operation may
simply induce a new form of competition between these big
societies; but no one can study the history of the movement
without becoming persuaded that there is a moral development
carried on which will, in some way as yet not seen to us,
lead up the organization of those societies into some higher
generalization, securing harmony. It is constantly and
rightly said that business can never dispense with that
which makes the secret of capital's success in large
industry and trade, namely, generalship. Co-operation can,
it is admitted, capitalize labor for the small industries,
in which it is capable of making workingmen their own
employers, but it is said it can never, through committees
of management, carry on large industries or trade. I can,
however, see no reason why hereafter it may not enable large
associations to hire superior directing ability at high
salaries, just as paid generals give to republics the
leadership which kings used to supply in monarchies. There
are in the savings-banks of many manufacturing centers in
our country amounts which if capitalized would place the
workingmen of those towns in industrial independence; moneys
which, in some instances, are actually furnishing the
borrowed capital for their own employers. In such towns our
workingmen have saved enough to capitalize their labor, but
for lack of the power of combination, let the advantage of
their own thrift inure to the benefit of men already rich.
They save money and then loan it to rich men to use in
hiring them to work on wages, while the profits go to the
borrowers of labor's savings.

But the chief value of co-operation, in my estimate, is its
educating power. It opens a training school for labor in the
science and art of association.

Labor once effectively united could win its dues, whatever
they may be. The difficulties of such association have lain
in the undeveloped mental and moral condition of the rank
and file of the hosts of labor. * * *

Now, of this effort at co-operation I find scarcely any
trace in the trade organizations of our workingmen.
Trades-unions have until very lately passed the whole
subject by in utter silence. What has been done by
workingmen in this country in the line of co-operation has
be