A Seattle Utopia Sold in One-Cent Shares

The Seattle Co-operative Commonwealth Society, which was incorporated a few days since with a capital stock of $5 divided into 500 shares of 1 cent each, held its first monthly meeting of stockholders last week at its headquarters, 309 1/2 Front street, and elected the following officers: Trustees, S. Akeriy, H. F. Hesse, P. S. Parker, W. Montelius, H. Raffin, M. Stewart and A. Bartell; president, S. Akeriy; vice president, H. F. Hesse; secretary, D. S. Parker; treasurer, W. Montelius; manager, H. Raffin.

Several communications were received from other cities and states inquiring as to the methods of the society's organization and its ends and aims. There were also requests that organizers be sent out so that similar societies or branches might be organized elsewhere. To this end twelve men were sent out last Saturday to act as organizers, and it was in order to raise funds to defray their expenses that the mass meeting was held last Friday evening.

The Society's Plan.

The articles of incorporation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Society set forth that 'the masses everywhere are walking up and down the fields of discontent and distress like caged lions.' That 'angry mutterings are heard on all sides and desperate efforts are being made by a few reformers to ease the situation.'

'Many affirm,' says the preamble, 'that revolution, like a dark, ominous cloud, hovers over the heads of the people and needs but a favorite current to cause it to burst and sweep with demon-like fury over the civilized nations of the world. Others argue, with as much plausibility, that the people are fast sinking into a stupid slavery, and while surface eruptions may appear as evidence of protest during the period of adjustment, ultimately the people will accept and tolerate the most galling serfdom. It is to be hoped that neither will overtake the good people, but the situation, desperate as it is, like Banquo's ghost, will not down, and some means must be employed to avert social dissolution and destruction of our civilization.

'Here is a plan which is submitted to the fair, just and humane people of this nation:

Four Millions Are Idle.

'It is authoritatively stated that there are 4,000,000 men in the United States out of employment. At least one-fourth of these idle men are unmarried and homeless and live in the large commercial centers. Therefore the plan is this: Organize the Co-operative Commonwealth. Say one-tenth of the 500,000 unmarried, unemployed and homeless men of Greater New York were to organize into such a society, legally incorporated under the laws of the state. Let them be organized in ten or more different parts of the city, as convenience and expediency may dictate. Immediately solicit donations of stoves, dishes, bedding, provisions, etc., to equip an eating and lodging headquarters. Then send committees in search of work, and when secured detail a man or men to do it, the money received for wages to go into a common fund for the common support. New men to be detailed alternately until each has contributed his just share to the common effort. This method to be pursued until two or three days work per week for each member is secured, when wages may be paid, under a properly and equitably adjusted scale. Ten cents per day from each member to be deducted and applied to a reserve or development fund.

'The work of organization could be extended to other commercial centers and in a short time a membership of 500,000 could be secured, which would not absorb one-eighth of the idle men. The work of organization would be as rapid as the necessities of the men would attract them to the society.

'The Development Fund.

'But now comes the main feature of the plan — the reserve or development fund. On a basis of 500,000 men, 10 cents per day for six months or 150 working days, accumulates the marvelous sum of $7,500,000, and in one year $15,000,000. The society is now organized into a national body, or corporation, and has at its command 500,000 men and $15,000,000 of capital. What now can it do? No longer must it depend on an employer for work, and can immediately set nearly all, if not all, its members to work in its own employ...

'The reserve fund could be invested in mines, or the construction of a transcontinental railroad, or ships, or in competition with those corporations which are the most formidable bulwarks to other monopolies. For instance, a railroad with a capital stock of $15,000,000 could be constructed from Portland to Washington City, Baltimore, New York, with branches extending into the Ohio and Pennsylvania coal fields... Within thirty miles of Seattle, Washington, lie tremendous coal deposits. It costs the coal companies less than $1 per ton to place coal on the market for which they receive $4 and $5 per ton... The same is true of the Eastern coal districts.

'In a few years with a membership of over one million... all its members could be profitably employed, and one dollar per day added to the reserve fund as easily as 10 cents the first year.

'When this mammoth corporation had paralyzed individual effort in the matter of production, by offering superior inducements to the individual, all, from self-interest, would join in the common effort of production, and then the name of the society could be changed to that of the United States of America, with the whole people its incorporators and equal stockholders, bringing the dream of Bellamy to a realizing fact at the beginning, instead of the close of the twentieth century.

'Now, this is not a dream. Nor is it beyond the realm of possibilities. It is an organized fact. About the 1st of January in the city of Seattle, Wash., about 100 unemployed men organized themselves into the Industrial Co-Operative Society. They immediately petitioned the city council for ten days work for every 100 members of the society. Like all workingmen's petitions, however, it was smothered in committee. Notwithstanding the city administration used its combined powers to nip the movement in the bud, the society secured an old building in the center of the city at a nominal rent. An appeal was issued to the citizens for stoves, dishes, bedding, provisions and work. Canvassing committees were sent out upon the heels of the appeal, and both met with a marked degree of success, and today the society is comfortably housing its members... They have not only much work under way, but are figuring on several large contracts... The most astonishing fact that impresses one so profoundly is that already the enterprise is an assured success, notwithstanding the society does not contain a single business man, but men who have always depended upon an employer for their daily bread.'