tically all the civilized countries, not only in storekeeping, but in manufacturing, in farmers' business, in banking, and in insurance. The system is democratic; every member has the same vote, whether he holds a single share on which he has made a small initial payment or whether he holds the maximum shares allowed. Every member pays the same price in a store and gets the same price in a productive enterprise, and whatever profits are made he gets his share according to the amount he has contributed.

Roughly estimated, there are fifty million members of co-operative associations, representing a population of two hundred and fifty million. The plan has been spreading at an accelerating rate; it doubles itself, say, every ten years.

There is no limit to its expansion. The very large profits that are earned and returned are a pressing inducement. Experience has shown that co-operative concerns secure as. good managing ability at moderate pay as private concerns at high salaries.

The Americas have lagged far behind Europe and the Orient in this movement, but there is a substantial start, and it is sure to

come.

In the '70s the Patrons of Husbandry movement ran largely to co-operative stores; the country was full of them. It was a protest against the supposed exorbitant prices and the rigid terms of the merchants. The Patrons took the co-operative idea, but not the Rochdale plan. They sold on credit; they sold at cost; they limited the membership to a class. Any of these motives was obstructive; combined, they made success impossible.

Innumerable stores have been started from that time to this, but rarely on the Rochdale plan--always with some Yankee improvement, always catering to the needy. The Rochdale plan is self-help, not aid to the

helpless, not reprisal against the prosperous. The twenty-eight Rochdalers raised their own capital, they bought the goods they had cash to pay for, they sold them to members or others at full market prices. They economized expenses, got more members, more business, more capital. John Smithie, with the help of the others, did the dealing out evenings. They saved the entire gross profit, which, at the shop credit prices, was large; they had this increase as fresh capital. With this profit and new members they could lay in a more varied stock.

In these times and in this country the number to start a store with should be at least one hundred, with a thousand dollars capital. The size of the start is comparatively unimportant if the spirit, loyalty, and clear-headedness are there. At this date, as at any date in the past forty years, there are probably a thousand co-operative stores in the United States; few of them are five years old. They start with wrong ideas, without sufficient membership or capital or competent management, and, of course, fail. There are a number of stores in the United States fully established and prosperous, but probably not over one per cent of those that have been started in the last forty or fifty

years.

The Johnson County store in Olathe, Kansas, is a notable survival of the Grange stores. It started in 1870, has always prospered, and is the chief store in that town or section; but, unfortunately, shareholding is limited to Patrons of Husbandry, and, these gradually dying out, it has long been merely a joint stock company, earning large profits for its few and fewer stockholders.

A co-operative association must be open to all comers on equal terms; it must give at least half-dividends to non-members; it must give an equal vote to every member regard less of his stockholding.

There are a goodly number of co-operative stores in California, in Washington, in Minnesota, and in New England; but few of them are on the genuine plan; few of them save money for their members, and few of them are of any considerable age. Much more progress has been made by productive associations, such as creameries, fruit and truck shipping, and the like; but this is another story. stores on the Rochdale plan; but only a part of them have succeeded in saving money the members or surviving for any length of

Canada has about a dozen

for

time. The movement is led by Mr. Keen, an Englishman, who devotes a large part of his time to publishing a monthly journal, correspondence, and addresses. He will make it a success in time; devoted leadership is needed.

In Central and South America I have not learned of any attempts at co-operation.

In my own home town of Leclaire, Illinois, we started a co-operative store in 1902, strictly on the Rochdale plan. It has about one hundred and fifty members, about forty thousand dollars a year sales, and regular dividends on purchases of eight or ten per cent, besides paying interest on its capital and accumulating a surplus fund.

After thirty years of active participation in promoting co-operation, I concluded, five years ago, to begin operations in New Orleans, without adhering to the Rochdale plan as far as starting was concerned, but aiming at the same purpose. I planned to establish the business first, then organize a co-operative association later. I adhered to the Rochdale plan of buying and selling for cash, but, instead of selling at the full market price in order to accumulate capital, I sold at as low net prices as economical expenses would allow, and supplied the capital and management myself. I could see my way clear to undersell the current market prices about twenty-five per cent. The goods were sold and paid for at the counter, without any wagon deliveries. The first day's sales were $2.12; the first week's sales, $48; the sales of the ninth month, about $12,000 in the three stores then established. The sales of this year will be about one and a quarter million dollars.

