The Co-opolitan: A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho

The year 1906 should be considered one of the most memorable in the history of Co-operation, more on account of the great peril in which our system was placed than on account of any extraordinary undertaking. Yet perhaps I ought not to say that the year was devoid of important undertakings either, inasmuch as the Co-opolitan Transcontinental Railroad was conceived and planned that year. It was in connection with this enterprise that our peril was unwittingly incurred. The large accumulations of money which our Association was constantly making had become known to the world, so that if our Legislative Council entered upon the consideration of any great proposition the decision was looked for in financial circles, both in Wall Street, New York, and Lombard Street, London, as being a matter of prime importance. Co-opolis was now a formidable opponent and rival of those celebrated centers of competitive iniquity. Its methods were, however, the exact opposite of those of Wall Street and Lombard Street.

The proposition to construct a transcontinental railroad was particularly interesting. It was the plan of Mr. Seabury, chief of the Transportation department, to build the road in question from Co-opolis to Chicago by what he declared to be the only route which extended all the way through a productive country. This route was to parallel the Union Pacific to the Great Shoshone Falls, thence to Idaho Falls, thence veering slightly in a northerly direction to pass through the coal, iron, oil and cattle fields of Wyoming, thence entering the Black Hills region near the center, to proceed across the limestone foundation of that wonderful country, down Rapid Valley to Rapid City, across the divide to Box Elder Valley, down that fertile valley to the Cheyenne River, down Bad River to the Missouri, over the Missouri, and thence through South Dakota, Southern Minnesota and Wisconsin to Chicago. It was also proposed that this road should be extended to Seattle, on Puget Sound.

The plan was considered sufficiently practicable to warrant the Legislative Council to instruct the Engineering department to run preliminary surveys along the proposed route as far as the Missouri River. This order was given in the early spring; I think the records will show that it was about April 10th. A month later there appeared at the Co-opolitan Hotel an elderly gentleman who registered as Lester Hickman, London, England. Mr. Hickman appeared to be merely an English tourist. He did not, at first, make special efforts to get acquainted, but neither did he display any aversion to talking with other guests or citizens who might come in his vicinity. There was nothing about him to particularly attract attention, except that his face was very pale, his hair white, and his eyes were very gray. Perhaps they would have been very white, too, if that had been possible for keen, observing eyes. Mr. Hickman’s clothes fitted him perfectly and his style of dress indicated the neat and modest gentleman. He looked the picture of scholarly innocence and spotless purity. In passing through the hotel I had noticed him several times during the week, and I had seen him on the street several times, but never felt any special curiosity as to who he might be. One day I was in my office when the young man who acted as my messenger and office attendant handed me a card, upon which was the name Lester Hickman. The attendant said the gentleman was in the anteroom and would be glad to speak with me if I was at leisure. I was at leisure and told him to show the gentleman in.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the old gentleman as he entered the door, smiling and bowing good-naturedly.

He had the air of a man whose business could not be very weighty, but whose motives were invariably humane. He was as white as an angel.

“Good afternoon,” I returned. “Your name, I see, is Mr. Lester Hickman. I have noticed you several times about the city. What can I do for you?”

“Do not let me disturb you, sir.” Mr. Hickman looked as if he could become my most intimate friend in five minutes, as he smiled patronizingly and held his hand out toward me with a gesture which seemed to indicate that he was a great man at leisure and that I was a great man whose time might be occupied. The whole manner of the man flattered me and I felt that he had my confidence at once. “I only called for information,” continued he, “and do not wish to take your time, which I know is valuable.”

“I am at your service, Mr. Hickman,” said I. “Will you be seated?”

Mr. Hickman sat down. Even that he did with such graceful, unassuming dignity, and with such exalted deference to me, that I felt flattered again.

“You have a wonderful city, Mr. Braden,” he exclaimed. “Your people have certainly built up a wonderful Commonwealth.” He looked at me as he said this, as if he attributed the wonders he had seen to me.

