a experience behind them. The experiment
proved successful and the following April a momentous step was taken. It
was proposed that the persons who ate there become the owners. A
cooperative society was formed and in two weeks shares were sold to the
value of two thousand dollars. The new owners took over the cafeteria
and the former owners became their hired employees. This was the
beginning of Our Cooperative Cafeteria.

The cafeteria had from the outset advantages which are gained by many
cooperatives only after bitter and costly experience. They had skillful
and experienced management to which they immediately gave over all
technical control, holding them responsible through an active Board of
Directors and an accounting system devised by experts. The management
justified the confidence of the shareholders. On April 1, 1921, after
one year of operation they had outgrown the first plant and a new branch
had been running for two months. There were in all 379 members. The
year's business had been $96,000, of which $6,000 were net earnings. The
stockholders had received six per cent on their investment, a reserve
fund had been laid aside, and every month the member-patrons had
received rebates on the food eaten of from six per cent to sixteen per
cent. At the end of the second year the third branch, larger than either
of the others, located in the Wall Street business section, had been in
operation for three months. The membership of the society had increased
to 750. The business for the year had been $190,000 and the net earnings
were $12,000.

The cafeteria now employs sixty-eight workers, most of whom are
shareholders and vote as such in membership meetings. The worker
receives the same food as the patrons, served at the same counter.
Against all restaurant traditions the worker is served before the meal
so that she may have the best there is and have it before she is too
tired to eat it. The minimum wage is higher than the customary rate for
restaurant workers in New York. The forty-eight hour week is the
standard, although as yet some of the help work over that time. Overtime
is one thing that the management has not yet been able wholly to
eliminate.

It has been found that the policy determining function of the
stockholders and Board of Directors cannot operate independently of the
plans of the management. The two in a business organization must be
closely inter-related. The stockholders have not tried to super