Part 32 (1/2)
”Why did you part.i.tion the property?” I asked, curiously; and was answered, ”In order to let every one be absolutely free, and to see who were inclined to a selfish life, and who for the community or unselfish life.” Moreover, I was a.s.sured that any one who wished might at any time put his deed on record, and its validity would be acknowledged.
Now among the persons who left the society, six families were allowed to retain their property, and of these several at this day live in the midst of the village. One is a mechanic, who pursues his trade for wages; and two others keep small shops. This appeared to me a really extraordinary instance of liberality or carelessness; but no one of the community seemed to think it strange. There are also one or two farmers, not members; with one of these, a young man, I rode into Shelbina. He told me that he had grown up in the society; that he had gone into the army, where he served during the war; and when he returned he had got tired of community life. He had also got some business notions into his head, and thought the community affairs were too loosely managed. The members, he thought, had not sufficient knowledge of business; in which I agreed with him. But his house stood at the end of the village, and the relations between him and his former a.s.sociates were at least so far amicable that one of the trustees took me to him to engage my pa.s.sage to the railroad station.
The society was strongest before Dr. Keil went to Oregon; he drew away, between 1854 and 1863, about four hundred of the six hundred and fifty persons who were gathered in Bethel in 1855; and among these were, it seems, a large number of young men who did not want to serve in the war, the society being non-resistants, and slipped off to Oregon to avoid the draft. There are no accessions from outside, or at any rate so few as to count for nothing. But, on the other hand, they a.s.sured me that they keep most of their young people.
When one of the younger generation--for whom no property has been set apart--wishes to leave, a sum of money is given. While I was there a young girl was about to sever her connection with the society, and she received, besides her clothing, twenty-five dollars in money. If she had been older she would have received more, on the ground that she would have earned more by her labor, beyond the cost to the society of her care from childhood.
Some years ago they were subjected to a troublesome lawsuit, brought by a seceding member to recover both wages and the property of his parents.
Thereupon, for the first time, they drew up a Const.i.tution, which all signed, and which binds them to claim no wages.
Clothing is served to all the members alike from a common store. As to food: as at Aurora, each family receives pigs enough for meat, and cows enough for milk and b.u.t.ter; and adjoining each house is a garden of from a quarter to half an acre, in which the women work to raise vegetables for the home supply--the men helping at odd hours. But it is plainly understood that each may, and indeed is expected to raise a surplus of chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruits, etc., which is sold at the store for such luxuries as coffee, sugar, and articles of food brought from a distance. The calves are raised for the community. I found that one member was a silversmith and photographer; and all that he sold to his fellow-members of course they paid for with the surplus products of their small holdings. Flour and meal they take from the mill as they please, and no account is kept of it.
The trustees are also foremen, and lay out the work. The people rise with the sun, and have three meals a day. Before every house, neatly piled up in the street, I noticed large supplies of fire-wood, sawed and split. They hire a few laborers to cut wood for them; it is then drawn into town and to each man's door by the community teams; and thereupon each family is expected to saw and split its own supplies. In fact, they make a general effort, and with singing and much merriment the wood-piles are properly prepared. This certainly is a convenience which the backwood farmer's wife is often without; but the untidy look of a great wood-pile before each house vexed my eyes.
The older men complained to me that the emigration to Oregon of so many of their young people had crippled them; and, indeed, I saw many signs of neglect--buildings in want of repair, and a lack of tidiness. But still they appear to be making money; for they have recently rebuilt their grist-mill, and have also within a few years paid off a debt of between three and four thousand dollars.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Church at Bethel, Missouri]
The religious belief of the Bethel Communists is, of course, the same with their Aurora brethren. They venerate Dr. Keil as the wisest of mankind, and abhor all ceremonies and sects. I was told that they celebrate the Lord's Supper at irregular intervals, and then by a regular supper, held either in the church or in a private house.
The people, like those of Aurora, are simple Germans of the lower cla.s.s, and they live comfortably after their fas.h.i.+on. They have no library, and read few books except the Bible. They have never printed any thing. In many of the houses I noticed two beds in one room, and that the princ.i.p.al sitting-room of the family. Dr. Giese, the president, has living with him most of the young men who are without family connections in the society. There are usually no carpets in the houses. But every thing is clean; the beds are neat; and it is only out of doors that litter is to be found.
The people have but little ingenuity; there is a lack of labor-saving devices; indeed, the only thing of the kind I saw was a wash-house, through which the hot water from the boiler of the mill is led; but the house itself was badly arranged and comfortless. The young people have a band of music, but no other amus.e.m.e.nt that I could hear of. Tobacco they use freely, and strong drink is allowed; but they have no drunkards.
As their future is secure, the people marry young, and this probably does much to bind them to the place. No restriction is placed upon marriage, except that if one marries out of the community, he must leave it.
The extraordinary feature of the Bethel and Aurora communities is the looseness of the bond which keeps the people together. They might break up at any time; but they have remained in community for thirty years.
Their religious belief is extremely simple, and yet it seems to suffice to hold them. They have not had among them any good business-men, yet they have managed to make a reasonably fair business success; for though, as I remarked concerning Aurora, almost any farmer industrious and economical as they are would have been pecuniarily better off after so many years, still these people, but for their determination to have their goods in common, would for the most part to-day have been day-laborers.
In weighing results, one should not forget the character of those who have achieved them; and considering what these people are, it cannot be denied that they have lived better in community than they would have lived by individual effort.
THE ICARIANS,
NEAR
CORNING, IOWA.
THE ICARIANS.
Etienne Cabet had a pretty dream; this dream took hold of his mind, and he spent sixteen years of his life in trying to turn it into real life.
One cannot help respecting the handful of men and women who, in the wilderness of Iowa, have for more than twenty years faithfully endeavored to work out the problem of Communism according to the system he left them; but Cabet's own writings persuade me that he was little more than a vain dreamer, without the grim patience and steadfast unselfishness which must rule the nature of one who wishes to found a successful communistic society.
Cabet was born at Dijon, in France, in 1788. He was educated for the bar, but became a politician and writer. He was a leader of the Carbonari; was a member of the French Legislature; wrote a history of the French Revolution of July; established a newspaper; was condemned to two years' imprisonment for an article in it, but evaded his sentence by flying to London; in 1839 returned to France, and published a history of the French Revolution in four volumes; and the next year issued a book somewhat famous in its day--the voyage to Icaria. In this romance he described a communistic Utopia, whose terms he had dreamed out; and he began at once to try to realize his dream. He framed a const.i.tution for an actual Icaria; sought for means and members to establish it; selected Texas as its field of operations, and early in 1848 actually persuaded a number of persons to set sail for the Red River country.
Sixty-nine persons formed the advance guard of his Utopia. They were attacked by yellow fever, and suffered greatly; and by the time next year when Cabet arrived at New Orleans with a second band, the first was already disorganized. He heard, on his arrival, that the Mormons had been driven from Nauvoo, in Illinois, leaving their town deserted; and in May, 1850, he established his followers there.