“Yes,” I replied. “The Co-opolitan has reason to be proud of his city. We have performed what has never before been achieved in nine years.”

“Very true!” assented my visitor. “But you should have added, Mr. Braden, that no people ever did as much in all time.” Here he smiled, and I had an undefinable feeling that he rather considered it would not have been done by the Co-opolitan Association, even, if I had not been a part of it. I found myself warming toward this sprightly, perfectly straight, white little old man wonderfully. He was either the most innocent, interesting and lovable or the most artful and cunning of men. I was inclined to think the former, but experience had taught me that such men would bear study.

“I am anxious, Mr. Braden,” said Mr. Hickman, “to investigate your system of co-operation with a view to establishing a similar system in England. Some of us have a plan on foot to aid our impoverished and idle classes to gain a foothold on earth and I have been sent by my association to study Idaho. It occurred to me that you could aid me in obtaining the information I desire.”

I certainly could not refuse so innocent a request, and I and my people always hastened to extend aid to such an enterprise as he described whenever it was proposed. I assured the gentleman that I would place my department at his disposal and recommended him to see Mr. Edmunds of the Educational department. The latter would place our historical records at his disposal and he would gain, from that source, the fullest information.

This white gentleman remained with me nearly an hour. A more entertaining conversationalist it has rarely been my fortune to meet. He had traveled extensively, was acquainted with most of the famous men of England, and the moral tone of his conversation was the highest conceivable.

“There is only one thing I notice about your system which I cannot approve,” said he. “Your Association has pursued a course calculated to destroy the value of all the public bonds in Idaho except those of the state. There are Boise City municipal bonds, for instance, which have no value in the market because you have constructed a magnificent co-operative city outside the territory affected by them. I do not see how you can escape the charge of immorality in refusing to pay them.”

These remarks were made by the white saint with such apparent sincerity that I did not at that time doubt they sprang from an honest heart. I met him many times after and he never referred to that subject again. He remained in Co-opolis three months, during which time he was a constant attendant upon church and I observed that he was often to be seen in the company of the members of the ministry. Just before he departed he called upon the Legislative Council, then in session, and asked to make a statement to that body. The request was granted and he spoke briefly. He said he understood that the Legislative Council was considering plans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad, that he understood the Association was not then prepared to build the road, but would be obliged to defer the completion of it until its finances permitted; that he was acquainted with numerous philanthropic gentlemen in England who were much interested in Co-opolitan success; that he was able to procure from these gentlemen a loan of one million pounds sterling for the Association, at the nominal rate of three per cent interest per annum, the bonds to run for twenty years; that he would use his best endeavors to accomplish this purpose, providing the Association would agree to purchase at the end of that time the outstanding municipal bonds of the various cities for fifty cents on the dollar. He said he had no knowledge as to who might be the owners of such bonds, but for the good name of the Association he desired to urge that this course be pursued.

The Legislative Council paid very little attention to this proposal, at that time, ascribing it to the gentleman’s ignorance of our system.

Mr. Hickman had not been gone a week before I made a discovery which startled me. I found that a petition was being circulated, under our Association law, asking the President of the Association to submit three laws, which were attached to the petition, to the people, to be voted upon at the next October election. What appalled me most was that they were being circulated by the clergy, who went from house to house for the purpose.

The first provided that the Association borrow $5,000,000.00 for the purpose of constructing a transcontinental railroad and issue bonds on such road bearing three per cent interest per annum and running for twenty years. The second recited the moral obligation of the Association to assume certain municipal bonds which had become valueless and to pay for the same, setting forth also the fact that as long as these bonds remained unpaid the territory formerly occupied by the cities of Lewiston, Boise, Ketchem, Shoshone and several others would be valueless. It then provided that the Association pay for these bonds at the rate of fifty cents on the dollar in five years from the passage of the law. The third provided that all industrial orders be retired and that all labor be paid for after January 1st, 1907, by labor checks which would be non-transferable.

