Early years The Co-operative Central Exchange (CCE) was a
cooperative federation established at a meeting of representatives of 19
Finnish-American consumers' co-operatives held in
Superior,
Wisconsin, on July 30, 1917. The idea for a central coordinating agency to unit the existing network of cooperative stores in the
Upper Midwest of the United States had been brewing for several years, based upon a desire to buy commonly sold goods more cheaply if purchased in bulk. Also driving the cooperatives to action was discriminatory credit practices practiced by the largest regional grocery and hard goods wholesaler, who restricted the extension of credit to the cooperatives at the behest of the privately owned retailers who were competing with them. The magazine
Pelto ja Koti (Farm and Home) was instrumental in coordinating the launch of the central cooperative initiative. With a paltry $15.50 in working capital and access to free office space in Superior from a sympathetic local newspaper, the stores began pooling their wholesale orders under the CCE name. Establishment of the entity as a formal federation of cooperative stores soon followed, although the organization started small, with only a total of 15 cooperatives agreeing to join the enterprise by the end of 1917. The combination of orders won the participants in the group quantity discounts in the prices of their necessary supplies and generated a profit for participants in 1917 of $268 on a capital investment of just $480. Additional funds were raised through the reinvestment of wholesale profits, bringing the net worth of the CCE up to about $67,300 by the end of 1927. The group also engaged in common activity with other cooperatives in the region through the
Northern States Co-operative League (NSCL), established in 1921, in which the CCE was the largest constituent member.
Severi Alanne, a leading member of the Co-operative Central Exchange, was the executive secretary of the NSCL during the late 1920s. The CCE also campaigned against the practice of stores selling on credit — a risky practice which tended to create
cash flow problems and to accentuate the effect of periodic economic downturns. The following year this program was expanded to a four-week course and an expanded curriculum, with 40 students attending. Further expansion to a 5-week course was made in 1920, followed by a move to an 8-week program in 1927. A total of 222 students completed the program during the first 9 years of the CCE's training program, of whom approximately 80% went on to employment in cooperative stores. The CCE was also influential in urging its members to centralize their operations, expanding through satellite branches rather than spinning off independent cooperative entities to alternate locations. One of the CCE's biggest items produced for sale was
coffee, with sales spurred to nearly 325,000 pounds in 1927 with the introduction of
vacuum packed one pound cans. This represented the second greatest product in terms of sales for the cooperative. peas, soup, olives and olive oil,
potato starch flour, dried fruit,
breakfast cereal, and other products. The "Co-operators' Best" brand name was used by the CCE for wheat flour, work gloves, and other dry goods. The CCE operated its own bakery in Superior from October 1918, supplying cooperative stores throughout the region with bread and other bakery goods. Located originally in the CCE's headquarters building, by 1925 the growth of the wholesale operation was straining the facility to capacity and the decision made to move the bakery to new quarters. The underlying struggle was not a radical versus conservative battle but was rather was a battle between radical factions over the question of political philosophy and tactics — should the CCE continue to remain open to all
working class groups and attempting to remodel society through economic means, or should the organization become a formal disciplined auxiliary of the Communist Party, thereby lending primacy to the political struggle? This letter was followed by others demanding more money for other Communist Party initiatives. Only in October 1929 did the matter come to the attention of the Board of Directors of the CCE at an official meeting. This rebellion against Communist Party authority was met with the quick expulsion of top Finnish leader Yrjö "George" Halonen from the CPUSA About 1500 copies were destroyed before the effort at suppression could be halted. The faction of the organization loyal to the CPUSA formed a rival organization, the Workers' and Farmers' Cooperative Association
(Työläisten ja Farmarien Osuustoiminnallinen Yhteisliitto), a group which continued in existence until its termination in 1939 around the time of the
Soviet invasion of Finland.
Official organ From 1926 the Co-operative Central Exchange launched a monthly magazine,
The Co-operative Pyramid Builder, published in Superior, Wisconsin. The founding editor of the publication, who remained at the helm throughout the 1920s, was CPUSA stalwart George Halonen; its business manager was Eskel Rönn. The 1931 split of the left wing from the organization and the associated name change of the CCE to "Co-operative Central Wholesale" also saw a change in the organization's publication, with a new name and a new format adopted. and a newspaper format used. Average circulation for the publication's inaugural year of 1926 was 8,000. By the middle of the 1940s the Central Wholesale had begun to work closely with other non-Finnish cooperative coordinating agencies in the region, including
Midland Cooperatives and the
Farmers' Union Central Exchange. Growth continued throughout the decade of the 1940s, with the CCW growing from a network of 126 affiliate store with 50,000 members and sales of $4.7 million in 1941 to 211 stores with about 90,000 members and sales of about $11.5 million in 1948. The next decade would not be so kind, however, as the Central Wholesale organization began a long-term decline owing in large measure to the growth of
supermarkets in the United States. This loss of size and strength moved the CCW to seek formal consolidation with other like-minded enterprises in the region. Merger plans to unite Central Wholesale with Midlands Cooperatives were finalized in December 1962. These plans were approved on March 19, 1963, by the annual meeting of Central Wholesale's members, when it was effectively terminated through merger into Midland Cooperatives. ==See also==