The Collapse of a Workingman's Dream

The Washington Trading and Manufacturing Company was organized in Tacoma in the spring of 1887, during the agitation among the workingmen for the principle of cooperative enterprise. It was incorporated with a capital of one million dollars. The incorporators were active leaders of the workingmen, such as J. H. Graham and Thomas Maloney. The objects of the company embraced a wide range of industrial enterprises, but it eventually confined its operations to the establishment of cooperative stores for the workingmen. Mr. Brook Johnson, in the winter of 1887, canvassed Pierce County for subscriptions and raised $4,000, which was the total cash capital of the concern. With this they started two stores; one in New Tacoma and the other in Old Tacoma. Disagreements soon broke out among the patrons and subscribers—one principal cause of complaint being the systematic lowering of the standard of wages among the employees of the stores in order to enable the concern to 'cut under' the trade generally in prices. This displeased alike the workingmen and the other storekeepers of the two towns. The matter entered largely into the canvass for municipal offices last spring, and had much to do with the crushing defeat of the Coalition Labor ticket. This defeat tended to make the cooperative stores unpopular; the workingmen withdrew their patronage, and many of those, it is said, refused to pay their bills, and the enterprise began to lose money. And now, McCracken & Co., of San Francisco, having procured an attachment against the stores, these have been closed up. The affidavit for the attachment charges the concern with having incurred the debts fraudulently.