cooperatives that should be fully utilized before any money is spent in
a cooperative enterprise that promises only failure.




FALSE COOPERATIVES

The impractical cooperative which fails is bad enough, for it
discourages many people from making a second attempt, but the false
cooperative is a greater menace to the cooperative movement. The private
promoter with his selfish interests rigs up a scheme to look like
cooperation, but the actual purpose is to provide a channel whereby
thousands of dollars will flow from the pockets of the working people
into those of the promoter. Inasmuch as New York State has a law which
forbids the use of the word cooperation by any concern which is not
organized under the Cooperative Law, such promoters have to be
uncommonly shrewd.

* * * * *

The Glynn System.

Early in 1920 a group of three or four private business men in Buffalo
established a promoting corporation and then set out to organize a
cooperative wholesale which was to be a separate concern from their
promoting enterprise but was to be controlled by it. The promoters sold
shares in the Buffalo Wholesale to individuals in fifteen or twenty
cities and towns all the way across the central part of the State. They
opened up six or seven stores and handled goods in large quantities