failed as did the others in furnishing permanent relief to the workers
as a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the
_American Workman_ published a sympathetic account of its progress
unconsciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitable
tendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer of
this account quotes from these cooperators to show that "the fewer the
stockholders in the company the greater its success."

A similar instance is furnished by the Cooperative Foundry Company of
Rochester. This venture has also been a financial success, though a
partial failure as a cooperative enterprise. When it was established in
1867 all employes were stockholders and profits were divided as follows:
Twelve percent on capital and the balance in proportion to the earnings
of the men. But the capitalist was stronger than the cooperative
brother. Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seventeen
and one-half percent, then to twenty-five, and finally the distribution
of any part of the profits in proportion to wages was discontinued.
Money was made every year and dividends paid, which in 1884 amounted to
forty percent on the capital. At that time about one-fifth of the
employes were stockholders. Also in this case cooperation did not
prevent the usual conflict between employer and employe, as is shown in
a strike of three and a half months' duration. It is interesting to
notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Molders' Union, owned
stock to the amount of $7000.

The machinists, too, throughout this period took an active interest in
cooperation. Their convention which met in October, 1865, appointed a
committee to report on a plan of action to establish a cooperative shop
under the auspices of the International Union. The plan failed of
adoption, but of machinists' shops on the joint-stock plan there were a