eport,
but at the Congress of 1876 President Earle estimated the annual trade
at $3,000,000.

Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in
"Sovereign Block" at Springfield was dedicated amid such jubilation as
marks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There is
indeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address of
Dedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thrive
until 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fate
in 1880.

The failure of the Sovereigns marked the latest attempt on a large
scale[11] to inoculate the American workingmen with the sort of
cooperative spirit which proved so successful in England.[12]

This failure of distributive cooperation to gain the strong and lasting
foothold in this country that it has abroad has been accounted for in
various ways by different writers. Great emphasis has been laid upon the
lack of capital, the lack of suitable legislation on the subject of
cooperation, the mutual isolation of the educated and wage-earning
classes, the lack of business ability among wage earners, and the
altogether too frequent venality and corruption among cooperators.

Probably the lack of adequate leadership has played as important a part
as any. It is peculiar to America that the wage earner of exceptional
ability can easily find a way for escaping into the class of independent
producers or even employers of labor. The American trade union movement
has suffered much less from this difficulty. The trade unions are
fighting organizations; they demand the sort of leader who is of a
combative spirit, who possesses the organizing ability and the "personal
magnetism" to keep his men in line; and for this kind of ability the
business world offers no particular demand. On the other hand, the
qualifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperative
store, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detail
and business punctuality always will be in great demand in the business
world. Hence, when no barrier is interposed in the form of preempted
opportunities or class bias, the exceptional workingman who possesses
these qualifications will likely desert his class and set up in business
for himself. In England, fortunately for the cooperative movement, such
an escape is very difficult.

The failure of consumers' cooperation in America was helped also by two
other peculiarly Ameri