Part 31 (1/2)
Each family has either a house, or apartments in one of the large houses. Each has a garden patch, and keeps chickens; and every year a number of pigs are set apart for each household, according to its number. These are fed with the leavings of the table, and are fattened and killed in the winter, and salted down. Fresh beef is not commonly used. If any one needs vegetables, he can get them in the large garden.
There seemed to be an abundance of good plain food every where.
Originally, and until 1872, all the property stood in Dr. Keil's name; but in that year he, finding himself growing old, and urged too, I imagine, by some of the leading men, made a division of the whole estate, and gave a t.i.tle-deed to each head of a family of a suitable piece of property--to a farmer a farm, to a carpenter a house and shop, and so on. If there was any heart-burning over this division, I could not hear of it; and it appears to have made no difference in the conduct of the society, which labors on as before for the common welfare.
I asked, ”What, then, if you have divided all the property, will you do for the young people as they grow up?”
Dr. Keil replied, ”Dear me!--in the beginning we had nothing, now we have a good deal: where did it all come from? We earned and saved it.
Very well; we are working just the same--we shall go on earning money and laying it by for those who are growing up; we shall have enough for all.” I give below some further details, which I elicited from Dr. Keil, preferring to give them in the form of questions and answers:
_Question_. I have noticed that when young girls grow up they usually manifest a taste for ribbons and finery. How do you manage with such cases?
_Answer_. Well, they get what they want. They have only to ask at the supply store; only if they go too far--if it amounts to vanity--they are admonished that they are not acting according to the principles of love and temperance; they are putting undue expense on the society; they are making themselves different from their neighbors. It is not necessary to say this, however, for our people are now all trained in sound principles, and there is but little need for admonition.
_Q_. But suppose such a warning as you speak of were not taken?
_A_. Well, then they have leave to go into the world. If they want to be like the world, that is the place for them. And don't you see that if they are so headstrong and full of vanity they would not stay with us anyhow? They would not feel at home with us.
_Q_. Suppose one of your young men has the curiosity to see the world, as young men often have?
_A_. We give him money; he has only to ask the council. We say to him:
”You want to live in the world; well, you must earn your own living there; here is money, however, for your journey.” And we give him according to his character and worth in the society.
_Q_. Suppose a young man wanted to go to college?
_A_. If any one of our people wanted to train himself in some practical knowledge or skill for the service of the community, and if he were a proper person in stability of character and capacity, we would send him, and support him while he was learning. This we have repeatedly done. In such cases our experience is that when such young men return to us they bring back, not only all the money we have advanced for their support, but generally more besides. Suppose, for instance, one wanted to learn how to dye woolens; we would give him sufficient means to learn his calling thoroughly. But he would probably soon be receiving wages; and, as our people are economical, he would lay aside from his wages most likely more even than we had advanced him; and this he would be proud to bring into the common treasury on his return. [Dr. Keil gave me several instances of such conduct; and then proceeded, with a contemptuous air.]
But if a young man wants to study languages, he may do so here, as much as he likes--no one will object; but if he wanted to go to college for that--well, we don't labor here to support persons in such undertakings, which have no bearing on the general welfare of the society.
In fact there is little room for poetry or for the imagination in the life of Aurora. What is not directly useful is sternly left out. There are no carpets, even in Dr. Keil's house; no sofas or easy chairs, but hard wooden settles; an immense kitchen, in which women were laboring, with short gowns tucked up; a big common room, where apparently the Doctor lives with the dozen unmarried old men who form part of his household; a wide hall full of provision safes, flour-bins, barrels, etc.; but no books, except a Bible and hymn-book, and a few medical works; no pictures--nothing to please the taste; no pretty outlook, for the house lies somewhat low down. Such was the house of the founder and president of the community; and the other houses were neither better nor much worse. There is evidently plenty of scrubbing in-doors, plenty of plain cooking, plenty of every thing that is absolutely necessary to support life--and nothing superfluous.
