Page:Adventures in Thrift (1916).djvu/131

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the war broke out, families to the number of two million seven hundred and one thousand were buying their food, clothing and homes through the Alliance. It employed more than eighty-one thousand persons, ran a dozen factories to supply its different stores, and it had its own fleet of steamships for transporting the output of its various plants, which included plantations in Brazil and Ceylon. It sold more than half a billion's worth of goods annually on a margin of two per cent. And in 1913 it distributed among its stockholders of cooperative members profits amounting to eleven million dollars. Think of the war breaking down an economic structure of such magnificent possibilities."

"Perhaps it will survive even war. But I don't know what you mean by its stockholders buying homes through a cooperative store."

"Oh, that is quite simple," explained the enthusiastic Teresa. "A member or stockholder decided that he wished to use his interest or profits to buy a home. When the next dividend was declared, he did not draw out his money. When his dividends had accumulated in the