vise the
details of the business, as has sometimes been done to the disaster of
cooperatives. The general manager instead has gone to the Board of
Directors and sits there practically as a full member. As a result the
policy function of the Board and the management function are closely
linked together as they must be in a business that is to be permanent.

The stockholders are not idle, however. Through their committees, they
have amended the by-laws. They have recently called a general meeting
for the consideration of labor policy, and they publish monthly a little
paper known as "The Cooperative Crier." The average attendance at the
shareholders' monthly meetings is sixty or sixty-five.

To an unusual degree the success of Our Cooperative Cafeteria is bound
up with its management, not only because it is technically expert, but
because it is thoroughly imbued with the cooperative spirit. Around the
first nucleus has grown a staff of intelligent young men and women,
usually college bred, who are devoting all their brains and energy to
see that this cooperative cafeteria succeeds. They seem to find a
peculiar satisfaction in knowing that their efforts will not enrich a
few individuals at the expense of patron and employee alike, but will
increase the common welfare of the community itself.

Like other cooperatives, the cafeteria has found the need for expert and
trained workers in place of the hard-pressed volunteer. Much of the work
on education and cooperative organization is carried on by trained
members of the staff. This interest of the paid employees in things
other than mere technical efficiency contributes much to that friendly
spirit which makes Our Cooperative Cafeteria unique among the
restaurants of New York.

* * * * *

The Village Cooperative Society, Inc.

After nearly two years of discussion and meetings and after long
consultation with experts a group composed largely of the housewives in
Greenwich Village in the heart of New York City started in January,
1921, a cooperative laundry. The second-hand machinery which they
purchased was not a laundry unit, the capacity of the washer being
one-fourth that of the ironer; they had insufficient capital, half of it
borrowed; they employed an inexperienced manager and a green bookkeeper;
and for the first eight months the supervision was almost entirely
carried on by volunteers, hard working, but without the foresight and
pow