While these three laws were to be submitted separately for the voters to pass upon, they were attached to one petition. The law permitted this action at that time, but as soon as possible after this abuse was discovered the Legislative Council corrected the plain defect so that each law must be supported by a separate petition in order to obtain a reference to the people, and the correction was so obviously proper that it has ever since remained the law.

I made no doubt when I saw this petition that the white saint-like personage, Lester Hickman, was an agent of some English syndicate, and that this whole scheme had been set on foot by him to get the municipal bonds of these several cities paid.

Some time after I learned that I was correct in this surmise. His syndicate had procured the bonds referred to for a mere nominal sum, and hit upon the plan of loaning the Association $5,000,000.00 and getting the bonds paid at the same time. As for the proposed loan, it would have been as safe as the bonds of the nation, and the entire financial world so regarded it. Why not? The Co-opolitan Association was absolutely solvent and was looked upon as enormously rich.

Hickman was a shrewd agent. He had amassed great wealth for himself, and was as artful as any living man in inducing men to part with the fruits of their industry without receiving due compensation. In approaching the Co-opolitan Association he donned the sheep’s clothing of an adviser and advocate of co-operation, and went immediately to the ministry and preached morality. With them he succeeded.

Those who best understood the theory of morals and could preach it in all its purity were least able to discriminate between the spurious and the real. Hickman belonged to a class of artful tempters who have done more to enslave mankind and degrade morals than any other. Members of this class go forth daily from our great cities to lobby in legislative bodies, bribe judges, corrupt city councils and induce the representatives of the people to give away valuable public privileges or part with public utilities.

In Co-opolis Hickman enlisted the clergy by making large donations to the churches, talking to them about a high standard of morality which he professed, claiming to be entirely disinterested and assuming a modest and retiring piety. He was a financial Talleyrand.

The result of Hickman’s efforts was that after he was gone, and almost before we knew what was going on, the petition containing thirty thousand names of members of the Association was sent to the President. This was not twenty per cent of the population of the state, but at that time all Co-operators were not members of the Co-opolitan Association. There were several distinct associations, embracing in their membership a total of nearly forty thousand. There were, besides, some thirty thousand who were not members of any association. Three years later all co-operative associations in the state were received into the Co-opolitan Association, and the individualists who still declined to become identified with our organization were few. But at the time the petitions in question were presented the thirty thousand names affixed to them constituted twenty per cent of the total vote of the Co-opolitan Association.

Here then issue was joined. However impatient our chief officers might feel with the Co-operators who had imprudently and unwisely raised these serious questions, or at least the bond and credit questions, there was no alternative and the duty to refer them to the popular vote was imperative. Some of us felt that it was a great misfortune, and I confess that I trembled for the result. Let me say now, as a candid man, that I have never been very sanguine of the success of any issue which was left to the popular decision, except on the one occasion when I felt faith in the successful establishment of the co-operative programme in 1902.

My faith even then rested upon a theory that the masses will sometimes do right impulsively and err when they stop to deliberate. As a candid man, I am also bound to say that experience proves my suspicions to have been unfounded in every instance. Our referendum law was, and is, in one respect, superior to that of Switzerland. It provided then, as now, that proposed laws should be published for a period of six weeks at least, but, in addition, it very wisely denied to any member the right to vote unless he had attended three public debates in which the law to be voted on was discussed. Our method then, as now, was to appoint certain days for such discussions, and we selected the ablest disputants on both sides of the question at issue to fully present the arguments on their respective sides in joint debate. In this manner the people became fully informed. These disputants were generally recommended then, as now, by the partisans of one or the other theory, but if no recommendation was made the Association appointed an able and learned man to represent the defaulting side.

No political party has ever existed in Idaho since 1905. Men have combined on numerous occasions the better to support their convictions with regard to certain proposed laws; but the men who honestly agreed on one proposition were just as likely to honestly disagree as to the next question. So that each organization was at an end when its mission was accomplished. Moreover, as all are provided for, there is no occasion to form parties to secure political office.