Saving is the problem of over there, and of the future. Spending is the problem of here and now, and in the expenditure for present needs as well as in saving for future wants the foreign-born housewife meets with special difficulties. She is handicapped by the kinds of places at which she must buy, because of language, custom, and time limitations, as well as the grade of article available. Through the complicated maze of choices open to her she must steer her way to obtain for her family the highest returns for an all too small expenditure. The art of spending, too often neglected by her native-born sisters, takes on added difficulties for the untrained immigrant woman.

From the point of view of the housewife the desirable thing is that the transaction of buying her household goods and food and of selecting her house, shall be as simple as possible. It should be made easy for her to know the quantity and to judge the quality of any article she considers, so that she may the more easily compare its possible use to her with the use of other articles that might be secured for the same amount of money. It is also important that she have as definite ideas as possible as to the range of the demand for different kinds of goods, so that she may buy as few as possible of the goods on which the price of special risk is placed. In many cases she needs really expert advice. In the absence of such help she may do her buying in either of two states of mind. She may think that all merchants are cheats, there "to do her and to do her first," or she may think that she has a right to expect from the dealer frank and kindly advice.

In the present state of the retail organization she may find either attitude. In shops kept by her co-nationals she will naturally have the utmost confidence. This puts the small neighborhood stores in a position of peculiar privilege, and makes it doubly easy for them to take subtle advantage of the unwary customer. Even when the dealer takes no special advantage of his customer, in following the general practice of the trade, he can create innumerable situations in which her problem is rendered more, rather than less, complicated. The indefinite package is substituted for the definite weight or measure. The "bars" of soap vary in weight and in composition. The trade mark used to tell her that X made goods whose quality she knew; the trade name, based on incalculable sums spent in skillful advertising, tells her nothing that is of intrinsic use to her. It connects a name with a repeated suggestion that she buy. By the trading stamp, the premium, and the bargain counter the merchant tries to persuade her that she is getting more than she pays for. He appeals to the gambling instinct and introduces into a drab life something of the excitement of the roulette table.

THE COMPANY STORE

In mining communities and other places in which there are "company stores," there is the pressure exercised by the employer to force the employee to deal only with the company store, even when there are other stores in the neighborhood.

The United States Immigration Commission had something to say on this point. It made it clear that, while there are instances of an employer giving his employees a fair deal when he becomes merchant and they purchasers, the combination of employing and merchandising functions is often perilous. Even if the employee appears to have a choice, he fears the loss of his job if he does not buy at the company store. The evils connected with so-called "truck payments" have long been recognized. They change only in form when the company check replaces the old payment in kind.[32]

In some states this evil has been recognized by legislation prohibiting the combination of industrial and merchandising functions. Where such is the case, as in Pennsylvania, the statute is evaded. A separate corporation is organized by the same individuals, or a store is conducted by an individual who is a member of the mining corporation. Where there is a "store" administered in any of these ways, "company checks" may be issued between pay days. Or "store books" may be issued, the items purchased being recorded, and deducted on pay day from the wages of the employee.

The Immigration Commission published a table[33] of the expenditures at such stores, the amounts deducted from the wages, and the proportion of earnings left to be collected at the end of the month, illustrating the confusing effect of these practices on the housewife whose income should be a settled and regular amount. While some of the Croatians and Magyars spent hardly a fourth or a third of their earnings at the company store, others in the same national groups collected on pay day less than a fifth or even less than a tenth of their earnings. From this balance must come the payments for rent, medical service, entertainment, school, for all things other than food, clothes, and furniture.

It may be that in some cases the employee is able to secure at the company store as good articles as he can obtain elsewhere and for the same prices, but this is by no means common. In West Virginia it was found necessary to enact legislation forbidding a company which ran a store to charge its own employees higher prices than the employees of other companies were charged.[34] The Immigration Commission found not only that in some cases the stock was inferior and the prices high, but that there was a sense of compulsion that made it almost impossible to adjust income and needs.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the supply of housing accommodations by the employer has the same influence as the supply of food and clothing. The power as employer may be, and often is, exerted to fix the conditions under which the family life goes on; and the tenant is deprived of the experience of selecting, of choosing, of balancing what one gives with what one gets.[35]

A similar objection may be raised to payment of wages by check. In the old days, before the world went dry, one service the saloon was frequently called on to render was that of cashing checks. Either payment in "lawful money" or an opportunity to exchange at once for lawful money is the only method of paying wages that gives the housewife her full opportunity.

