Chapter XIV

DEPARTMENT STORES IN THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM—DEPARTMENT STORES IN
CO-OPERATION—THE CO-OPOLITAN ASSOCIATION DISCOVERS THE VALUE OF THE
DEPARTMENT STORE AS A WEAPON OF WARFARE—THE DEATH OF OLD BOISE.

The latter part of the nineteenth century saw strange and novel influences at work in the competitive system of the civilized world. The great advantages accruing from co-operation had become apparent, in those days, to a few, and these employed its methods to a limited extent to acquire vast fortunes for themselves. Such were corporations, trusts, great combinations of capital, department stores and syndicates. These concerns, establishing themselves in every industrial center, absorbed nearly every industry. It was impossible for the individual, the small capitalist, the man, to compete with such institutions, and yet those who were the greatest gainers from them were the most zealous advocates of the competitive system. Wanamaker’s vast department stores in Philadelphia and New York city were good illustrations of what the co-operative institution, employed against the competitor, could accomplish, both for the one man who owned it and against the many who were asked to compete with it.

The owner grew fabulously rich. There was no limit to his acquisitions and he swallowed up all competitors who could not do business on the same system. Commercial house after commercial house fell before Wanamaker. Man after man became bankrupt, not because he lacked business ability, or was idle or inattentive, but because he could not compete with Wanamaker. So it came to pass that in Wanamaker’s great marvels of industry, the department stores, some of the brightest, shrewdest and most expert business men were serving as managers of departments, floor walkers, clerks and bookkeepers. It was, indeed, a vast, ceaseless and mighty army of co-operators intent upon making the fortune of one man, and with such a combination competition could not compete.

In Idaho our colony accidentally discovered the use to which they could put this great “idea” which enabled Wanamaker to conquer the commercial world and force the princes of industry to become his willing slaves. This was the undesigned conquest of Boise City by the Co-operative Commonwealth. When the first Great Council met in January, 1904, our Co-operative Hotel had absorbed the entire business of all other hotels in the city.

All our productive power was so fully employed that we were able to furnish board and lodging for a small sum, of a quality such as few hotels in cities of a hundred thousand persons offered their guests. Our department store was equally successful.

It cost us nothing to advertise.

We painted no signs.

We paid no rents.

The only expense we incurred was the labor we expended, and labor was as plentiful as humanity.

Besides this, we employed labor-saving machinery without stint, and thereby multiplied the enormous power of co-operative labor many times.

We were better and more powerfully prepared to destroy competition than Wanamaker, because we had no expenses and wasted neither time nor money in inviting trade.

We sold daily the best wares and produce which we could manufacture or procure. The excellence of our stocks, together with the smallness of our prices, was our recommendation.

We intensified by our establishment in Boise City the well-known effects of the department store in competitive cities.

All the trade came to us.

Nothing could compete with our system, and merchants and hotel men were compelled to assign for the benefit of creditors, join the Co-operative Commonwealth or depart from the state.

When our new constitution was adopted the Co-opolitan Legislative Council made a rule that all persons who were citizens of the state at that time should be eligible for membership on the same terms as all other members of the National Brotherhood. Most of the merchants and hotel men in Boise City whose occupations were gone chose to join our body and were assigned to positions in the Co-opolitan store or some suitable department at Co-opolis.

Lawyers being largely creatures of competition, nearly all disappeared, and the few who remained either joined us and were assigned to the Legal department or if they remained and did not join engaged in the precarious business of settling up bankrupt estates.

The Association had, with the opening of spring, purchased a pleasantly located tract of land adjoining the city, laid it out on the plan of Co-opolis as nearly as could be done, constructed elegant brick hotel and department store buildings, built a large number of cottages similar to those in Co-opolis, and a commodious school building, and provided water, gas, electric and steam-heating plants. About November 1st, 1903, the entire Co-opolitan plant in Boise City, including the industrial force employed, removed to the new town and old Boise was well nigh deserted.

The reason for this move is apparent.

Old Boise was burdened by debt which it was no part of the design or duty of the Co-operative Commonwealth or of the Co-opolitan colony to pay.

There was a large bonded municipal debt, a large bonded water debt and another large school debt.

The gas and electric plants were also bonded, but those were private debts payable only by such as availed themselves of their advantages.

There was no way to avoid assuming these public debts if we continued in the old city.

Some of our enemies, later on, set up a howl against what they termed our immorality in running away from these obligations. But they were not our obligations. We did not make them and we certainly had a right to live outside of the territory affected by them if we chose. In competitive cities business enterprises and persons of integrity and fortune usually locate where the public burdens are least likely to rest heavily upon them.

While Boise City, that is the collection of town lots, streets and buildings bearing that historic designation, was blighted, the collection of people who had done all the work of building it was immeasurably improved by the Co-operative accession. A new Boise City had begun to grow up on the commercial ruins of the old, but the Boston, New York, St. Louis and Chicago people who held large tracts of land around about and in the city were not benefited by this change. New Boise did not help them. Indeed, their land depreciated in price daily.

The banks of old Boise all went into liquidation and made frantic efforts to collect their debts.

Money loaners did the same.

Insurance agents either fled from the blight or came to us.

Saloonkeepers, speculators in land, dance-hall proprietors, persons whose methods of gaining a livelihood were illegal, women of ill reputation and gamblers all departed for lands unknown.

From the competitive point of view this hegira was regarded as a fatal blow to old Boise. Useless as were their occupations to the production or even distribution of wealth, they had been deemed necessary, because they lured money into the city, and this money, being collected in fines from one class and taxes from another class, went to help pay interest on public bonds. Many a pious holder of municipal bonds would be shocked to learn that but for the toleration of criminal and disgusting practices in the bonded city the bond would be well nigh worthless. Yet such was the case.

The Legislative Council of the city of Co-opolis took full notice of the situation at Boise and after visiting and viewing the city felt and expressed great pleasure. It was our first venture into a competitive city, and at the outset we had entertained some misgivings as to the probabilities of a success. But the seeming necessity of providing accommodations for a Co-operative Legislature forced us to enter Boise City and the results were astonishing. The profits were immense, and it was now evident that the co-operative system was not only a powerful developer of a new and hitherto unoccupied country, but that in very truth it was invincible in the very center of competition. Honesty, justice and fraternity, in combination with industry, were unconquerable, and left no room for the gambler, the speculator, the panderer or the drone. This discovery having been made, the Legislative Council announced its purpose to place a department store and hotel in every city in the state, but to proceed cautiously, so as not to diminish the annual dividends of members.

By the employment of this great industrial force it was believed the citizens of Idaho would speedily be brought to enlist in and share the benefits of the Co-operative Commonwealth. And events have proved the belief correct.