CO-OPERATION

In contrast to other classes of the population country people have a marked preference for individual action and an aversion to co-operative effort. The causes of this are historical. In general these causes are of the past and they are not a matter of persuasion. The American farmer has not co-operated in the past because: first, the necessities of his life made him independent and impatient of the sacrifices necessary in co-operating with his fellows. We have still many influences of the pioneer in modern life. So long as agriculture is solitary work and its processes take a man away from his fellows, co-operation will be retarded. So long as the countryman has to practise a variety of trades, he will be emotional, and the social life of the country will be broken up by feuds, divisions, separations and continued misunderstandings. No mere education as to alleged right and wrong can plaster over the old economy with new ethical standards. Until the loneliness and the emotion are taken out of farming country people cannot co-operate.

A good part of the United States is still in the land farmer period. The characteristic of the land farmer is his cultivation of group life. The historical process by which this group life is broken up is exploitation. Farmers whose lands have not been exploited and whose group life has not suffered the undermining influence of exploitation will not normally co-operate. I am convinced that in most farming territories the loyalty of the countryman to his group is the second reason for his refusal to co-operate. Again, this refusal of his is not subject to persuasion. He is obeying an economic condition which shapes his life and controls his action. Striking instances are furnished in many regions of the amazing disloyalty of farmers to one another, and to their own pledged word. These are to be explained by the type to which the farmer in these sections conforms. We must not expect the land farmer to obey the ethical standards of the husbandman.

A good instance of this conformity to type was furnished in the case of meetings held in Louisiana and Western Mississippi among the farmers who raise cotton. The occasion of the meetings was the approach of the boll weevil to their districts. The attendance upon the meetings was large, indeed universal. The situation was clearly understood and the speakers secured from the farmers present a promise quite unanimous to refrain from cultivating cotton for a year. The purpose of this was to meet the boll weevil with a territory in which he would find no food. Thus his march eastward across the cotton field would be arrested.

The farmers having made their promise and agreed heartily in the proposal, adjourned. Weeks and months passed and the time approached for planting cotton. Farmer after farmer, who had attended these meetings and given his promise, privately decided that he would plant a cotton crop and secretly expected that he would secure a larger price that year because so many of his neighbors were to raise other crops. When the full season for planting cotton had come it was discovered that so many farmers had planted cotton that the plan of co-operation was a failure, and the whole district went back to cotton, with full prospect of assisting the boll weevil in his course toward the East. The reasons for this action lie in the type of farmer who thus found it impossible to co-operate. Each of these farmers regarded above all other things the success of his own farm and his own family group. In contrast to this interest no other claim, no exhortation and not even his word given in public had any lasting influence upon his action.

The third element in the inability of country people to co-operate is the ideal of level democratic equality which prevails in the country. Where universal land-ownership has been the rule every countryman thinks himself “as good as anybody else.” So long as this ideal prevails, that subjection of himself to another, and the controlling of his action by the interests of the community, are impossible. The farmer cannot co-operate when he thinks of social life in terms of pure democracy. There must be a large sense of team work, a loyal and instinctive obedience to leaders, a devoted spirit which looks for honest leadership, before there can be co-operation. These things come not by persuasion, but by experience. Co-operation is the act of a mature people. Not until country people have passed through earlier stages and discarded earlier ideals can the preacher and the organizer and the teacher successfully inculcate a spirit of co-operation.

Country churches are highly representative in their present divided condition. This multiplication of churches in the country is lamentable chiefly because it registers the divided state of country life. It is true that divided churches are religiously inefficient, but it is vastly more important that divided churches are embodiments of what one country minister calls “the tuberculosis of the American farmer, individualism.”

It was natural for the pioneer to desire a religion in terms of a message of personal salvation. Personality in his lonely life was the noblest, indeed the only form of humanity known to him, therefore the herald was his minister and emotion was his religion. It is very natural for the land farmer to organize religion in terms of group life. His churches were only handmaids of his household. They had but the beginnings of social organization. They taught the ethics of home life, of the separate farm and of a land-owning people. Obviously the church for the pioneer and for the land farmer could be a very weak and indifferent organization, but efficient for the religious needs of those independent, self-reliant types of countrymen.