SHOPPING HABITS

The immigrant housewife is restricted by her ignorance of places and methods of marketing, and so feels the necessity of buying in the immigrant neighborhood. Among the 90 Chicago families from whom schedules were obtained, representing Bohemian, Croatian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Ukrainian groups, 72 purchased all their food in the neighborhood stores, 2 kept their own stores, and only 16 were seeking bargains in other localities. Among these 16, 5 were going to larger business centers near their neighborhood, 4 bought in downtown department stores, 1 used a mail-order house, 1 went to a well-established "cash and carry" store, 2 bought in the wholesale markets, and only 2 took advantage of the co-operative association of their own group.

The 72 families who were marketing exclusively in their own neighborhoods were patronizing for the most part stores owned by foreign-speaking people or those employing foreign-born salesmen to attract the housewives of particular groups. A Croatian woman says that when she tries to do her marketing downtown she sees many new things and would like to ask what they are used for, but she does not know how to ask. In her neighborhood store the grocer can easily explain to her. One Polish woman reads the advertisements in the papers and buys where there is a sale. She thinks that an alleged Polish co-operative is expensive and prefers the large department stores, but for the first few years she bought everything in her neighborhood where the clerks speak Polish.

The prevalence of the immigrant store may be illustrated by a detailed study that was made of the Sixteenth Ward in Chicago. The population of the ward is predominantly Polish, with an intermingling of Jewish, German, and Slovak in the southern portion. In the twenty-five blocks there are 113 retail stores, 44 of which are grocery and delicatessen stores, meat markets, and bakeries. In one block there are 5 grocery and delicatessen stores, and at least 1 in every block which has any stores. Most of these shops are small and crowded, with family living rooms in the rear. For the most part, the nationality of the proprietor is that of the majority in the block, and there are only 14 proprietors of all the 113 stores who are not Polish.

The difficulty with the language, however, extends beyond merely talking in the store. A Ukrainian mother, who admits being afraid to go beyond her own neighborhood, is perhaps typical of many foreign-born mothers to whom a trip to the central shopping district is a strange and terrifying adventure.

There is also the question of the means with which to buy. An Italian mother says that she buys at the chain store when she has the cash, and at other times in the Italian stores where, although the prices are higher, she can run a charge account. The system of buying on credit at the local store is spoken of as practically universal in all the foreign-born groups. The purchaser carries a small blank book, in which the merchant enters in large figures merely the sum charged, with no indication of what was bought or the amount. The account is settled on pay day by the man of the family. There is, of course, every chance for inaccurate entry. It is not surprising, then, that one hears from many sources that buying food is generally extravagant.

Women often do the buying. Whether or not it is the more common among foreign-born families than among native born for the children to be sent to the store, we cannot say. Since the marketing is done so largely in immigrant stores, there is perhaps not the need for an English-speaking member of the family to do the purchasing. We find among 89, 43 mothers who still do all their own buying, 32 who allow the children to do part, 4 who share the task with the father, and only 10 who never do any of the buying. In this last group of 10 families there are 7 in which the children do all the marketing and 3 in which it is done by the father.

Even the skilled housekeepers have little experience in buying. At home they were used to storing vegetables in quantities; potatoes in caves, beets and cabbage by a process of fermentation, other vegetables and fruits by drying. In the United States this sort of thing is not done. There is, in the first place, no place for storage, and the initial cost of vegetables is high and quality poor, and the women know nothing of modern processes of canning.

It is difficult to discover the general practice with regard to the quantity of food bought at one time, since it must necessarily vary considerably. Meat, milk, bread, perishable fruits and vegetables must usually be purchased daily. As for staple food, the thrifty housewife will buy in as large quantities as she can afford in order to save both money and time.

Reference has been made, however, to the lack of storage space and the consequent necessity of buying very little at one time. Thirty-three, or two fifths, of the 81 foreign housewives who were interviewed on this subject report that they buy food in daily supplies; 1 buys twice a day and 1 for each meal. Forty, however, buy in larger quantities. Twenty-nine for the week and 11 for a month at a time. Six say that they buy whenever they have the money. It must never be forgotten that among the lower-income groups, to have more in the house is to have more eaten, and that cannot be afforded.

