organized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for it
in 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as the
only solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that no
system of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its natural
rights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulate
wealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth.
Cooperation would follow "as a natural consequence," if producers could
secure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. The
government was to extend to the producer "free capital" in addition to
free land which he received with the Homestead Act.

The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousal
of greenbackism, was itself preceded by a movement for consumers'
cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had begun
toward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributive
cooperation. They endeavored to cut off the profits of the middleman by
establishing cooperative grocery stores, meat markets, and coal yards.
The first substantial effort of this kind to attract wide attention was
the formation in December 1862, of the Union Cooperative Association of
Philadelphia, which opened a store. The prime mover and the financial
secretary of this organization was Thomas Phillips, a shoemaker who came
from England in 1852, fired with the principles of the Rochdale
pioneers, that is, cash sales, dividends on purchases rather than on
stock, and "one man, one vote." By 1866 the movement had extended until
practically every important industrial town between Boston and San
Francisco had some form of distributive cooperation. This was the high
tide of the movement. Unfortunately, the condition of the country was
unfavorable to these enterprises and they were destined to early
collapse. The year 1865 witnessed disastrous business failures. The
country was in an uncertain condition and at the end of the sixties the
entire movement had died out.

From 1866 to 1869 experiments in productive cooperation were made by
practically all leading trades including the bakers, coach makers,
collar makers, coal miners, shipwrights, machinists and blacksmiths,
foundry workers, nailers, ship carpenters, and calkers, glass blowers,
hatters, boiler makers, plumbers, iron rollers, tailors, printers,
needle women, and molders. A large proportion of these attempts grew out
of un