For these reasons in all parts of the country the pitiful story is heard of divided communities. One need not recite it here. It usually is the account of three hundred or four hundred people with five or six country churches. At its worst there is a small community in which missionary agencies are supporting ministers who do not average one hundred possible families apiece in the community. The condition of Center Hall, Pennsylvania, has been described in another chapter, in which there are within a radius of four miles from a given point twenty-four country churches. This community represents a condition of transition from the land-farmer type to that of exploitation. Some of these churches are the old churches of the land-owning resident farmers, but the most of them are said to be the newer churches of tenants who have come into the community. Our present concern is to recognize the relation of the divided churches to the divided social life of the community. The criticism of the country community must be made on an understanding of the stage of development to which that community has attained. Whatever is planned for the upbuilding of the country community must be planned in harmony with the well-known facts of rural development.

Business life introduces into the community a new standard of values. Cash and credit take the place of barter. The exchange in kind on which originally the community depended comes to an end. Business life very shortly induces combination. The whole of modern business presents a spectacle of universal combination and co-operation. The farmer who is most conservative is surrounded on all sides by the aggressive forces of business. Combined in their own interest they compete with him on unequal terms. He stands alone and they stand combined.

Americans are looking with growing interest on the experience of Denmark where a multitude of co-operative associations represent the spirit of the people. This spirit has been deliberately cultivated in the land for forty years. It is the universal testimony of observers that the prosperity of Denmark is dependent on these co-operative agencies and upon this united spirit. The exodus from the country has been arrested, agriculture has been made a desirable occupation, profitable for the farmer and most probable for the state, and the people as a whole have taken front rank in social and economic welfare. Essential to this constructive period of Denmark’s life is co-operation.

In Sir Horace Plunkett’s recent book, “The Rural Life Problem in The United States,” he develops this principle clearly. He says that in the organization of country life in Ireland it was necessary to go into the very heart of the people’s experience and organize their economic and social processes in forms of co-operation.

“When farmers combine, it is a combination not of money only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business. In a co-operative creamery for example, the chief contribution of a shareholder is in milk; in a co-operative elevator, corn; in other cases it may be fruit or vegetables, or a variety of material things rather than cash. But it is, most of all, a combination of neighbors within an area small enough to allow of all the members meeting frequently at the business center. As the system develops, the local associations are federated for larger business transactions, but these are governed by delegates carefully chosen by the members of the constituent bodies. The object of such associations is primarily, not to declare a dividend, but rather to improve the conditions of the industry for the members.

“It is recognized that the poor man’s co-operation is as important as the rich man’s subscription. ‘One man, one vote,’ is the almost universal principle in co-operative bodies.

“The distinction between the capitalistic basis of joint stock organization and the more human character of the co-operative system is fundamentally important.

“In this matter I am here speaking from practical experience in Ireland. Twenty years ago the pioneers of our rural life movement found it necessary to concentrate their efforts upon the reorganization of the farmer’s business.

“1. We began with the dairying industry, and already half the export of Irish butter comes from the co-operative societies we established.

“2. Organized bodies of farmers are learning to purchase their agricultural requirements intelligently and economically.

“3. They are also beginning to adopt the methods of the organized foreign farmer in controlling the sale of their butter, eggs and poultry in the British markets.

“4. And they not only combine in agricultural production and distribution, but are also making a promising beginning in grappling with the problem of agricultural finance. It is in the last portion of the Irish programme that by far the most interesting study of the co-operative system can be made, on account of its success in the poorest parts of the Island. Furthermore, the attempt to enable the most embarrassed section of the Irish peasantry to procure working capital illustrates some features of agricultural co-operation which will have suggestive value for American farmers.

