I have seldom been more infected by enthusiasm than I once was in
Dulwich at a meeting of English cooperators where I was fairly
overwhelmed by the fervor underlying the businesslike proceedings
of the congress, and certainly when I served as a juror in the
Paris Exposition of 1900, nothing in the entire display in the
department of Social Economy was so imposing as the building
housing the exhibit, which had been erected by cooperative
trades-unions without the assistance of a single contractor.
And so one's faith is kept alive as one occasionally meets a
realized ideal of better human relations. At least traces of
successful cooperation are found even in individualistic America.
I recall my enthusiasm on the day when I set forth to lecture at
New Harmony, Indiana, for I had early been thrilled by the tale
of Robert Owen, as every young person must be who is interested
in social reform; I was delighted to find so much of his spirit
still clinging to the little town which had long ago held one of
his ardent experiments, although the poor old cooperators, who
for many years claimed friendship at Hull-House because they
heard that we "had once tried a cooperative coal association,"
might well have convinced me of the persistency of the
cooperative ideal.
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