the most immaculate condition. Recently a group of business men, several
of them builders, went through the buildings and many expressed the wish
that they could get similar apartments for three times the money that
these cooperators were paying. For the best apartments the rent has
recently been raised to $31.50 per month. But out of this amount the
tenant-owner is not only paying all upkeep but is paying off the
mortgage at the rate of $1,000 per year. Similar apartments in the
locality rent from $75 to $80 per month. The tenant-owners, of course,
run their apartments on the cooperative plan of one vote per member.

The members of the Finnish Cooperative Societies of Brooklyn are fast
becoming independent of the middlemen, for cooperation touches them on
many sides. They have learned to serve themselves and they get what they
want, honest goods--and clean.




COOPERATIVES THAT FAILED

When one has made mistakes the importance which is attached to them
depends upon the gravity of the consequences. This being the case, the
stones of cooperatives which follow are worth attention, for, as a
result of their mistakes, they are now dead. One of the most pitiful
aspects of cooperative failures is that one group after another will go
on making the identical mistakes that have brought ruin to others.
Sometimes it is the result of sheer ignorance, and sometimes of shameful
negligence. In either case the result is the same--the stockholders lose
their savings and cooperation feels the blow.