the spirit of co-operation—"See, brothers, what we have to show you. Some of you are aiming at chaos and perdition; others putting wages as their god and sovereign; others content with a vague philanthropy almost barren of results. ”

“ And when, with diminution of warfare and growth of trade, voluntary co-operation more and more replaces compulsory co-operation, and the carrying on of social life by exchange under agreement, partially suspended for a time, gradually re-establishes itself; its re-establishment brings the possibility of that vast elaborate industrial organization by which a great nation is sustained. ”

“ A glance at the past rôles of dominance, competition, and coöperation in the institutions of government, religion, and commerce and industry, will aid us to consider coöperation in relation to present international problems. ”

“ While, as we saw, the compulsory coöperation proper to militancy forbids, or greatly discourages, individual initiative, the voluntary cooperation which distinguishes industrialism gives free scope to individual initiative, and develops it by letting enterprise bring its normal advantages. Those who are successfully original in idea and act, prospering and multiplying in greater degrees than others, produce, in course of time, a general type of nature ready to undertake new things. ”

“ First comes the degree of effectiveness in combination. The prime requisites for effective combination are a spirit of comradeship and mutual trust, knowledge and self-restraint in the disposition of united force. ”

“ The unsociable Englishman, quotha? Why, what country in the world can show such multifarious, vigorous and cordial co-operation, in all ranks, but especially, of course, among the intelligent, for ends which concern the common good? ”

“ We have to become united as a people in all our labors—in our agriculture, manufactures, and every branch of our temporal labors. It is of great importance to the Latter-day Saints that they should unite together on the principle of co-operation. ”

“ Thanks to these men, efforts are co-ordinated and an understanding is maintained at all points of the front, so that the chain of unity holds together. If one falls, there is at once another to take his place. ”

“ By co-operation I do not mean that clubbing together which saves us 30 per cent, in wine, 25 per cent, in boots, 150 per cent, in drugs, and something respectable in butcher's meat and baker's crumb, but that divine co-operation in which the feet cannot say to the head I have no need of you, but all are members one of another. ”

“ Thus while voluntary association is sometimes advocated as a step towards, and sometimes on the other hand as a substitute for, and bulwark against, state socialism, we find in practice these two forces working each in its own sphere, and in ways complementary one to the other, while underlying and essential to both is the force of individual action and self-help. ”

“ At this moment, our nation is facing a host of big and difficult challenges. And more than anything else, what’s required to meet those challenges right now is a sense of cooperation and common purpose among our leaders. ”

“ Union, organization, complex interservice, are the essential processes of a growing society; in them, in the ever-increasing discharge of power along widening lines of action, is the joy and health of social life. But so far men combine in order to better combat ”

“ Some point of contact they must have with the world in which they live, and if their influence is to be based on widespread sympathy, the contact must be in a region where there can be, if not full mutual comprehension, at least a large measure of practical agreement and willing co-operation. ”

“ We have co-operative institutions established among us, and if they are conducted properly they will be a blessing to us. How shall we carry on our co-operative institutions so as to be approved of heaven? ”

“ If God and His will be the end of our endeavour and the object of our co-operation, then the means towards the end and the ways of co-operation must be arrived at, step by step, by effort and experiment, by science and common sense. ”

“ Toolls replied. "Its civilization is divided into various sized units of cooperation which it calls governments. Each unit vies with the others for a greater share of its world's goods. That same rivalry is carried down to the individual within the unit. Each strives for acquisition against his neighbor. ”

“ It may be theorizing and visionary to talk of a time when the spirit of co-operation shall have driven such fellows out of the dairying business, to betake themselves with a pick-ax and spade to the ditch, but that such a time may come ought to be the earnest prayer of every thorough-going friend of co-operation in the land. ”

“ There results this type characterized throughout by that same individual freedom which every commercial transaction implies. The coöperation by which the multiform activities of the societies are carried on, becomes a voluntary cooperation. ”

“ Radically opposed, however, as is compulsory coöperation, the organizing principle of the militant type, to voluntary cooperation, the organizing principle of the industrial type, we may, by observing the decline of institutions exhibiting the one, recognize, by implication, the growth of institutions exhibiting the other. ”

“ Without effective co-ordination, industrial civilization is jeopardized by the dangers of ultraspecialization: monotony, narrowness, and the tendency to breed distrust and jealousy.
13. Effective and wise leadership. In civilization much, very much, depends on an enthusiastic and effective load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together—all at the same moment. And such teamwork—social co-operation—is dependent on leadership. ”

“ The purpose of the joint pursuit in organization characterized by dominance may be either the exclusive good of the master or the joint good of the whole organized group, but in any case it is a purpose formed and kept by those few who know. The group may share in its execution and its benefits, but not in its construction or in the estimating and forecasting of its values. The purpose in coöperation is joint. ”

“ Belonging to all parties, origins, and creeds, but yet agreed upon the advantage of co-operation for the performance of a common duty to ourselves and our country, growing out of a common necessity, we have consented, in view of a brighter and happier future, to merge in oblivion all past differences, of whatever character, or attributable to whatever source. ”

“ The exigencies of life render it necessary that the different elements and forms of society should coöperate together for common interests. They strengthen the desire for social order, they quicken the spirit of organization. ”

“ For we here see that, in the struggle for existence among societies, the survival of the fittest is the survival of those in which the power of military coöperation is the greatest; and military coöperation is that primary kind of coöperation which prepares the way for other kinds of coöperation. ”

“ Where the whole is favored before any part there is a possibility of co-existence and even of cooperation. Placing a part before the whole involves competition all the way from the marketplace to the chancelleries where the fate of nations is discussed and decided. ”