There is one term, the use of which is anathema to the Socialist, and
that term is "human nature." He never wishes to meet or discuss this in
an argument, and with good reason, for it has been shown that it is only
by ignoring human nature entirely, both in theory and in practice, that
Socialism can make even the semblance of a reasonable showing. But
another term, which the Socialist especially likes, is "co-operation,"
and that is one to which he has no manner of right. Cooperation is a
social movement, the impulse for which comes from within the human
heart, while Socialism as already stated, is essentially a working
together only as the result of outward direction and dictation. The
first is the act of a free man; the latter results from the obedience of
a political and mental slave.

We Americans have made one of the greatest successes of history along
the line of political co-operation. Our whole democratic type of
government is based upon this principle as a foundation. But we have
done little toward the free and successful use of co-operation in
business or production. It is here that our British cousins have far
exceeded us even though we have outdistanced them, we think, along
political lines of activity.

It was shown in _The Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin_ for
January 25, 1918, that this co-operative movement in Great Britain has
developed to such an extent that at the present time distributive
societies there number some 3,500,000 members. The turnover of these
societies last year amounted to $605,000,000, to which should be added
$350,000,000 from the co-operative wholesale and the hundred
distributive societies. As a contrast to this, the American people have
been so filled with the individualism necessary to the spirit of the
pioneers who in reality have been "subduing a continent" that they have