Month: July 2026

Posted on

July 4, 2026: Credit Unions and America’s 250th-Ideals and Contradictions

America’s Declaration of Independence opens with words that  inspired a new era of world-wide democratic political revolutions.  No more rule based on divine right, inherited position or pure force.  The words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Centuries later America strives to achieve these ideals. Even with our imperfections and unfinished  dreams, individuals  and countries around the world are still  inspired by America’s past and its future hopes.

Democracy Is Not Easy

Democracy and its embrace of individual freedom is an ongoing challenge. One of the contributing factors is that the very freedom that encourages debate, dissent and speaking truth to power is used by all points of view.  The irony is that some of those views oppose the very values in the opening words of the Declaration.

Changing the status quo, or prior error,  has never been a quick task for America.  Necessary reforms are opposed as threats to existing structures of power and privilege.

This has always been the case.  Some divisions can take decades, or generations,  to heal or overcome.

Righting the nation’s or an institution’s misdirections is never easy, whether politically, culturally or economically. But it is also an opportunity for new voices and new generations of leaders.

Credit Unions’ American Context

The shortcomings between our cooperative ideals and our daily realities are part of the credit union story.  This challenge was recognized by the founders of the movement.

In Filene’s Speaking of Change, a collection of his speeches and articles published in 1939,  there is a  chapter, George Washington and Financial Liberty.
 Filene’s view was that one of Washington’s greatest achievements wasn’t winning the war for Independence, it was having Hamilton and Jefferson in one cabinet and getting results from both.
He uses that as the model for the credit union movement saying, “temperamental conservatives” and “temperamental radicals” can work together because they’re dealing with facts, not philosophies.
One example of the effective partnership of philosophical opposites is the pairing of Ed Callahan, a conservative who believed in limited government regulations and efficient use of public funds, with the Chicago, ward 1 Democratic precinct captain progressive Bucky Sebastian. Their combined talents revolutionized credit union oversight first in Illinois and then nationally at NCUA.
Several of Filene’s  observations are especially relevant this July 4th, 2026, in the movement’s 117th year:
  • “What is needed is that the American masses shall learn the art of constructive self-government in this machine age — in this age in which life is no longer organized on a small community pattern but in which all Americans are more or less dependent upon what all other Americans are doing.”
  • “For unless we can achieve economic democracy, our political democracy must be a sham.”  (Filene Source: Sarah McNeil CEO, United Trades FCU)
The challenge of member-owner rights and democratic governance is even more critical in today’s $2.5 trillion cooperative financial sector.  Credit union leadership is increasingly exercised as a privilege for the few, not a responsibility shared with the many member-owners.

Conflicting Coop Priorities

The rich and diverse legacy built by generations of loyal members is being swooped up in a merger frenzy driven by personal greed and ambition.  But many other leaders have remained dedicated to the unfinished work serving members in their communities.

Cooperative history is about more than the many volunteer founding stories and their early efforts to build a new financial system of worker and community groups.  It is also about those whose courage called attention to the inequitable financial member circumstances that should be the focus for cooperative solutions.

Those voices are present today.  But is their call to rediscover who we are and who we can be being heard? Especially in the present circumstances of coop business dynamics, social and political turmoil. Will the ever-present siren appeals of market opportunity drown out our unique founding goal of public purpose?

On this national holiday, the country is again having a critical conversation about our past and future greatness.  So too are credit union leaders.

My  hope for how we will respond to the present challenges, as a movement and as a country, is based on two factors:  our moral conscience and our history of doing the right thing in time. Our individual duty as citizens and as cooperative adherents is to witness what we value by our daily acts.

The Call for Grace in Times of Need-A Musical Reminder

Nowhere is this combination of America’s lofty aspirations and human reality more evident than in one of the most well-known songs with words from the poem, America the Beautiful.

The author, Katherine Lee Bates; (1859-1929) was inspired by a trip to Pikes Peak in 1893. Her poem first appeared in print on July 4, 1895, in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal.

All eight stanzas open with praise for America’s glories (purple mountain majesty) and accomplishments (pilgrim feet).  But each verse then closes with a prayer, a call for grace or a plea.  America’s beauty is both her past and the aspiration for a better tomorrow..

Here are the verses edited to show first the real glory of America and then the ongoing needs:

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain,. . . God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood, From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassioned stress, A thoroughfare for freedom beat. . . God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife. . .May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, . . . God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

Oh beautiful for halcyon skies For amber waves of grain . . . God shed His grace on thee, Till souls wax fair as earth and air And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern impassioned stress. . . God shed His grace on thee, Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought, By pilgrims foot and knee!

Oh beautiful for glory-tale Of liberating strife, . . Till selfish gain no longer strain The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, . . . God shed His grace on thee, Till nobler men keep once again Thy whiter jubilee!

.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEDv5xG3rxE&t=26s)

Posted on

Freedom and Credit Unions as America Celebrates Her 250th

One of America’s founding ideals is captured in this poem with its familiar and oft-quoted  final lines from her “silent lips:.”

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus, written in 1883, on the Statue of Liberty

Freedom, Liberty and Opportunity

One of many possibilities beyond the  “golden door” was begun some 25 years later during one of America’s earlier progressive reform eras.  St. Mary’s Bank, the first credit union,  was organized in 1909 by a priest to help workers in a factory  with small personal loans.  From that small seed, today’s cooperative financial system has grown to $2.5 trillion serving tens of millions of American consumers.

