these comrades was not meant to furnish a capital, but merely to furnish the means with which to agitate for co-operation.
It has been argued that the co-operative movement in the United States has not the same chances of success as the co-operative movement in Europe, because the trusts are too highly developed, and the working class cannot supply sufficient capital to effectively combat them. Is this true? We wish to say that the co-operative movement in Europe has grown phenomenally during the past ten years. The German kartels were much further advanced ten years ago than our tood trusts to-day, with the exception of the meat trusts.
We know as well as our critics that in order to build up a successful co-operative movement a large capital is necessary. But we are also confident that this capital can be secured, but only through hard and persistent labor.
The American Wholesale Co-operative has issued 5% interest-bearing bonds, and although it does not expect to sell enough of these bonds within a few weeks or months to be able to build up an enterprise capable of eliminating the middleman, it does not doubt that at some time in the future the working class of the United States will begin to realize that it is to their advantage to put their savings in their own co-operatives instead of in the banks.
The Socialist Press and Co-operatives
The working people of the United States are certainly not poorer than the working people of Germany, Belgium and Denmark. The working people of Europe managed to raise sufficient capital to establish some of the largest and most powerful distributive co-operatives in the world. There is, perhaps, one difference. The German party press officially urged the people to join the co-operative and stand together solidly. We have as yet not been able to induce the Socialist press in the United States to take any such stand. That our comrades do have the necessary money to invest in their own enterprises is best proven by the recent report on the Wilshire matter.
It was reported in the papers that a very large amount, approximating a million dollars, was collected by Comrade Wilshire to invest in gold mines and rubber plantations.
In my opinion, the trouble with the American workingman is not lack of money, but lack of confidence in his own ability to do things. We have here a great deal of talk about a party-owned press, about party-owned enterprises, but we have as yet never been able to induce the Socialists to invest in their own enterprises the amount of money that was invested in the Wilshire gold mines and rubber plantations.
Strange as it may seem, we are led to believe that with all the enlightenments on the subject the Socialists do not as yet understand the capitalist system. Many still prefer to give their little savings to a bank, where they receive 3% or 4%, or nothing at all. These banks loan their money to small stores, larger stores and manufacturers at 6% to 7%. The stores use this money in turn to exploit the working class, or the original investors of the money, out of from 20% to 25%.
These are facts with which every Socialist ought to be acquainted by this time, and yet in the face of this knowledge they actually support capitalistic institutions, and merely talk about supporting their own institutions.
The question as to what results the American Wholesale Co-operative has thus far obtained is rather difficult to answer. But those connected with the co-operatives have reason to be gratified with what has already been achieved.
More than 200 stores have been organized throughout the United States as a result of our efforts.
We are receiving daily communications from people with whom we have been corresponding for the last year or so telling us that they have started co-operative enterprises of some sort. Yet it would be misleading to say that all these stores are connected with the American Wholesale Co-operative. There is no doubt, however, that as the movement grows a system of centralization will develop in which the American Wholesale Co-operative will play no small part.
CITY
VIGNETTES
By Edwin Björkman
I
The Will To Live
ABOVE me, where the towering tenements ended, the stars of a summer night were barely visible, dimmed not by clouds, but by the fetid breath of the overheated city. Around me the narrow street swarmed with human beings that could not stay indoors, and the noise made by this restless multitude filled the air with a shrill, deafening whir. But at my feet, in an areaway sunk a few feet below the level of the street, there lay six children asleep in a row, stretched side by side on a single mattress.
The sight of them made me stop and lean against the iron railing to look at ease. They were all boys, and brothers beyond any mistake. The youngest might have been three and the eldest ten. They were ranged according to size, with their heads toward the two low-set windows behind which evidently lay their home. Covered by nothing but their own scanty clothing, they slept as peacefully as if a hundred miles of lifeless desert had intervened between them and the crowded, clamorous street.
As I stood there idly gazing at their prostrate forms, my ear caught a sound that would not merge with the rest—a sound unlike anything I had ever heard before—and my heart leapt within me. It was faint at first, but grew steadily in volume and intensity. A woman's wail I made it out to be—long-drawn, rising as if it were to last forever, and then coming to an abrupt end in a short, sharp scream.
The smallest of the sleepers stirred uneasily, woke, tossed about for a moment, and broke at last into loud crying. Instantly someone hissed from within:
"Tacete! Tacete!"
A bushy black head poked out through one of the windows; then a pair of massive shoulders; finally the whole body of a man dressed merely in a bright-colored shirt, baggy trousers, and coarse shoes whitened by dust or lime. Crawling on his hands and knees across the bodies of the two smallest boys, he reached the end of the areaway and found there just space enough to stand up very close to the wall.
As he rose to his feet, he saw me, smiled, and nodded as if he had recognized an intimate friend. Then he spoke to me, and though his speech was crude and broken, his voice was full of that music which seems to be the very soul of Italy.
"The boy, he hear the mother, and he cry too," he said.
Hardly had he finished, when the strange wail rose again and snapped in the same startling way, leaving behind it an inexpressible sense of pain. And again the smallest boy tossed and cried in response.
"Keep still, angelo mio," the man warned. "Mother, she is sick, and she hear. So you must keep very still."
"Are they all yours?" I asked, as the little figure sank back in hushed obedience. But my mind was still busy with the meaning of that dolorous wail which I had already heard twice.
"All mine," the man replied promptly, in a tone of indubitable pride. Then, as he bent down so that he could see something in the room within that was hidden from me, he added: "And one more just coming."
"Oh!" I gasped, with sudden understanding, The next moment I turned my face instinctively to the street, with its weltering mass of shrill humanity. The man's glance followed mine, and apparently he guessed my thought. With something like pensiveness in his voice, he murmured:
"Children all over—such plenty of children—and little room for more."
Once more my glance swept over the row of sleeping boys and tried to reach beyond the glimpse of choked-up bareness revealed by the open basement windows. Lastly I turned to the man himself, looking long and hard at him. In my eyes there must have been a question, for he shrugged his shoulders and grinned a little—apologetically, as I thought. It took a second only. Then his face grew serious and almost dignified. He stood up as straight as he could, looked me full in the face, and said in a changed tone:
"Let them come—we like them!"
For the third time the wail of that woman in pain rose, rose, and broke as before. And I fled, marvelling at that resistless force in whose hands men seem to be nothing but blind tools.
