OCR Text |
Show - " " ; j I The Cooperative Finns ! i I ' By Frederic J. Kas'sin. j 4 . XKW V-n:K. P. 4. 1: f.:eo he. lie clivs oi ! f.l l l'.v (..Mill e whi-11 HI'-' CI :'.e ii ' tf NoJ V.'i.T i.'-t:V.'n i'i'7::iArd i '.vai J a vrtain Itroup ..:' i.:r:r';v ::.i.-i;s v.ii... me r. siuirn; .-:'. .-:'. ..-::.:...r;.i Iv and ih.-iiiy m ll'--r w . :i ""'Ti.i.'r1 'i.'iijre 'iMurs are never invade. 1 ;.v -ui..i:..:us an l iv.l! I'.-l.!'... aeelits. their !..'.. ii is in. a-!.::-!.,- i : r.intr.nia :vs ol .-.:v! evK taeis, iia.l laeir t.ye?:al I'-n--!n :l bv eeriMam eon'a.'l with w. ! To L.-l" eoainins. Hue live in aurae-::ve. aurae-::ve. sal;!:.' lioaies. ee-'..ainum I'll? lau-s: u,s;'i!-iUa.:i'3 in riaml.irx, lite " -.v.. in wliiduus. and the h.Htest Kind of iaat. For ah of these luxuries they I-.iv hiv. at thinv Ooliars I've lann.v jh-i m.niLi. w.tii tne iiit.isi:.: Ui;..v. ie i.ie th.t. the rent tun never u raised uhass tne r..;-m:t It. , Tn.-v are not vveaUl v. Ti'.ev are h.ard- woiims p,-oi l ' ir;. enters. .ai r.u-rs, oa- prr-iiauuvr. tailors, f pe vlt .1 s and Hoi-k,-.. i eis and their fainil.es who are not often found dwelhi.e, in luxury win n toe rest of the word is I'tilti:'!; op "itn al. sorl o; ineom eiiienees. j i How rlo thev do if Well, in 'he first plaee. thev live ill Brooklyn, tint that does not c.xnlam it. llrooklyn is not immune from the hijrh cost of living any more lhan any other town. Hut tlie;.' are Til "s. and that does explain a great deal. Tin. l'inns, t as vou mav have observed, are an ex- , tremel,- thrifty lot. They ooiv.e from a , eouutrv where life is a constant battle with a harsh climate, and where survival , is tersely a matter of economy and cooperation. co-operation. As a result, the airirressive in- ! stlnct is highly developed 111 tho Fain he . never stops fighting life. I So it happens that while most or 11s 1 have been sitting around deploring the . high cost of living hut nieeltly paying exorbitant ex-orbitant prices for foods and rents, the Finns of llrooklyn have been forming cooperative co-operative societies and forcing down theil living costs to the lowest possible minimum, mini-mum, llosidcs two cooperative apartment houses, thev own a community clubhouse ; a cooperative restaurant and plots 01 ground upon which cooperative bakeries 1 and dairies are soon to be erected. First came the clubhouse, which Is always al-ways the first social move of the Finns . wherever they go. It is an attractive building, with coffee and game rooms j smoking parlors, women's club rooms, and an auditorium where public meetings, 1 dances and theatricals are held. To the Finn, drama is almost as essential ; food, so that the people, do not consider , it an extravagance to employ a dramatic j coach for their voting people. Across from the clubhouse is tho cooperative restau- 1 rant, and nearbv is a lot which some day, 1 when bull. ling conditions become a tnilo more stable, is to support a cooperative moving picture house. The chief activity of tho clubhouse soon became the voicing of discontent with living conditions. The Finns, having come to America, the land of opportunity, seeking relief from a stern and exacting environment, were frankly disappointed. Thev found themselves crowded into grimy tenements, with insufficient heat and water and light and air, and unable to earn enough to obtain anything better. The wages which had appeared so high to them from the other side of the ocean , seemed to shrink visibly as they were . doled out for food and rent and clothes. "After all " declared one of the Finnish apartment-house dwellers the other day, "it was just as bad as in Finland, only f in some wavs it was a little worse because j it was all strange the country, the lan- 1 guage and the ways of the people. In 1 some of tho tenement flats the kitchen 1 was the only room that was heated, and 1 it was not large enough to hold all the family at once. The children caught colds 1 going from heated rooms to unhealed j ones, and half the time in those old , houses the water failed to run from tho : spigot, so that it was hard for us to keep clean. It is still so. When you tell the landlords, they say they cannot al'lord to make repairs." But the Finns were not satisfied merely to discuss conditions. They decided to change them. The carpenters and the painters and paper-hangers among them knew a good deal about building, and il was they who finally suggested the idea of a cooperatively owned apartment house. They realized that it would be a huge undertaking for families with so little capital, but experience in Finland had taught them -the value of cooperation. coopera-tion. In the beginning, twenty families were interested in tho project, but when it actually came to the stage of signing sign-ing contracts and buying ground and building materials, all but six became discouraged dis-couraged and dropped out. .Six families, however, refused to relinquish re-linquish the project, and saw it through to the bitter end. They proposed to build a sixteen-family apartment house, and found themselves facing the problem of raising $45,000. A treasurer was appointed, ap-pointed, and each family paid weekly installments in-stallments to the communal treasury until un-til they had JS000 In a box. With this they bought a building plot. The rest of the money they obtained from a cooperative co-operative society's bank in the form of first and second mortgages. Much of the building was done by the men of the six families, all of whom took a special pride in their work and strove frantically to outrival one another in painting and plastering various rooms. Their task completed, the cooperators moved in, heavily In debt as it might seem to the uncooperative. Actually, however, they were paying interest on their own debts, and not on the debts of some landlord. That interest, together with substantial monthly payments on principal, taxes, general upkeep and other expenses, amounted to considerably less than they would have paid in rent for apartments of the same size. F.ach family fam-ily had a light, five-room apartment, with all modern improvements, including telephone, tele-phone, hot and cold water, a bathroom and a kitchen (not a kitchenette), and for these accommodations they paid into the common building fund $26.35 a month. As it became known that such homes could he obtained at such a remarkably low price, the first six co-operators were overwdiehnetl with applications from other families who wished to join the movement. move-ment. The house was soon full of ton-ants, ton-ants, but so great was the demand for similar accommodations that another cooperative co-operative group was organized to build a second apartment house. This time the cooperators were not so timid in risking their money, and decided that their houses should be even bigger with evenygreater conveniences. . Incidentally, it was to cost ?.'000 more, due not to the added improvements, but to the increased cost of building ' materials. ma-terials. The cost of the latter rose so rapidly that a third group, which was on tlie noint of organization, decided to defer building until conditions became a trifie less chaotic and tlie cost of bricks went down. This was two years ago. Todnv these progressive, eooperatie Finns: are the envv of all their less enterprising neighbors. neigh-bors. They are enjoying warm, comfortable com-fortable and convenient homes at a small cost, at a time vh--n many individuals a'-o reduced to uncomfortable makeshifts' niid all are dereraV-nt ou the none too tender mercies of their landlords. Each fami.y is permitted to pav off Its share of the principal as rapidly aM pOHK'-ble. pOHK'-ble. and several of them have verv nenrb-achieved nenrb-achieved complete ownership of their apartments. Others, moving ' to other cities, have been compelled reiuctant'y to part with theirs. Only one restriction is placed on the sale of on apartment and that is the provision that only one apartment apart-ment may be owned by each familv in order to maintain the true eooperatie nature of the colony. Thus the Finns have shown us how to make the most of the motto on our national na-tional currency, "In union there is strength!" |