GIANTS STIR IN THE NORTHWEST
McMillin, Miles
The Cooperative Movement: Giants Stir In The Northwest By MILES McMILLIN THERE'S a powerful rumbling coming out of the Northwest and it sounds good. That is, it sounds good to everyone but the...
...It's the noise the-people make when they move in great masses and meet each other and clasp hands and roar out in fellowship...
...Cowden's comments recall the story told by Lincoln Steffens in his autobiography...
...It is interesting to note that the 2 most active organizations promoting co-ops in pre-fascist Italy were the Socialists and the Catholic church...
...The way to curb the power of the international cartels," Cowden said, "is to take their business away from them...
...The idea, however, had taken such a firm foothold among the people of Italy that the fascists instituted what were known as prov-vida, or cooperative stores...
...And it doesn't involve protracted anti-trust litigation through all the courts of the land...
...UNRRA Still Hangs Back The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration continues to hang back in its attitude toward encouraging and using co-ops for the reconstruction job in Europe...
...Strength that springs from the faith that they will answer their own problems with their own hearts, heads, and hands...
...It may be one of several steps that will ultimately result in the consolidation of the great co-ops of the Northwest...
...Although encouragement of cooperation is a well settled policy of this country, UNRRA has been exceedingly bashful about being seen in public with the co-ops...
...After several questions had been asked, II Duce interjected the following impatient" comment: "Don't ask me about peace...
...Students of the cooperative movement view this development with a great deal of interest...
...The new organization will combine the power and resources of farm and consumer co-ops in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming...
...Under the Mussolini regime cooperative warehouses were burned and co-op leaders were driven into exile...
...Newspapermen attending a press conference began asking him questions about the peace...
...Mussolini, who had just seized power, came to the Lausanne peace conference following the last war...
...The prescription was recently handed out by Howard A. Cowden, chairman of the International Committee of the Cooperative League of the U. S. A., at a meeting of delegates and economic advisors at the San Francisco Conference...
...Oil, Cowden pointed out, is one of the sore spots in international relations...
...Herbert Lehman, UNRRA director, recently wrote Howard Cowden that the agency will give assistance in the re-establishment of cooperatives only if the government in which the cooperatives are located will request that such assistance be given...
...The giants of the earth are stirring and moving toward each other...
...Nobody is here for peace...
...They're singing a new song of strength and unity...
...In Rome about 800 consumer units sprang up within 2 months after liberation...
...Italy Looks To Co-ops Speaking of the late Duce reminds me that a recent New York Times story had an interesting account of the resurgence of the Italian cooperative movement since fascism was knocked out...
...The government looks to it as one of the most efficient and democratic means of reconstructing the war-ruined country...
...How To Beat The Cartels There is a simple prescription for knocking the starch out of the cartel system...
...These stores were co-op in name only...
...The formation of an international cooperative petroleum association, he said, would take this major trouble-making commodity out of the exclusive control of the cartels and put it in the hands of the common people...
...We are here for oil...
...The venture will bring together the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association, the Farmers Union Central Exchange, Midland Wholesale of Minneapolis, and Central Cooperative Wholesale of Superior, Wis...
...It is estimated that at least 250,000 people have joined the reborn co-op movement in Italy...
...Unity that is born of the recognition that the problems to be tackled are common to all...
...Leaders of the movement predict that in a year or two it will have reached its most powerful position in the history of the country...
...Four of the Northwest's great cooperative giants have linked their arms in a vast new cooperative enterprise—a joint milling business for the cooperative processing and distribution of feeds, seeds, and fertilizer for hundreds of thousands of the Northwest's farmers...
...That's what is happening in the Northwest...
...Almost a million dollars, or about one-third of all the profits were put in II Duce's personal account...
...That is, it sounds good to everyone but the gang who live in the caves of Wall Street...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 29