When I remarked upon this to some of the men, and urged them to lay out the village in a somewhat picturesque style, to which the ground would readily lend itself, and explained that a cottage might be plain and yet not ugly, the reply invariably came: ”We have all that is necessary now; by and by, if we are able and want them, we may have luxuries.” ”For the present,” said one, ”we have duties to do: we must support our widows, our orphans, our old people who can no longer produce. No man is allowed to want here amongst us; we all work for the helpless.” It was a droll ill.u.s.tration of their devotion to the useful, to find in the borders of the garden, where flowers had been planted, these flowers alternating with lettuce, radishes, and other small vegetables.
Dr. Keil is a short, burly man, with blue eyes, whitish hair, and white beard. I took him to be a Swiss from his appearance, but his language--he spoke German with me--showed him to be a Prussian. He seemed excitable and somewhat suspicious; gave no tokens whatever of having studied any book but the Bible, and that only as it helped him to enforce his own philosophy. He was very quick to turn every thought toward the one subject of community life; took his ill.u.s.trations mostly from the New Testament; and evidently laid much stress on the parental character of G.o.d. As he discussed, his eyes lighted up with a somewhat fierce fire; and I thought I could perceive a fanatic, certainly a person of a very determined, imperious will, united to a narrow creed.
As to that creed: He said it was desirable and needful so to arrange our lives as to bring them into harmony with natural laws and with G.o.d's laws; that we must all trust in Him for strength and wisdom; that we all needed his protection--and as he thus spoke we turned suddenly into a little enclosure where I saw an uncommon sight, five graves close together, as sometimes children's are made; but these were evidently the graves of grown persons. ”Here,” he said, ”lie my children--all I had, five; they all died after they were men and women, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. One after the other I laid them here. It was hard to bear; but now I can thank G.o.d for that too. He gave them, and I thanked him; he took them, and now I can thank him too.” Then, after a minute's silence, he turned upon me with somber eyes and said: ”To bear all that comes upon us in silence, in quiet, without noise, or outcry, or excitement, or useless repining--that is to be a man, and that we can do only with G.o.d's help.”
As we walked along through the vegetable garden and vineyard, I saw some elderly women hoeing the vines and clearing the ground of weeds. I must not forget to say that the culture of their orchards, vineyards, and gardens is thorough and admirable. Dr. Keil said, nodding to the women, ”They like this work; it is their choice to spend the afternoon thus. If I should tell them to go and put on fine clothes and lounge around, they would be very much aggrieved.”
The members are all Germans or Pennsylvanians. They are of several Protestant sects; and there is even one Jew, but no Roman Catholics.
The band played on Sunday evening for an hour or more, but did not attract many people. Boys were playing ball in the street at the same time. Some _bought_ tobacco; which led me to ask again about the use of money. The question was not in any case satisfactorily answered; but I have reason to believe that a little selfish earning of private spending money is winked at. For instance, the man whose daughter's wedding I attended kept a few hives of bees; and in answer to a question I was told he did not turn their honey into the general treasury; what he did not consume he was allowed to sell. ”In such ways we get a little finery for our daughters,” said one. Again, when apples are very abundant, and a sufficient supply has been dried for market, the remainder of the crop is divided among the householders, with the understanding that they may eat or sell them as they prefer.
There is an air of untidiness about the streets of the settlement which is unpleasing. There is a piece of water, which might easily be made very pretty, but it is allowed to turn into a quagmire. But few of the door-yards are neatly kept. The village seems to have been laid out at haphazard. Moreover, their stock is of poor breeds; the pigs especially being wretched razor-backed creatures.
As to the people--there can be no doubt that they are happy and contented. In a country where labor is scarce and highly paid, and where the rewards of patient industry in any calling are sure and large, it is not to be supposed that such a society as Aurora would have held together nineteen years if its members were not in every way satisfied with their plan of life, and with the results they have attained under it.
What puzzled me was to find a considerable number of people in the United States satisfied with so little. What they have secured is neighbors, sufficient food probably of a better kind than is enjoyed by the ordinary Oregon farmer, and a distinct and certain provision for their old age, or for helplessness. The last seemed, in all their minds, a source of great comfort. Pecuniarily their success has not been brilliant, for if the property were sold out and the money divided, the eighty or ninety families would not receive more than three thousand or thirty-five hundred dollars each; and a farmer in Oregon must have been a very unfortunate man, who, coming here nineteen years ago with nothing, should not be worth more than this sum now, if he had labored as steadily and industriously, and lived as economically as the Aurora people have.