More than seventy years later, a new era of credit union potential was launched. This new chapter was described  by the Chairman of NCUA in his Three Freedoms speech to the Massachusetts CUNA league’s Annual meeting on November 3, 1984.

Freedom is commonly understood to be free from something that limits or controls an individual’s actions by fear, want, arbitrary rules or sometimes coercion.

But freedom also  enables individuals and society to undertake collective efforts essential for living in communities in which interdependency is crucial for the well being of all. This “empowering” opportunity is how Callahan  described the transforming outcomes of deregulation for the credit union system.

The changes in government’s role had provided a new context where credit unions were enabled to make decisions not previously open to them.  The upshot of these multiple efforts were described as three freedoms

* Freedom of security: credit unions have their own unique cooperatively structured  insurance safety net (NCUSIF) and liquidity fund (CLF).

* Freedom to compete: credit unions could now make their own business decisions on products, services and interest rates for members;

* Freedom to serve: credit unions now decide who their membership will include (FOM choice).

Cooperative  design combines individual choice in an interdependent-cooperative financial system founded on self-help, self-governance and self-reliance. Not private capital or ownership  or government subsidy.

By 1984, the foundation had been set for a quarter century of  deregulatory leadership by cooperatives until the regulatory backlash from the 2008 financial crisis.

With its focus on personal financial opportunity, credit union purpose promotes  the country’s founding pursuits  of life, liberty and happiness.  Cooperative choice is a special American innovation entered though Lazarus’ golden door.

A Sleeping Giant Within the New Colossus

In his many credit union presentations, Ed  Callahan described credit union’s future potential as a “Sleeping Giant” or “America’s best Kept Secret.”

This was also a vision in an American folk and labor protest song written in 1948 by Les Rice.  He was an apple farmer in Newburgh, New York, who also served as president of the Ulster County chapter of the Farmers Union.

He wrote a song out of frustration during the post-WWII years. As small-scale farmers were being squeezed by large agricultural corporations that dictated the prices for produce and overcharged them for supplies.

The lyrics in The Banks Are Made of Marble contrast the  labor of working-class people, including farmers, seamen, and miners, with the vast wealth of the banking and corporate elite.

The repeating chorus points out the stark inequality: the vaults are filled with the wealth that the working class sweated for, while real people struggle.  The last two stanzas predict the rise of banks owned by the people:

I’ve seen my brothers working,
Throughout this mighty land,
l prayed we’d get together,
And together make a stand.

Then we’d own those banks of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And we would share those vaults of silver,
That we have sweated for!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umMTkHnnJag&t=13s)

 

.

Posted on

Credit Unions and America’s 250th Anniversary

As we head to this Saturday’s national celebration, this week’s posts  put credit unions’ role in the context of the country’s ongoing pursuit of “life, liberty and happiness.”

The country’s fulfillment of its ideals has not been a straight line for either individuals or our collective accomplishments.  Independence and interdependence in our common life often seem at cross purpose.

Credit unions operate in an economy dominated by capitalist ownership and the incessant drive for financial success, individually and corporately.   The cooperative way is a decision we must actively choose for ourselves.

As one commentator observed:  It is almost impossible to turn away from what seems like the only game in town (political, economic, or religious), unless we have glimpsed a more attractive alternative. It’s hard to imagine it, much less imitate it, unless we see someone else do it first.

Cooperatives are designed to meet individual needs with collectively managed resources in a democratic structure.  Theory and practice unfortunately do do not always align in specific cases.  As in the country at large, credit unions must constantly strive to achieve their goal of enhancing members’ economic freedom.

Doing the Right Thing and  Me-First Ambitions

Credit unions’ ongoing challenge to be an alternative to the dominant ethos is not new.  It is a struggle for individuals in all generations as described in this story-poem.

Grandma Shorba’s Ragamuffin Stew

by Freya Manfred

During World War II, Grandma Shorba
handed plates of bread and meat to strangers
who asked for work in exchange for food.
After chopping wood and mending fences,
the lean, stoop-shouldered men went on their way.
“May God watch over them,” Grandma said.

I was glad I didn’t have to follow them
down the long train tracks silvering west.
I didn’t want to sleep beside a strange campfire
around the bend, in the next world.
But I worried how they’d survive, and asked
my parents if they could live with us.

My begging only made everyone nervous.
Maybe Grandma’s stories of The Good Samaritan
and the Loaves and Fishes weren’t true?
If I’d been in charge, I’d have asked those men to stay—
but Gramma, who trusted God,
fed them, then sent them on their way.

The Eternal Striving for an Unclouded Day

We all have a dream in which life’s contradictions are resolved.  A home where we don’t have to face all the ambivalent choices of life  This dream of perfection. of “a city on a hill”  motivated America’s founders.  Credit unions are one example of searching for this “home where no storm clouds roam.”

Credit unions are  a uniquely American accomplishment.  In just over 100 years  an alternative, member-owned financial choice is thriving in a system dominated by privately owned, profit making institutions.   And in doing so they constantly strive to bring  “unclouded days” for members.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE3nN6IvlGA)