At the beginning of 1915 I organized a co-operative association, made up of twenty thousand $5 shares or memberships. These can be paid for in any way down to 10-cent weekly payments; the dividend begins when the share is paid in full, at the rate of 7 per cent per annum. The association owns all of the stores, a good bakery, a good creamery, a condiment factory, and the stock and equipment on a rented farm. It has a few more than three hundred employees. It is intended to make a net profit of 2 or 3 per cent over and above expenses and interest and depreciation, which will create a free capital for expansion. Several thousand shares have already been taken, and in due time all will be taken off my hands, and thus be completely co-operative. One-fourth of the net profits. are awarded to employees as dividends on

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and give it the necessary business attention. The low prices insure the patronage; the membership of the people insures its permanence and its growth.

Among the practical co-operative authorities there is a divergence of opinion as to centralization in federated stores or autonomous productive associations and consumers' associations. The English and Scotch "wholesales" illustrate the former view; the copart nership associations of Great Britain and the farmers' associations of Ireland and the United States illustrate the latter. I favor the centralized body. In my own undertaking the co-operative association will be the central body for storekeeping, for manufacturing, and for farm production, radiating from the center as far as required.

turn established martial law before it could start the work of relief and rebuilding.

Not long ago, when over a block of pavement in the theatrical district of Manhattan gave way and precipitated Broadway into the subway construction below, Arthur Woods, the Police Commissioner, happened to be one of the first to arrive on the scene. He saw the police lines formed with great promptness, a temporary police precinct established in the street with headquarters designated by a green flag, an emergency desk set on the curb, police draughtsmen and clerks get quickly to work, and written orders, already prepared, being issued to commanding officers for this and that thing which it was known would be wanted. He saw telephone connection established with this temporary headquarters; messages being transmitted promptly and with no confusion. Then, in turn, as the relief measures almost automatically went into effect, he saw ambulance surgeons, nurses, pulmotors, the electric light company, the gas company, and the subway construction company all get to work, and in a very short space of time an intelligently directed, well-organized force of police, streetcar men, firemen, subway builders, and gas and water employees was raising the timbers and pulling out the victims pinned fast below the wreckage.

The Police Commissioner was leaning against the corner of a building, quietly viewing all this, when a newspaper reporter, rushing past, stopped and shouted:

"This is the best police work I have ever seen, but you don't seem to be bothering much about it."

"No," replied the Commissioner; "I did my work on it six months ago."

The above incident is a good illustration of police preparedness on new and modern lines, but it is only one of the things on which the policemen have prepared themselves and which they could do well if suddenly called upon. Lectures, study, and practice have been one means used to accomplish these results. The lecture course to inspectors and captains was started last year, and is again being given this winter at headquarters. It has proved so beneficial that the Committee on Preparedness has decided to establish a school of instruction in every district.

Police officers will be assigned as teachers, and policemen will get a short course in the theory and practice of selfmaintenance and relief work. They will learn the composition of a commissary department and of the quartermaster's division, and will acquaint themselves with the field camp outfit, including cooking utensils and equipment, with instructions where and how to secure them at short notice.

To demonstrate what they are learning in theory, the police officers hope one of these days to be able to establish a practice camp. Commissioner Woods himself and a goodly squad from the force attended the Plattsburgh Camp last summer, gaining many ideas therefrom to apply to police preparedness. This winter a police officer has been sent to Fort Myer, Virginia, to study and report on army methods for the care, feeding, and general handling of horses.

While the Police Department as an organization is beginning this new training, it is also being tried out on two or three companies of so-called militia, recruited from citizens. The members of this police militia will receive neither pay nor a badge, will be given neither uniform nor arms, and will not be called upon for duty unless some great emergency arises in the city. One company in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn has been meeting two nights a week to be instructed in the ordinary police duties, such as patrolling and regulating traffic. If the idea proves practical, in times of stress such companies

as these would be competent to relicve the regular force of routine jobs, and leave the seasoned and better-trained men to the graver and more serious work.

sources.

As disaster almost always spells refugees, one of the principal occupations of Max F. Schmittberger, Chief Inspector, during the past year has been the study of relief. To understand how to organize this effectively and instantly required a complete knowledge of all the facilities at hand. So his committee named branch committees and started a farreaching investigation of the city's great reIn each precinct a local committee of police officers was asked to report on shelter. The normal and extreme capacity of all halls, lofts, school-houses, station-houses, asylums, and other public institutions was discovered. The information about each place, its location, proprietor, the nearest subway and elevated station, and remarks, are now filed in the proper classification at Headquarters. A duplicate has been sent back to each precinct. The number of people the churches would hold, the beds in the hospitals and how many more could be crowded in at a pinch, where such beds could be obtained-all such matters have been

entered on separate cards. Wholesale druggists and hospital supply houses are listed. All vacant spaces which might possibly be utilized for camps have been located.