Besides the high prices, one of the other limitations of the foreign-born neighborhood store is the low quality of the food. This may be illustrated by a description of the markets in one Lithuanian neighborhood back of the stockyards, where men are working at low-grade labor in the yards, and the women are keeping lodgers, where few speak English and not many ever go more than a few blocks from home. The typical market in this neighborhood—and there are sometimes as many as ten in a block—is a combined meat market and grocery store. Such stores are found in the poorer neighborhoods of every settlement.

Stock in all these stores is the same; there is a great deal of fresh meat, apparently the poorer cuts, scraps, etc.; shelves are filled with canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned soups, and condensed milk; there is much of the bakers' "Lithuanian rye bread," and quantities of such cakes as are sold by the National Biscuit Company. No fresh vegetables are to be seen in any of these stores. The reason given by shopkeepers is that they are little used in the neighborhood and that the truck wagons supply the demand.

Women who actually depend upon these stores and the truck wagons for all their supplies find them very unsatisfactory. No really fresh vegetables are to be found in either stores or wagons, they say. In commenting upon this situation, several persons have expressed a belief that the restriction of diet among Lithuanian immigrants was largely due to the fact that the markets afford so little variety, and that an effort to extend the stock in the stores would find a response in the community.

These stores, however, are widely different from those found in Italian neighborhoods. Practically all the food used by the Italian families of one such neighborhood is bought in these stores. In this district the population is as dense as back of the stockyards, and the families have comparable incomes, the men being engaged in unskilled occupations and their earnings being supplemented by the earnings of women and children. The number of food stores in a block is about the same as in the other district, but the stock carried differs greatly. Here, in place of shops that carry only meat, canned goods, and potatoes, cabbages, and beets, the greengrocery stores largely predominate.

There are four or five greengrocery shops to one meat market, and these stores have a surprising variety of fresh vegetables and fruits all the year. The variety of salad greens is remarkable. More Swiss chard, mustard, dandelion leaves, endive, squash blossoms and leaves, escarole, are to be seen in one little Italian store than in a half dozen American markets. Legumes are in stock in great quantity and variety—there are some little stores that do not handle greengroceries, but carry large stocks of legumes. Every store has a large case of different varieties of Italian cheese, and the variety of macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles is amazing to an American. Fish is frequently sold from stalls along the street, and on Friday fish wagons go about through the district. Sometimes meat is sold from wagons, but less to Italians than to other nationalities living in the neighborhood.

Certainly one effect of the organization of these shops on the basis of nationality is to prevent the members of one group from gaining the advantage of dietetically better practices followed in other groups. The Lithuanian and Italian neighborhoods described happened to be in widely separated districts of the city, but often similar differences may be observed between two shops within the same block that serve different national groups.

It is clear that the retail trade, being unstandardized, gives no help to the immigrant woman in the matter of efficient buying. There is as yet no fine art of service in this field based on careful accounting of cost and service. Obviously there is great waste in the number of stores, in the number of persons engaged in conducting them, in the needless duplication of even such meager equipment as is found in them. This waste will reflect itself in needlessly high prices which, while they mulct the buyer, bring the seller little gain.

Evidently, then, little or no help is given through the system of retail trading to the foreign-born housewife in the matter of adapting the diet of her family to American or dietetic requirements. Yet food demands a large share of the income. In the latest report on the cost of living in the United States, in only 8 out of 45 cities were the food demands met by less than 40 per cent of the entire expenditure in the group whose incomes were between $900 and $1,200.[36] Those cities were:

The lowest proportion was in Fort Wayne, where over a third of the income was required for feeding the families in this income group.

MODIFICATION OF DIET

No extensive study of the dietary practices of the different groups, either here or in the old country, has been undertaken, but considerable evidence has been secured in substantiation of the fact that their old-country practices are being modified in this country. This is not being done consciously in response to dietetic requirements, but often blindly in response to what seem to be American customs or necessities. There has been some conflict of testimony with regard to the changes in the Czecho-Slovak and Croatian groups. The Italians are said by all to have made very slight changes in their diet in this country. The Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians, on the other hand, are said to have made very radical changes.

