He then proposed that if a hundred families would pay him regularly
50 cents a week, he would undertake to supply them with garden
truck, provisions and meats at wholesale prices. To clinch the
demonstration he showed that an average family would save this
50-cent weekly fee in a few days' purchases.

* * * * *

There is no difference in appearance between the community store and
any other provision store. There is no difference in the way you buy
your food. The only difference is that you pay 50 cents a week on a
certain day each week and buy food anywhere from 15 to 40 per cent
less than at the commercial, non-coöperative retail stores.

(2)

The other day an investigator from the department of agriculture
went to the Washington community store to make an experiment. He
paid his 50-cent weekly membership fee and made some purchases. He
bought a 10-cent carton of oatmeal for 8 cents; a 10-cent loaf of
bread for 8 cents; one-half peck of string beans for 20 cents,
instead of for 30 cents, the price in the non-coöperative stores;
three pounds of veal for 58 cents instead of 80 cents; a half dozen
oranges for 13 cents instead of the usual price of from 20 to 25
cents. His total purchases amounted to $1.32, and the estimated
saving was 49 cents--within 1 cent of the entire weekly fee.

Since to the average newspaper reader it would not mean much to say that
the cost of the public schools amounted to several hundred thousand