Palmer, Alaska
Dorothy M, Bell,Edibor
Published every* Friday at Palmer, Alaska, for the Matanuska Valley
Farmers’ Co-operating Association for the ipurpose of giving news of the
Associations Work, Problems, and Accomplishments^__
SUBSCRIPTION ,BY MAIL $1.75 H OX $1100 SINGLE COPY $.10
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: CLOQUET 8MS THE PACE
Katherine May
Progress Guide-December
1944
The following article is taken from the Progress Guide for December
1944 and is reprinted here by permission.
In Cloquet they have worked out a formula you ought to know about.
Here is n human relatiohs laboratory where they have perfected a tech
nique for solving social problems through voluntary association.
You don't have that kind of problems? You say your troubles are
purely economic or purely personal? You can't make ends meet? You are
worried about your futur e? You don't seem to get any fun out of life?
This story of how a group of people solved just such problems may
be the answer to your own difficulties.
Cloquet, iwinnesoata, is near Duluth, in the low north coxmtry where
the winter air is sharp and clear--pungent with the tang of white pine
and the clean smell of wood smoke. These people are ordinary folk,
1‘ke you and me--formers, workers, a few teachers, doctors and lawy rs.
A. ‘individuals their aim, ns yours and mine, is to get more and more
of the good things of life for themselves and their families, to make
their labor and money go as far as possible . But because they arc
members of a cooperative society, they have solved many‘of their prob
lems and achieved their aims simply by acting in the common interest.
Together they have bxiilt the largest cooperative retail sterv: in the
United States. With pennies, nickels and quarters they have gradually
accumulated enough to make a mercantile investment worth $150,000., Last
year the net sales of this business totaled $l,<d70„000t. ^or them cooper
ation has nr id well. Their cash reward for working together was a 6
per cent return on their investment, plus another 6 percent return on
their total net salese After setting aside monies for education and
other uses, the members last year accrued over $50,000 as dividends.
But cooperative effort is not merely a dollars and cents proposition
to the members of Cloquet Cooperative Society. To the 3500 members
who,with their families, make up moat of Cloquet, instead of bickering
and pettiness, there is harmony and esprit de corps? Instead of a com
munity of puny individuals pitting fehelr wits to outsmart each other,
wasting their energies in competition with one another, there is a
unity of purpose and method in their efforts.
RADI1-IIFG this cooperative philosophy, the commonwealth of Cloquet
is a jewel among pebbles. If you are familiar with political connivance
bureaucratic delay, and the civic irresponsibility of novcooperative
communities, then you know the spirit of the usual town. B\it not Cloqu t
True to the cooperative principle of neutrality in race, religion and
politics, the Society itself is non-partisan. But the personalities of
Its individual members, strengthened und broadendd by cooperative
achievement, have exerted a vital and progressive force not only on the
political and civic life of the town itself, but on the county and
svnte at large.
(Jari Lind, mayor or oioquet, is a cooperator. His long experience
in Cooperation has been put to the service of creating a clean, libral
and forward-looking municipal administration. “'Educate constantly,
expand continuously,“are cooperative principles brought into the every
day life of its citizens by members Ray Welter of the Board of Edu
cation, Rudolph Rautis, Attorney for the City of Cloquet, and Henry W.
Mattson, City Commissioner.
The sense of personal interest in the welfare of others,farsighted
conception and integrity of execution, which are the hall-mark of co
operative enterprise, have been extended beyond the boundaries oi the
city by Coroner Dr, R.H, Puumala, County Commissioner Martin Kotiranta,
J.IT. McKenna, Chairnan of the. Fusi .r. C ..xiittcc, and State Senator Ray
Ranuia, all nenbers of the Society. * To bo continued^