The modification that is spoken of most frequently and that is of gravest concern to many of their leaders, is the increased use of meat. Attention has already been called to the explanation of this in the fact that the price of meat was prohibitive at home, and that fruit, vegetables, and dairy products were enjoyed without expenditure of money. The large number of stores in which meat is offered for sale, although undoubtedly reflecting the general wishes of the group, offers constant suggestion to the individual purchaser to buy meat. The naÏve belief that much meat must be eaten by men doing manual labor is said to be another factor.

Excessive use of coffee is said by visiting housekeepers and others familiar with dietetic problems to be one of the most serious faults of the diet of many groups, especially the Slavic groups. It is a general custom to put the coffee pot on the stove in the morning and leave it there all day for any member of the family to help himself to coffee when he wants it. This is entirely a new habit which has been learned in America, as coffee was almost unknown in the poorer groups in the old country. One explanation that was given by a foreign-born woman was that these families were used to a diet of soup at home, and that as they gave this up in this country they felt the need of some liquid to replace it. One Polish woman who was asked if she had changed her diet in this country, replied, "Naturally, at home everyone had soup for breakfast, and here everyone has coffee and bread."

Another change that was reported over and over again was the use of more cakes and sweet rolls. This seemed to be considered a peculiarly American change, as was evidenced by the families who reported that they had not changed their diet, as they didn't like the American diet of cakes. Some of them, indeed, were very scornful of what they considered the American diet, saying among other things that they could not afford to eat steak and chops every day, that they did not like sweets, that their "men" would not eat "out of a can," that they did not like fried things. Their ideas of American diet were gained in part from the food in restaurants, in part from what the children learned in cooking lessons in school, and in part from general suggestions that they have picked up.

Undoubtedly misguided social workers who have tried to give advice on diet without themselves knowing much about it, are responsible for some of these ideas. In a certain mill town in Massachusetts, for example, a social worker employed by the mill discovered what she thought was the cause of the paper falling off the walls in the fact that the people boiled their food. She therefore went in and taught them to fry meat and other foodstuffs.

The problem of how far the immigrant groups should be encouraged to modify their diet can be determined only after a careful study of their dietary practices. The price and quality of food available to immigrants must be ascertained. Their habits, customs, and preferences must be thoroughly understood. There can be no question, however, that help should be given them in making the modifications required by the changed environment.

There have been a number of suggestions of the best way to accomplish this. Visiting housekeepers or visiting dietitians have been suggested and will be discussed later. It is highly probable that help must first be given to immigrant women in their homes before they can be persuaded to attend any classes or demonstrations outside of their homes. They must gradually be persuaded to take advantage of the help obtainable in this way.

That the whole problem of diets suited to special needs of people is being considered is evidenced by the fact that it has been suggested that food be sold by units of energy value. Dr. Graham Lusk, for example, proposed at a time of great distress in New York that the Health Commissioner attempt to persuade grocers to prepare "Board of Health baskets" which would provide 10,000 calories daily for a family of five at a minimum cost.[37] The United States Commissioner of Labor indorses the idea in the following words, "There are no insuperable obstacles in the way of selling bread, beef, pork, eggs, milk, cabbage, onions, corn, sugar—by the 100 or 1,000 calories."[38] Professor Murlin has advocated that manufacturers be compelled to place on food containers the calorie content of the package.

If such a plan could be worked out, the dietetic virtues and weaknesses of the different groups could serve as a basis for the special form in which foodstuffs were marketed in different areas. Any such project as applied to the foreign born is far from accomplishment. It is suggestive of a new attitude which does not continue to leave the matter of diet to chance.

FURNITURE ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN

In the purchase of furniture and of clothing there is the temptation to buy on the installment plan. This plan is open to all the objections ordinarily brought against buying on credit. The buyer is tempted to overestimate his ability to pay in the future, and he may not take the same trouble to calculate the actual value of his purchase as when he pays money down. In the past the form of sale has often been such as to place him peculiarly at the mercy of the seller, who might find it more profitable to reclaim the possession of goods on which a considerable share of the price has been paid than to extend the time of payment and allow the payment to be completed.

The superintendent of the Bohemian Charitable Association says, for example, that it is very common for newly married people to load themselves with debt for household furniture, and that at least two thirds of the stoves which are commonly bought on the installment plan are taken back by the dealers before payments are finished. The immigrant from the rural community may be quite unused to purchasing furniture of any sort, and may be easily persuaded to buy what he thinks is "American style."

