The day book. [volume], January 15, 1914, LAST EDITION, Image 27

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
THE LESSON WE, TOO, MUST LEARN
Some time ago, in Philadelphia, when sweet potatoes were selling, re
tail, at $6 a barrel, Robert C. Wright, freight traffic agent of the Pennsyl
vania Railroad, bought a barrel in Delaware for $1.40, shipped it to the city
at a freight cost of 35 cents, and for 25 cents had the barrel delivered in his
cellar, where it represented an outlay of $2, one-third of the retail market
price.
Here, it will be seen, the services and the toll of middlemen were en
tirely cut out. But
Wright had a cellar. And presumably he traveled to Delaware on com
pany time and a pass.
Most city homes today lack cellars. Which means that the home man
ager can't buy in quantity when provisions are cheapest and store away a
reserve, but must buy from hand to mouth. Hence the. need of storage
warehouses and middlemen. Also, most home managers have to travel on
their own time and pay full fare.
In Philadelphia, as in many other cities, there is talk of establishing
a farm bureau, through which groups of householders wishing country
produce may buy co-operatively, at a saving over present methods.
The( problem is seen to be one of vital consequences to the city's wel
fare, since living's present high cost breeds innumerable, evils. And- many
groups, such as bankers, merchants and humanitarians, are willing to work
some distance together in the effort to solve it.
They are, however, met at every turn by the opposition of business in
terests having a profit stake in the present highly complicated and costly
arrangeVnent. One man's meat is another man's poison.
Anq they are also faced by the fact that such a bureau won't run itself,
but, to have a chance of success, must be managed with skill, and skill
costs.- The "minute 'the overhead charges begin, the saving starts to vanish.
This thing has been done better elsewhere. The co-operative societies
of Great Britain are largely successful and the-profit they make is divided
among shareholders and consumers, comparatively little going to overhead
expense.
A co-operative bakery in Ghent, Belgium, started 33 years ago, has
'succeeded so well that out of the compounded profits it not only gives credit
to members overtaken by adversity, supplies free medical service to its sick
and insures against death and casuality, but also maintains -a fine people's
palace or social center, with lectures, games, concerts, picture shows, the
ater, and light refreshments at trifling cost; and has extended its co-operative
service to include most of the necessaries of life. Throughout Belgium
it has 204 imitators, and the movement is spreading rapidly throughout
mid-Europe.
Isn't it true, then, that the way to lower living costs here is to get more
folks doing productive work and fewer living on their backs?
-o o
TO ELECTRIFY RAILROADS IN
CHICAGO AND SUBURBS
That forty railroads entering. Chi
cago have joined in planning a co
operative system of electrifying their,
systems for both passenger and
freight transportation within the city
of Chicago and the industrial zone
surrounding it was the report made
lo a council committee that met to
day to consider a smoke abatement
ordinance.
Representatives of the roads de
clared that the plan, if carried out,
would entail an expenditure nearly
equal to the cost of Panama canal;