The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 19, 1917, Page 5

(XL - B A LA Aol o At s S LA AR S e 2 ° ° : ° o-operation in a New Field How a Community of People of Irish Descent Built a Laundry, Which is Giving Them Real Service and Saving Them Money Interior of Chatfield co-operative laundry. 7 work under more sanitary conditions than prevail in' most city laundries. BY E. B. FUSSELL HERE are plenty of farming communities in the Northwest where Andersons and Olsons and Swensons and Petersons abide. There are a number of communities, too, where the inhabi- tants all bear names like Schmidt and Schneider and Schumacher and Hoff- man and so on. Down at Chatfield, Minn., there is a community of another nationality. The residents there are nearly all Manahans and Cassidys and Twohys and O'Hal- lorans and McGuires. The Irish who settled around Chat- field were determined to stay on the farm and to enjoy some of the good things of life, some the little comforts and luxuries that the people of the cities consider their rights, besides. They knew there was only one way to get some of these advantages. The Irish have been famous all over the world as politicians because they grasped the idea of organizing. So the Irish at Chatfield organized, to work and fight together for the common good. In 1889 they organized a co-operative creamery at Chatfield, the first incor- porated co-operative creamery in the state of Minnesota. The creamery is still going, and going strong. It has paid to the farmers of its vicinity more than $1,300,000 for butter fat; it is do- ing a business of over $100,000 a year now. It has always paid-the highest price for butter fat (45 cents'now) and besides has paid to stockholders, in dividends, $3 for every $1 invested at the time of its organization. WANTED FARM LIFE MADE A BIT EASIER ‘But the Manahans and O'Hallorans and other Chatfield farmers were not content with making profits, They wanted farm life made more pleasant and easier for their women-folk. They wanted to do away with the terrors of Monday wash day and to do away with the colds and sickness that were caus- ed by wash day, colds and sicknesses that sometimes stayed with the women all winter. Two or three attempts had been made by private enterprise to operate laundries in Chatfield, but they all fell through. “It can’t be made to pay,” private enterprise said. . Since private capital wasn’'t willing to go into the laundry business the Manahans and O'Hallorans proposed to go . into the laundry business for themselves—to establish a farmers' co- operative laundry, the first in the Unite;d States. s True, private capital said a laundry business couldn't be made to pay in Chatfield. True, no farmers, anywhere, had ever gone into the laundry busi- ness before. But that didn't daunt the farmers of Chatfield. In 1912 they issued a call for a picnic in the Chatfield city park. Country and city people, men and wo- men, met together and talked it over. Then they put it to a vote. ORGANIZED LAUNDRY ON CO-OPERATIVE PLAN ‘Woman suffrage isn’t legal in Minne- sota, but the farmers thought the women were as much entitled as men to vote on a proposition that concern- ed them most of all, so everybody voted. The result was a hearty in- dorsement of the laundry plan. The creamery company had accum- ulated a surplus of $2000 with which to put up an addition to be used by the laundry. A separate co-operative laundry company was organized and $2200 worth of stock was sold to 224 stockholders, nobody buying less than $5 worth and nobody more than $25 and the $5 man having just as much of a vote as the $25 man. Good mdchinery was bought and competent help was hired. Then the laundry started operations. It has been a success from the start. Every year it has paid its 6 per cent dividends on stock, it has also added to its equipment. Starting with $2200 worth of machinery, it has $3500 worth now. But that hasn’t been the best part of it. The best part has been the prices, The laundry has, until recent- ly, done family washing at the rate of 5 cents a pound, where most laundries charged 6 and 7 cents or even more. This included ironing everything ex- cept starched pieces, which were sent back starched, ready for ironing. On piece work prices have been 8 and 10 cents for shirts, while private laundries charge 10 and 15 cents, 2 cents for handkerchiefs, where private laundries charge 3 cents, 8 cents for underwear, where private laundries chp.rge 10 cents, and so on. Besides this, all farmers who brought their work to the laundry when they came to deliver their cream, and who called for it when they came with cream again, were given a ‘“rebate” of 10 per cent from the list price. The co-operative laundry, within the last month, has been compelled to ad- vance its list prices 10 per cent, just as private laundries have. Coal has gone up 40 per cent, soap has advanced from 4 3-4 cents to 16 3-4 cents, bluing has advanced from $2.75 to $14, and so on. But the list prices of the co- operative laundry are still far below the list prices of privately owned laun- dries, and besides, the farmers, who deliver their own work and call for it again, get their 10 per cent discount, an advantage that is rarely if ever given by a private concern. Last year the co-operative laundry did a business of $6,556.98. Of this $4,383.54 went to pay labor. The co- operative laundry pays its workers well, as much as is paid by the private- ly owned laundries in the city and in, Besides paying for, some cases better. all supplies and paying stock dividends the laundry showed a surplus of $301.01. Home of the co-operative laundry at Chatfield. The building at the left is the co-operative creamery, the first co-operative concern incorporated in the state of Minnesota i PAGE FIVE 2 2 The farmers’ shirts and collars are laundered as well as if they were done in large cities and the employes: The writer talked to William H. Smith, manager of the laundry. Mr. Smith is a practical laundryman from St. Paul. He had always been con- nected with private enterprises be- fore he came to take charge of the Chatfield laundry. PATRONS ALL FEEL INTEREST IN PLANT » “The co-operative launry is able to do work at lower prices and still show a profit because it is co-operative and the farmers’ own enterprise,” said Mr. Smith. “We co-operate with the creamery in the use of power. The creamery tends to the power half the day and the laundry half the day and we divide the expense. “The farmers are interested in the laundry because it is their own enter- prise. In every laundry there is the chance of mistake, of mixing up cloth- ing when it is returned. When I managed a private laundry the people always thought the laundry was trying to put something over on them when a mistake occurred. But it's different here. If a patron finds that he has in his bundle something that doesn't be- long to him, he doesn’t keep it and try to get away with it. He doesn't even wait until the next time he comes to town, but calls us up on the telephone right away to let us know where it is. “But most of all the farmers stick by their laundry because it means an improvement in ‘their conditions of life. I tell you, these farmers around here are independent; if they couldn’t have some of the comforts of life that the people in the cities do, they simply wouldn’t stay on the farm.” LOTS OF PEOPLE COME TO SEE THE LAUNDRY The business people of Chatfield are just as strong boosters for the co- operative laundry as the farmers are. The bankers and merchants have their own kwiled shirts done up at the farm- ers’ laundry; if there wasn’t any such concern they would have to have it done at home or ship their work to Rochester or the Twin Cities. The farmers of Chatfield are proud of their laundry. Other farmers from all parts of the United States and from Canada have come to Chatfield to visit it. Since the Chatfield co-opera- tive laundry was started, the first in the United States, about a dozen others patterned after it have sprung up in different parts of the country. It shows what can be done by economic organi- zation. The farmers of Chatfield are strong for another kind of organization, also. and that is political organization. Since the Nonpartisan league has gone into southeastern Minnesota, the Mana- hans and Cassidys and O’Hallorans have practically - all flocked to its standard. They have seen what or- ganization by farmers has been able to do in their own community; now thex intend to join hands Wwith all the farmers of Minnesota and North Dakota and $South Dakota and Mon- tana and other states for a wider move- ment. And if you ask them about it they will say: “Sure, there's aothing too good. for the Irish.”