The Lithuanian peasant, for example, had little furniture at home. In the cottage of two rooms, one was used on the occasion of the visit of the priest or at the time of a wedding or funeral, and contained nothing but the shrine and the dowry chest of the daughters. The walls were decorated with paper flowers and cheap lithographs. In Lithuanian homes here one is struck by the fact that among the more prosperous the same sort of furniture is seen in all the houses. This consists of the heavy oak and leather sets of three or four large pieces usually sold on the installment plan by stores in the immigrant districts. It is not beautiful, and there is no reason to think that it is distinctly American, but the immigrant is not in a position to know that.

NEW FASHIONS AND OLD CLOTHES

Then there is the unsolved problem of clothing. As in the case of food, so with dress; the general effect of the organization of the department stores in the different neighborhoods can be only misleading and confusing. Many misleading devices that would no longer deceive the older residents are tried again on the newcomer.

The women at first find it difficult to judge of values and prices. The local stores are there with the bargain counter and the special sale and all the other devices. The Poles and the Lithuanians with whom we have talked have dwelt especially on the helplessness of their countrywomen in the hands of the unscrupulous merchant or the shrewd clerk.

Clothing presents to even the enlightened and the sophisticated a most difficult problem in domestic management. "Fashion wears out more garments than the man." The anthropologist, the physiologist, and the sociologist are all concerned to explain why the clothing worn to-day is often so unsuited to bodily needs as well as to the demands of beauty and fitness.[39] To a very real extent practices of waste prevail in the selection of clothing, and to that extent neither reason nor art finds a place in the scheme. Where an attempt at economy is made, the influence of the new science of hygiene is impeded by old ideas of durability. So that from the well-to-do of the community comes little suggestion that can be of service in directing the expenditures for clothing of any other group.

The foreign born are faced with a particularly difficult problem. They often come from places where dress served to show where one came from, and who one was. In the United States, dress serves to conceal one's origin and relationships, and there results an almost inexorable dilemma. Follow the Old-World practice, and show who you are and where you come from, and the result is that you remain alien and different and that your children will not stay with you "outside the gates." Or follow the fashion and be like others, and the meager income is dissipated before your eyes, with meager results. The Croatians have emphasized the waste of American dress and the immodest styles often worn, while the Italians have chiefly dwelt upon the friction between parents and children.

In some neighborhoods Jewish agents go about offering clothing on the installment plan at prices much higher than those charged even in inefficient neighborhood shops. Shoes are particularly a source of difficulty, both those for the younger children and those for the older boy or girl who goes to work. In some neighborhoods where the older women go barefooted and are thought to do so because they wish to cling to their Old-World customs, they are simply saving, so that the children may wear "American shoes."

Certainly the foreign-born woman who undertakes to manage her family's affairs in an American community is confronted by no easy task. The question arises as to what might be done to render that task less difficult. The dull of sight cannot lead the blind at a very swift pace. But certain steps might be taken to simplify the problems for all consumers, including the foreign born. In fact, whatever renders the system of retail dealing less chaotic and less wasteful will benefit all. The establishment of markets for foodstuffs at appropriate places where grower and consumer can meet, and certain costs of double cartage can be eliminated, is, for example, a recognized item in reform of the present food traffic.

TRAINING NEEDED

The importance of the spending function of the housewife must be brought home more clearly to great numbers of women. Too few native-born housewives realize that they have any problem to work out, or that there may be an "art of spending." None of the ninety foreign-born women interviewed had received any instruction in buying except advice from friends or from their own children. What little instruction they had received had been concerned only with cooking. Not one of these women recognized any difficulty in buying except the difficulty of speaking the language well enough to ask for things or to understand how much they cost, or of getting the wherewithal to pay.

It is by the slow process of continual suggestion that both women consumers and distributing agencies will be awakened to the problem. Evidence of this awakening is already apparent. Schools and colleges, with their domestic-science and household-budgeting courses, are raising the question among an ever-widening circle of people. Banks and brokers with their special woman's department are advising and suggesting ways of spending that save. Newspapers, magazines, and clubs are discussing household problems. Organizations, public and private, have worked out ways and means of helping women budget their expenditures. So far these varied efforts have reached chiefly the American women. But no one group is isolated to-day, and as some awaken they set in motion the waves of thought and action that reach their foreign-born neighbor. Her institutions of press and bank respond with information and assistance. Inevitably better housekeepers will result.

