the interest of the old debt, and gradually as they again accumulated means, a portion of it from time to time was applied on the old debt; and in this way after a series of years all was cleared off, and their transactions with us from that time henceforth were for cash, and we think no inducement could be held out to them to go to the old long credit system.

As a people you are aware that we do not believe in law suits. We prefer to settle our difficulties by arbitration, believing fully that it saves a vast amount of bad feeling between people who should be friends, and should study each other's interest; by this a large saving is made in lawyer's fees and court expenses.

I am, yours truly,

H. S. ELDREDge, Supt.

One feature of interest to every buyer is this, that net cost of manufacture only is charged up to the Institution, so that but one profit-and that a small one-is between the producer and the consumer. But it is unnecessary to illustrate further. That co-operation has succeeded in supplanting personal stores and factories, I do not assert, but rather that co-operation is the defined policy of Mormon society. Some extracts from representative sources will clearly establish this fact. From the Z. C. M. I. Advocate, for March 15th, 1886, I quote the following as an official statement of the views of their directors:

The best exponent of co-operation is Z. C. M. I., of course, not perfect by any means, not as fully co-operative as it could be made, not owned and held strictly by the majority of the people in all sections of the Territory, but, yet despite of whatever restrictions it may have been subjected to, it has ever been the undeviating friend of the people, its authorities have studied the public good, and its stockholders have been satisfied with what might be considered a moderate dividend on their investment; it has set an example in this respect, and the community would have been more protected, and received greater advantages, had the same spirit directed all the local co-operative stores, of the Territory. There are numbers of prosperous stores and there are far more dragging out a lingering existence, in the several settlements, but every one could be absorbed and the profits if any―inure to the people, if ostensible co-operative stores were properly conducted and popularly patronized.

The great drawback of narrowed co-operative, as of combined or personal stores, is, that the primary object is to make money. It is not a percentage simply on the investment that is expected or desired, big profits and fortune is the ultimatum; and the closer we come to co-operation, if this selfish spirit prevails, the greater the evil, for the assumption and presumption is, that such store or organization possesses a claim upon the town or settlement, and so if illy regulated it becomes a monopoly as grasping and avaricious as the most exacting could desire. Is it not because of this that so-called co-op's

have lost prestige and that in little towns where one jealously guarded store would have been ample for necessity, there are now from ten to twenty, dividing the interests, feelings, and working against the progress of the body temporal in almost every sense?

Interesting as an account of co-operative enterprises in Utah may be, it must give way to the great manifestoes of the church upon her social and co-operative systems. The following Encyclical Letter, or apostolic circular, is probably unique in its character among church documents, and as it shows so clearly the spirit of the leaders of the so-called Theocracy, I shall make liberal extracts. It is said to be from the pen of George Q. Cannon, and bears date July 10th, 1875. A careful perusal will throw more light upon the "Mormon Problem" than a study of all the congressional harangues made on the subject. Here are its main points:

TO THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS:

The experience of mankind has shown that the people of communities and nations among whom wealth is the most equally distributed, enjoy the largest degree of liberty, are the least exposed to tyranny and oppression, and suffer the least from luxurious habits which beget vice.

* * *

One of the great evils with which our own nation is menaced at the present time is the wonderful growth of wealth in the hands of a comparatively few individuals. The very liberties for which our fathers contended so steadfastly and courageously, and which they bequeathed to us as a priceless legacy, are endangered by the monstrous power which this accumulation of wealth gives to a few individuals and a few powerful corporations. By its seductive influence results are accomplished which, were it more equally distributed, would be impossible under our form of government. It threatens to give shape to the legislation, both State and National, of the entire country. If this evil should not be checked, and measures not be taken to prevent the continued enormous growth of riches among the class already rich, and the painful increase of destitution and want among the poor, the nation is liable to be overtaken by disaster; for, according to history, such a tendency among nations once powerful was the sure precursor of ruin. The evidence of the restiveness of the people under this condition of affairs in our times is witnessed in the formation of societies of grangers, of patrons of husbandry, trades' unions, etc., etc., combinations of the productive and working classes against capital. Years ago it was perceived that we Latter-day Saints were open to the same dangers as those which beset the rest of the world. A condition of affairs existed among us which was favorable to the growth of riches in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. A wealthy class was being rapidly formed in our midst whose interests, in the course of time, were likely to be diverse from those of the rest of the community. The

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growth of such a class was dangerous to our union; and, of all people, we stand most in need of union and to have our interests identical. Then it was that the Saints were counseled to enter into co-operation. In the absence of the necessary faith to enter upon a more perfect order revealed by the Lord unto the church, this was felt to be the best means of drawing us together and making us one. Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution was organized, and, throughout the Territory, the mercantile business of the various wards and settlements was organized after that pattern. Not only was the mercantile business thus organized, but at various places branches of mechanical, manufacturing, and other productive industries were established upon this basis. To-day, therefore, co-operation among us is no untried experiment; it has been tested, and whenever fairly tested, and under proper management, its results have been most gratifying and fully equal to all that was expected of it, though many attempts have been made to disparage and decry it, to destroy the confidence of the people in it and have it prove a failure. From the day that Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution was organized until this day it has had formidable and combined opposition to contend with, and the most base and unscrupulous methods have been adopted by those who have no interest for the welfare of the people, to destroy its credit. Without alluding to the private assaults upon its credit which have been made by those who felt that it was in their way and who wished to ruin it, the perusal alone of the telegraphic dispatches and correspondence to newspapers, which became public, would exhibit how unparalleled in the history of mercantile enterprises has been the hostility it had to encounter. That it has lived, notwithstanding these bitter and malignant attacks upon it and its credit, is one of the most valuable proofs of the practical worth of co operation to us as a people. Up to this day Z. C. M. I., has had no note go to protest; no firm, by dealing with it, has ever lost a dollar; its business transactions have been satis. factory to its creditors, and yet its purchases have amounted to fifteen millions of dollars! What firm in all this broad land can point to a brighter or more honorable record than this?