Then these same committees took up the question of food. In each precinct a full list of the bakeries was prepared, and exactly what the apparatus could do if pushed to the limit. The committee was required not only to figure out how much flour and other ingredients would be required for the amount of baking and to discover the sources of supply, but to make, accordingly, provisional contracts for such materials. Bills of fare have already been printed for twenty-one meals which could be furnished to twentyfive or fifty thousand people at a low flat cost, provided the weight of food estimated sufficient for each person were adhered to. Requisition blanks for raw materials have also been printed. Kitchens which might be impressed have been listed. Patrol wagons have been surveyed to see how they will accommodate fireless cookers. Significant change for Black Marias ! Formerly

an object of terror, like the policeman him. self-a symbol of fear-they are to be turned into protectors, friendly black cooks which will dispense food to the starving. This is

exactly in line with the new penology, which decrees that the policeman shall no longer be a threat, a stern, headless and heartless uniform, but shall become a human, helpful, intelligent social convenience.

But what if some night the city should suddenly awaken to find that it could not talk? Suppose the telephone and telegraph wires were put out of commission, entirely cutting off communication between great parts of the city. What could the police do then?

Already signal practice has been begun so that orders could be wigwagged or heliographed in code to Brooklyn. The police. there would merely have to refer to their files and draw out the orders covering this contingency. Each precinct has its own orders. Signal stations are already selected, and the work will be extended to wirelessportable wireless as well-to acetylene and Ardois lights, gun signals, and so on, as fast as the Department has money for it. Every aeroplane owner in the city is part of a still unconscious auxiliary of the police; the name of each one, with the sort of craft he flies, and every factory where machines are made, are filed, so that an air flotilla numbering several hundred could be commandeered to use both for scouts and special messengers.

Starting from another angle, imagine, if you can, a great fire in Brooklyn, or some catastrophe equally great, which should, if you please, destroy the subways, and the bridges spanning the East River. The people. of Brooklyn then would have to be transported to New York. For such a contingency the police have a navy all their own, the First Metropolitan, consisting of an immense number of privately owned motor boats carrying from seven to thirty-five-every owner and the capacity of his craft is a matter of record, even to the telephone number-and the harbor fleet of tugs, lighters, yachts, ferries, and steamers plying the Sound and river. The host would be got across without swimming.

On reaching New York shores the refugees would be sent all over the city to various homes and shelters until these were filled. If ordinary transportation lines were inadequate, there is practically an army of big conveyances which would be called.

The contents of the garages and stables, public and private, motor trucks from breweries, express companies, and mercantile houses, would be quickly converted into carryalls for a large

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number of people. If these were injured, the police would convert motor cars into ambulances in the most approved style.

If the number of refugees exceeded the quarters under roof, tent cities would mushroom up in a jiffy under police direction, upon general lines laid down for the police camp this coming summer. New York would follow the example of the Belgian refugee camps in Holland, and segregate the

sexes.

A

The police will know exactly how to scale the camp according to the number to be. cared for. They have full knowledge of the places from which lumber and materials can be assembled. The people themselves would construct them. A post-office, camp headquarters, an emergency hospital, an exchange and information bureau, will be features. labor bureau pro tem. may be started, so that, for instance, if a baker or a clerk were required, the trained man would be found without delay-and "No work, no food," will be the rule. The Bureau of Missing Persons will have a special force ready to handle the inevitable cases of separation.

This splendid helpful service for shepherding a frightened flock and maintaining all the services of a city in time of terror will be a new thing. For the first time in the face of any great disaster the police will be ready to handle the city situation alone, to procure order, discipline offenders, and direct constructive measures of relief.

From the most acute angle of vision it is clear that missionaries sent to Congress to pray for preparation cannot speak half so eloquently as an object-lesson at home of preparedness for whatever may come. If this is a desirable state of efficiency, particularly to coastal cities because of war, it is equally an ambition every city should have because of peace. Preparing against disaster is a constructive peace game which the police are playing, since it stimulates the policeman's interest in the well-being of citizens and teaches him how to care for them. In the force it induces a feeling of team-work and brotherhood previously lacking and builds up an esprit de corps. This brotherhood has greater possibilities than the ordinary regimental affiliation, because the tasks it will be engaged in are not destructive-the work in part requires a Red Cross spirit. moting the constructive police idea, which is more and more imperative in ordinary timesthis sort of preparedness is effective, active pacificism.

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