In the meantime, all possible assistance must be given. It is therefore especially important to establish contacts between agencies already responsible for developing an art in household management and the leaders among the various foreign-born groups. Provision should be made for young women from among those groups to obtain a higher education than has been commonly thought necessary by them or than has in many cases been possible from a pecuniary standpoint.

Much could undoubtedly be accomplished by the establishment in connection with departments of home economics and household arts in the various colleges of funds making possible the compilation of material bearing on these particular points. Scholarships and fellowships can be made especially available to young women from among these groups who desire to pursue their education in these lines.

The household arts departments of the various universities are attempting to plan a "standardized dress," the social workers are developing a list of garments,[40] and an estimate of expenditures for the use of case-work agencies in the care of dependent families,[41] the Young Women's Christian Association is carrying on a health campaign[42] directed particularly at the problem of proper shoes. In the meantime the Sunday papers carry full-page advertisements describing in specious and misleading terms the bargains in clothing to be had the following day, and the merry round continues. The tragedy works itself out both in the dissipation of the income and in the friction created between parents and children, to which reference will be made in another place.

But perhaps more important is the possibility of modifying the practices of the retail trade itself. Restrictions have been placed about the trade in such legislation as has been passed against fraudulent advertising and other fraudulent practices, as well as by the so-called pure food laws of the United States and of the various states. And some influence has been exercised on the conditions under which goods are made, or under which they are sold, by the Trade Union Label League and by the Consumers' League. Neither of these organizations would, however, directly touch the life of the foreign-born housewife.

CO-OPERATION IN SPENDING

The question arises as to whether help is to be expected from co-operative distribution, which has had such an extraordinary history in England and been highly developed in a number of the other European countries. There is always the temptation to recall the winter evening in December, 1844, when twenty-eight weavers, of whom two were women, opened in Toad Lane, Rochdale, Lancashire, a little shop, and began to sell themselves the necessities of life. Their remarkable services in England have not been confined to their business undertakings, but have always included important educational activities.

In America there have for many years been a few co-operative stores, some succeeding, some failing, most of them working out their plans independently without connection with other similar stores from whose experience they might profit. Within the last few years, however, the number of such stores has greatly increased and the need for closer union has been felt. This has resulted in the formation of the Co-operative League of America. Education in co-operative buying is its main purpose. At what appears to be the beginning of an important period in the extension of the movement in this country it is worth while to consider how far the existing co-operative stores in this country are helping the foreign-born women.

Anything that assists her to lower the cost of living is beneficial. Although sound practice dictates that consumer's co-operatives sell their goods at prices current in their neighborhood, the profits to the members appear in the return of a per cent of all purchases. In proportion as the local stores are able to supply the housewife with all her goods, the saving on the purchase of her daily needs will be more appreciable. Her interest in the enterprise will make her demand both greater variety and better quality of goods.

Moreover, there may be other than material gains to the foreign-born woman from her contact with a co-operative. If it is one formed by her countrymen, where her mother tongue is spoken, it may be her first and for a long time her only contact with anything outside her home. Natural timidity will readily be overcome if she can go around the corner to a store kept by people who speak her language and understand her wants. As confidence is established she may venture to other neighborhoods or centers of distribution where more advantages can be gained. But unless she gains the confidence which few immigrant women have at first, she is an alien and isolated unit in a vast, strange country. Eventually she may become a member of a co-operative store.

If she does this, perhaps the most benefit to the foreign-born woman results. Her incorporation into this country may well be said to have been started when she has become an active member of an institution which is a part of American life. The benefits are those which result to any individual from participation in a going concern. Sharing responsibilities and evolving policies for a joint enterprise have educational implications that no other activity can supply.

The question, then, may be raised as to the extent to which a development of the co-operative methods in the United States may be looked to as likely to become an important educational agency in intelligent spending for the foreign housewife, enabling her to develop in her task something of a technique. As to the possibility of developing co-operative societies because the ordinary trade is wasteful, it should be recalled that the retail trade in the United States, while wasteful, is probably not less, but rather more efficient than in other countries. Moreover, in the United States there are often lacking those conditions that give rise to a sense of a permanent division of interest between those who sell and those who buy. In fact, when the foreign-language store exists, there may be a tie between shopkeeper and purchaser.