* * *

It was not for the purpose alone, however, of making money that Z. C. M. I. was established. A higher object than this prompted its organization. A union of interests was sought to be attained. At the time co-operation was entered upon, the Latter-day Saints were acting in utter disregard of the principles of self-preservation. They were encouraging the growth of evils in their own midst which they condemned as the worst features from which they had been gathered. Large profits were being concentrated in comparatively few hands, instead of being generally distributed among the people. As a consequence, the community was being rapidly divided into classes, and the hateful and unhappy distinctions which the possession and lack of wealth give rise to, were becoming painfully apparent. When the proposition to organize Z. C. M. I., was broached, it was hoped that the community at large would become its stockholders; for if a few individuals only were to own its stock,

the advantages to the community would be limited. The people, therefore, were urged to take shares, and large numbers responded to the appeal. As we have shown, the business proved as successful as its most sanguine friends anticipated. But the distribution of profits among the community was not the only benefit conferred by the organization of co-operation among us. The public at large who did not buy at its stores derived profits, in that the old practice of dealing which prompted traders to increase the price of an article because of its scarcity, was abandoned. Z. C. M. I. declined to be a party to making a corner upon any article of merchandize because of the limited supply in the market. From its organization until the present it has never advanced the price of any article because of its scarcity. Goods therefore in this Territory have been sold at something like fixed rates and reasonable profits since the Institution has had an existence, and practices which are deemed legitimate in some parts of the trading world, and by which, in this Territory, the necessities of consumers were taken advantage of— as, for instance, the selling of sugar at a dollar a pound, and domestics, coffee, tobacco and other articles at an enormous advance over original cost because of their scarcity here—have not been indulged in. In this result the purchasers of goods who have been opposed to co-operation have shared equally with its patrons.

We appeal to the experience of every old settler in this Territory for the truth of what is here stated. They must vividly remember that goods were sold here at prices which the necessities of the people compelled them to pay, and not at cost and transportation, with the addition of a reasonable profit. The railroad, it is true, has made great changes in our method of doing business. But let a blockade occur, and the supply of some necessary article be very limited in our market, can we suppose that traders have so changed in the lapse of a few years that, if there were no check upon them, they would not put up the price of that article in proportion as the necessities of the people made it desirable? They would be untrue to all the training and traditions of their craft if they did not. And it is because this craft is in danger that such an outcry is made against co-operation. Can any one wonder that it should be so, when he remembers that, from the days of Demetrius who made silver shrines for the goddess Diana at Ephesus down to our own times, members of crafts have made constant war upon innovations that were likely to injure their business?

John Taylor, the successor of Brigham Young, has been at all

times as explicit and zealous in this matter as his predecessor. At the annual April Conference in 1878, he spoke in these words:

If we manufacture cloths and boots and shoes, or anything else, we want the institutions to dispose of our goods. If we need encouragement in regard to the introduction of any manufactures of any kind, we want them to help us, and we have a right to expect this of them so far as is wise, prudent and legitimate. I will state that the directors of Z. C. M. I. feel interested in the very things that I am talking about, and I say it to their credit and for your satisfaction. I do not think there is an institution in the United States in a better condition than that is to-day; and it is improving all the time, not after any fictitious manner, but on a solid, firm, reliable basis. Now then, I have proposed to these brethren, which they quite coincide with, that when they shall be able to pay a certain amount as dividends on the means invested, after reserving a sufficient amount to preserve the institution intact against any sudden emergency which may arise, which is proper among all wise and intelligent men, that then the profits of the institution outside of this should be appropriated for the development of home manufactures, the making of machinery, the introduction of self-sustaining principles, and the building up of the Territory generally; and they acquiesced in this feeling; and I say it to their honor and credit. And

I will tell you again that the Church has got a large interest in that institution, consequently we wish to see everything go right, not on any wild, erratic principle, but on a solid, firm, reliable basis, that which when carried out will elicit the admiration and confidence of all good and honorable men.

Later, in the fiftieth annual Conference, April, 1880, "the Year of Jubilee," we find the same subject strongly insisted upon, I make the following extracts:

Elder Franklin D. Richards said:

What better can we do, in this our year of jubilee, in token of our gratitude to God for the abundance of his favors bestowed upon us, than to do good to each other, and to make glad the hearts of the poor in Israel? The authorities of the Church are thinking of doing something by way of aiding such as are needy. The officers of the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company calculate to relieve in part the worthy poor, who are owing for their emigration; and as President Taylor suggested in public on Sunday, let us all do something to aid the poor and make the hearts of the Saints rejoice, and see that no one is allowed to suffer. This same charitable feeling should extend through all our Co-operative Institutions; our rich brethren merchants who have got debts owing to them by the worthy poor, who are struggling with adversity in the world for subsistence, let them get out their accounts and send them receipted, either in full or in part to their debtors, as the case may be, with a note of forgiveness, telling them to lift up their heads and rejoice, and the