“A body of very poor persons, individually in the commercial sense of the term insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has been somewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called ’the capitalization of their honesty and industry.’ The way in which this is done is remarkably ingenious. The credit society is organized in the usual democratic way explained above, but its constitution is peculiar in one respect. The members have to become jointly and severally responsible for the debts of the association, which borrows on this unlimited liability from the ordinary commercial bank, or, in some cases, from Government sources. After the initial stage, when the institution becomes firmly established, it attracts local deposits, and thus the savings of the community, which are too often hoarded, are set free to fructify in the community. The procedure by which the money borrowed is lent to the members of the association is the essential feature of the scheme. The member requiring the loan must state what he is going to do with the money. He must satisfy the committee of the association, who know the man and his business, that the proposed investment is one which will enable him to repay both principal and interest. He must enter into a bond with two sureties for the repayment of the loan, and needless to say the characters of both the borrower and his sureties are very carefully considered. The period for which the loan is granted is arranged to meet the needs of the case, as determined by the committee after a full discussion with the borrower. Once the loan has been made, it becomes the concern of every member of the association to see that it is applied to the ’approved purpose’ as it is technically called. What is more important is that all the borrower’s fellow-members become interested in his business and anxious for its success.

“The fact that nearly three hundred of these societies are at work in Ireland and that, although their transactions are on a very modest scale, the system is steadily growing both in the numbers of its adherents and in the turnover, this fact is, I think, a remarkable testimony to the value of the co-operative system. The details I have given illustrate one important distinction between co-operation, which enables the farmer to do his business in a way that suits him, and the urban form of combination, which is unsuited to his needs.”

The traditional economy that centered in the farm household was independent. The ethical standards of country life recognized but small obligations to those outside the household. Farmers still idealize an individual, or rather a group, success. They entertain the hope that their farm may raise some specialty for which a better price shall be gained and by which an exceptional advantage in the market shall be possessed. The conditions of the world economy are imposing upon the farmer the necessity of co-operation.

The prices of all the farmers’ products are fixed by the marginal goods put upon the market. For instance, the standard milk for which the price is paid to dairy farmers, is the milk which can barely secure a purchaser. The poor quality, relative uncleanness, and the low grade of the marginal milk dominate the general market in every city, and the farmer who produces a better grade gets nothing for the difference. It is true that there is a special price paid by hospitals and a limited market may be established by special institutions, but we are dealing here with general conditions such as affect the average milk farmer and the great bulk of the farmers. It is on these average conditions alone that the country community can depend.

Co-operation is the essential measure by which the producer of marginal goods can be influenced. To raise the standard of his product it is necessary to have a combination of producers. So long as the better farmer is dependent by economic law upon those prices paid for marginal goods, the only way for the better farmer to secure a better gain is to engage in co-operation which shall include the poorer and the marginal farmer.

In the Kentucky counties which raise Burley tobacco, a few years ago the tenant farmer was an economic slave. He sold his crop at a price dictated by a combination of buyers. He lived throughout the year on credit. His wife and his children were obliged to work in the field in summer. He had nothing for contribution to community institutions. Indeed, he very frequently ended the year without paying his debts for food and clothing.

The organizations of these farmers which have been formed in recent years for self-protection have been blamed for some outrageous deeds. Persons in sympathy with these organizations have burned the barns of farmers unwilling to enter the combination. They have administered whippings and threats right and left in the interest of the farmers’ organization. In their contest with the buyers to secure a better price they have reduced to ashes some of the warehouses of the monopoly to which they were obliged to sell their tobacco. These public outrages are worthy of condemnation. The writer believes that they were not essential to the process of co-operation by which the farmers fought their way to better success, though the effect of these acts is a part of the historical process.

