We paid nothing but labor. Other farmers were compelled to sell their wheat at the lowest cash price paid by traders and speculators, who invariably received a large profit. We obtained that profit ourselves. Other farmers saw their wheat ground into flour and sold at a profit by the manufacturer to the wholesale dealer, who again sold at a profit to the retailer, and the retailer added a profit and sold to the farmer. We received all this profit. The only cost to us of a barrel of flour was the cost of such machinery as I have described and the cost of transportation. The Brotherhood stores at that time sold all our surplus on commission. At the time of writing this—1917—the cost of producing a barrel of flour at the great Shoshone flour mills is, of course, nothing, the farm machinery, mill machinery and all devices used in connection with such manufacture being manufactured by the Association. The facts which I have thus briefly stated must make it apparent that we were, as early as 1909, and even before that time, in a position which was entirely unassailable by competitors who had not placed themselves on a similar foundation. Our system was in a condition to challenge the whole industrial world in a free and fair field. We could and did undersell every business house in all Idaho and the competitive system, unable to compete against us, had fled from the state. Its case was hopeless. It had no footing, and never could have. It recognized capital as master and labor as its humble servant. Our system reversed the order and recognized labor as master and capital as its creature and its obedient servant. For this reason labor came to us and capital without labor was powerless. Already this condition in Idaho was affecting all adjoining states. The Co-operative system was, after ten years of honest trial, so strong, and so wondrously beautiful in its strength, that, overleaping the bounds of the co-operative state, it was infecting Oregon and Washington, and colonies framed upon the model of the Co-opolitan Association were pouring into those states. But of that I have something to say in a subsequent chapter. CHAPTER XVIII. PUBLICATION OF MRS. BRADEN’S NOVEL—THE PROFITS OF THE ASSOCIATION AND REWARD OF THE AUTHOR—THE PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT EXTENDS ITS SPHERE.