In communities in which there is an apparent division of interest between the foreign born and the native, or between two foreign groups, the national bond may grow into a social bond that for a time at least would serve as the basis for the collective action by one group against the other group. If the dealers then belong to the outside group, or if the dealers of the foreign-born group seem to betray their fellow countrymen, there may develop a movement strong enough to carry over into organization.

Among some groups, such as the Finns, the language constitutes a permanent barrier for the adult members of the group, and with a skillful and intelligent leadership the co-operative undertakings may be expected to prosper for a very considerable period of time. The immigrants have probably twice as many successful co-operative stores as the native born.

In a community like a mining town, that is almost or altogether an industrial community, with no leisure class, the pecuniary resources of all are fairly well known to all, and the temptation to spend conspicuously is therefore lacking. It will be recalled that these are the communities in which the employers have specially abused their power by forcing the employees to buy at company stores. In such communities there are always considerable numbers of competent, efficient, intelligent persons. Under a specially able leadership, a special hardship through high prices, or a condition of special exploitation, the co-operative store may be expected to develop. Then, too, a sense of identity of interest may find its basis in trade-union membership or in membership in a special trade, as was the case with the miners in a store at Staunton, Illinois, where the union managed the store for years at a profit.

With the exception of these few bonds, however, there are lacking in most communities several elements present in the foreign experience that have undoubtedly contributed materially to the success of co-operative enterprises. There is, in the first place, the lack of stability caused by the rapid movement from group to group. The older people do not speak English; the children learn English and often do not want to speak the language of their parents. They want to be American and to buy as Americans buy. They therefore resent any organization that tends to emphasize their foreign origin.

Also no sense of class consciousness among customers arouses antagonism against retailers. In the cities, particularly where there are large foreign colonies, the retail trade in those colonies, especially the trade in foodstuffs, is largely in the hands of fellow countrymen whose background is much the same as that of their customers. Most of the stores are small, and the proprietors, who are not skilled in modern business methods, do not make much more than a living from their stores, so that there is no great contrast in prosperity to arouse a feeling of antagonism.

On the contrary, the proprietor and his family usually live in the district—often over the store—in much the same condition as the rest of the group. They are friends of all, and by their knowledge of the group can meet certain needs and appear to serve as a connecting link between the separate group and the general community. How far the desire of the more ambitious group members to open up a shop of their own acts as a deterrent to interest in co-operation would be difficult to estimate, but it seems probable that this has some weight.

On the other hand, attention may be called to the fact that the retail trade, and especially the marketing of food, has been so slightly reduced to an art, it is still so empirically and wastefully carried on, that there are many possibilities of reasonable success of co-operatives. For a time, at least, this will be true if the undertaking is on a modest scale and does not seem worthy of attack by a relatively powerful group.

Among the obvious wastes are those connected with the transportation (cross freights), the display and salesmanship, the marketing of novelties, and the use of the indefinite measures. Besides these there are the bad debts resulting from careless credit transactions, the waste involved in deliveries of packages, the waste of the repeated purchase of articles known to be regularly needed. Wherever any group can be led to consider the wastes involved in these methods of doing business, their good sense will make them perceive easily the folly of persisting in those ways, and the practice of this minimum of self-restraint will serve as a basis for a considerable balance, out of which dividends may accumulate.

The use of the co-operative idea has, therefore, great possibilities as the basis for discussing the wastes of the present system and for deliberation as to the best or as to any possible way out. In other words, experimenting in democratic organization in obtaining the necessities of life is an important next step. As in the matter of copartnership in relation to housing, co-operative distribution may serve as a point of departure, an object lesson worthy of closer study and experimental imitation. Especially would the experience of the Women's Co-operative Guild be helpful in bringing the idea to the attention of the influential women among the various groups.

The importance of doing this cannot be overestimated. For, as has been so often suggested, the wastes of retail dealing, while probably not so great here as in some other countries, are so enormous that great economies are possible from even a slight rationalizing process.[43] The development of a general consciousness of the nature and extent of these wastes would in itself serve as a corrective. Moreover, the experience of the co-operative enterprise may often be carried over into legislative policy, and in this way give to the community the benefit of the experiment tried by a group. Co-operators in England have both initiated and backed such social legislation as the Trade Boards Act, the provision for general maternity care under the Ministry of Health, and other measures.