ed its doors.

A clever organizer two years ago started organizing a cooperative store
in New York. On the society's letter heads he had printed a picture of
the world and across the world the word "BIG." He was going to start a
whole chain of stores. In three months the first and only store was put
into the hands of an assignee and the man left the city. An audit of his
accounts showed that he had collected $3,600. One-fourth of this had
gone for promotion expenses, $2,350 for rental, fixtures, etc., leaving
only $350 for operating expenses. Where the Finns spent three-tenths of
one per cent for promotion he had spent twenty-five per cent. This had
forced the association to start with so small an operating capital that
it was soon badly embarrassed for lack of funds and could do nothing but
close its doors.

It would be possible to go on with many other illustrations. Such
failures as these are not really a test of genuine cooperation. Any
ordinary business with such management would also have failed. But it is
significant that most of the recent cooperative failures have been among
grocery stores. In this particular business the margin of profit is so
small that only the most skillful and economical management can bring
success. A recent survey of all the private grocery stores in one city
showed that the average annual profit was only $400 per grocer.

There is no longer any excuse for cooperatives to follow the blind into
the pit. There are many sources of information and advice available to
cooperatives that should be fully utilized before any money is spent in
a cooperative enterprise that promises only failure.

FALSE COOPERATIVES

The impractical cooperative which fails is bad enough, for it
discourages many people from making a second attempt, but the false
cooperative is a greater menace to the cooperative movement. The private
promoter with his selfish interests rigs up a scheme to look like
cooperation, but the actual purpose is to provide a channel whereby
thousands of dollars will flow from the pockets of the working people
into those of the promoter. Inasmuch as New York State has a law which
forbids the use of the word cooperation by any concern which is not
organized under the Cooperative Law, such promoters have to be
uncommonly shrewd.

* * * * *

The Glynn System.

Early in 1920 a group of three or four private business men in Buffalo
established a promo