But the combination of farmers has redeemed the poorer, the tenant farmer and the small farmer from economic slavery. His representatives now fix the price of the product. There is one buyer and one seller, competition being eliminated; and the price at which the tobacco is sold is the farmers’ price, not the manufacturer’s price. As a result the farmers are able to hire help. The wife and children no longer work in the field. The bills are paid as they are incurred, instead of credit slavery binding the farmer from year to year. Last of all this prosperity has taken form in better roads, better schools and better churches. It remains only to be said that among the farmers engaging in this co-operative union there were many preachers and pastors of the region. They took a large part in the combinations of farmers which affected this great gain. They recognized that the fight of the farmers for self-respect and for free existence was a religious struggle and that the church had a common interest in the well being of the population to which it ministered.

Another instance of co-operation is seen in Delaware and on the “Eastern Shore” where the soil had been exhausted. Methods of slavery days were unfavorable to the land and after the War it was long neglected. In recent years a new type of farmer has come into this territory. By intensive cultivation with scientific methods, he is raising small fruits, berries, vegetables and other products, for the nearby markets in the great cities. The success of these farmers has been dependent upon their produce exchanges. They have learned, contrary to the traditional belief of farmers, that there is a greater profit for the individual farmer in raising the same crop as his neighbor, than there is in an especial crop which competes in the market for itself. That is to say, in shipping a carload of strawberries the farmer gets a better price when the car is filled with one kind of berry than he would receive if the car was made up of a number of separate consignments under different names and of different varieties. Co-operation has been better for the individual than competition.

It at once becomes evident that co-operation is an ethical and a religious discipline. As soon as the farming population is saturated with the idea, which these farmers fully understand who have prospered by co-operation, the religious message in these territories will be a new message of brotherhood. The old gospel of an individual salvation apart from men and often at the expense of other men will be enlarged and renewed into a gospel of social salvation. No man will be saved to a Heaven apart or to a salvation which he attains by competition or by comparison, but men shall be saved through their fellows and with their fellows. The country church, of all our churches, will teach in the days to come the gospel of unity.

The writer’s own experience as a country minister was a perfect illustration of this union of all members of a community. In the community Quakers, Irish Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Baptists were represented in nearly equal numbers. With people widely diverse in their economic position, though dependent upon one another, it became evident to all that the only religious experience of the community must be an experience of unity. Under the leadership of an old Quaker who supplied the funds and of two others of gracious spirit and broad intellect, the whole community was united, on the condition that all should share in that which any did. One church was organized to receive all the adherents of Protestant faith and one service of worship united all, whether within or without the church. Even the Roman Catholics once or twice a year for twenty years have been brought together in meetings which express the unity of the countryside.

Other instances there are of co-operation among churches in the country, but their number is not great. There is a supplementary co-operation in the division of territory in some states. The church at Hanover, N. J., has a territory six miles by four, in which no other church has been established. This old Presbyterian congregation has peopled its countryside with its chapels and has assembled the chapel worshippers regularly at its services in the old church at the graveyard and the manse.

In Rock Creek, Illinois, the Presbyterian Church has a community to itself, and ministers in its territory with the same efficiency with which the Baptist church across the creek ministers to its territory, in which it also has a religious monopoly. These two congregations respect one another and have a sense of supplementing one another, which is a form of co-operation. The ideal expressed in these two instances is cherished by many. It is hoped that religious bodies may agree in time to divide the territory, to give up churches, to sell or transfer property rights and to shift their ministers from communities which have too many to those communities not served at all. But the way for this co-operation as an active principle has not yet opened. Its value is in those communities which have had it from the first as an inheritance. It has so far not proven a remedy to be applied for the cure of existing evils.

The writer believes that the path of co-operation is the efficient and slow one of economic and social organization rather than the delusive short-cut of religious union. People cannot be united in religion until they are united in their social economy. The business of the church is to organize co-operative enterprises, economic, social and educational, and to school the people in the joy, to educate them in the advantages, of life together. Co-operation must become a gospel. Union requires to be a religious doctrine. It will be well for a long time to come to say but little about organic union of churches and to say a great deal about the union in the life of the people themselves.