Part 39 (2/2)
bills.” It does not heed the changes in fas.h.i.+on, and thus saves time and strength to its women. Finally, the communal life is so systematized that every thing is done well, at the right time, and thus comes another important saving of time and material. The communal wood-house is always full of well-seasoned firewood: here is a saving of time and temper which almost every Western farmer's wife will appreciate.
If you consider well these different economies, it will cease to be surprising that communistic societies become wealthy; and this without severe or exhausting toil. The Zoarites acknowledge that they could not have paid for their land had they not formed themselves into a commune; the Amana Inspirationists confess that they could not have maintained themselves near Buffalo had they not adopted the communal system.
I have said nothing about the gain of the commune by the thorough culture it is able and likely to give to land; its ability to command at any moment a large laboring force for an emergency, and its advantage in producing the best, and selling its surplus consequently at the highest market price. But these are not slight advantages. I should say that the reputation for honesty and for always selling a good article is worth to the Shakers, the Amana and other communes, at least ten per cent. over their compet.i.tors.
On the moral side the gain is evidently great. In a society so intimately bound together, if there are slight tendencies to evil in any member, they are checked and controlled by the prevailing public sentiment. The possibility of providing with ease and without the expenditure of money good training and education for children, is an immense advantage for the commune over the individualist who is a farmer or mechanic in a new country. The social advantages are very great and evident. Finally, the effect of the communal life upon the character of the individual is good. Diversity of employments, as I have noticed in another chapter, broadens the men's faculties. Ingenuity and mechanical dexterity are developed to a surprising degree in a commune, as well as business skill. The constant necessity of living in intimate a.s.sociation with others, and taking into consideration their prejudices and weaknesses, makes the communist somewhat a man of the world; teaches him self-restraint; gives him a liberal and tolerant spirit; makes him an amiable being. Why are _all_ communists remarkably cleanly? I imagine largely because filth or carelessness would be unendurable in so large a family, and because system and method are absolutely necessary to existence.
But, to come to my third question, the communes I have visited do not appear to me to make nearly as much of their lives as they might. Most of them are ascetics, who avoid the beautiful as tending to sin; and most of them, moreover, out of the force of old habits, and a conservative spirit which dreads change, rigidly maintain the old ways.
In the beginning, a commune must live with great economy, and deny itself many things desirable and proper. It is an advantage that it should have to do this, just as it is undoubtedly an advantage to a young couple just starting out in life to be compelled by narrow circ.u.mstances to frugal living and self-denial. It gives unselfishness and a wholesome development of character. But I cannot see why a prosperous commune should not own the best books; why it should not have music; why it should not hear the most eloquent lecturers; why it should not have pleasant pleasure-grounds, and devote some means to the highest form of material art--fine architecture. It seems to me that in these respects the communes I have visited have failed of their proper and just development; and I believe this inattention to the higher and intellectual wants of men to be the main reason of their generally failing numbers. They keep their lives on the plane of the common farmer's life out of which most of the older members were gathered--and their young people leave them, just as the farmers of our country complain that their boys run off to the cities. The individual farmer or country mechanic cannot control this; he cannot greatly beautify his life, or make it intellectually richer. But to the commune, once well established and prosperous, all needful things are possible, so far as money cost is concerned; and it is my belief that neither books nor music, nor eloquence nor flowers, nor finely kept pleasure-grounds nor good architecture would be dangerous to the success of a commune.
In another respect, the communistic societies fall short of what they ought to be and do. The permanence of their establishments gives them extraordinary advantages for observing the phenomena of climate and nature; and it would add greatly to the interest of their lives did they busy and interest themselves with observations of temperature, and of the various natural phenomena which depend upon or denote climate: the arrival and departure of birds; the first and last frosts; the blossoming of flowers and trees. A Shaker family ought to produce records of this kind of great value and interest; and I wonder that such a book as White's ”Selborne” has not empted some communist to such observations. But I nowhere, except at Oneida, found more than a very superficial interest in natural phenomena.
It is easy to see that here is a field of innocent and healthful amus.e.m.e.nt which, with the abundant leisure the members of a prosperous commune enjoy, could be worked so as to give a new and ever-fresh interest to the lives of young and old.
I find fault also with the isolation in which communal societies live.
They would be the better if they communicated fully and frequently among each other, and interchanged thoughts and experiences. Not only do the different societies hold aloof from each other, but among the Shakers even families do not communicate or advise with others living at a distance. But I believe this is to be remedied.
Finally, I repeat that one cannot play at communism. It is earnest work, and requires perseverance, patience, and all other manly qualities. But if I compare the life in a contented and prosperous, that is to say a successful commune, with the life of an ordinary farmer or mechanic even in our prosperous country, and more especially with the lives of the working-men and their families in our great cities, I must confess that the communist life is so much freer from care and risk, so much easier, so much better in many ways, and in all material aspects, that I sincerely wish it might have a farther development in the United States.
With this wish I conclude a work which has interested me extremely--the record of an investigation which was certainly the strangest and most remarkable I ever made, and which forced me to take some views of the nature and capacities of the average man which I had not before.
That communistic societies will rapidly increase in this or any other country, I do not believe. The chances are always great against the success of any newly formed society of this kind. But that men and women can, if they _will_, live pleasantly and prosperously in a communal society is, I think, proved beyond a doubt; and thus we have a right to count this another way by which the dissatisfied laborer may, if he chooses, better his condition. This seems to me a matter of some importance, and justifies, to myself at least, the trouble I have taken in this investigation.
[Relocated Footnote: Here is a list of t.i.tles, which I take from Noyes: The Alphadelphia Phalanx, Hopedale Community, Leroysville Phalanx, Bloomfield a.s.sociation, Blue Springs Community, North American Phalanx, Ohio Phalanx, Brook Farm, Bureau County Phalanx, Raritan Bay Union, Wisconsin Phalanx; the Clarkson, Clermont, Columbian, c.o.xsackie, Skaneateles, Integral, Iowa Pioneer, Jefferson County, La Grange, Turnbull, Sodus Bay, and Washtenaw Phalanxes; the Forrestville, Franklin, Garden Grove, Goose Pond, Haverstraw, Kendall, One Mentian, and Yellow Springs Communities; the Marlborough, McKean County, Mixville, Northampton, Spring Farm, and Sylvania a.s.sociations; the Moorehouse and the Ontario Unions; the Prairie Home; New Harmony, Nashoba, New Lanark, the Social Reform Unity, and the Peace Union Settlement.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The following list does not pretend to be a complete bibliography of Socialism or Communism. It contains the t.i.tles of all the works which have fallen under my own observation relating to the Communistic Societies now existing in the United States, and referred to in this book. Most of these are in my own collection; a few I found in the Congressional Library or in the hands of friends. To a few of the t.i.tles I have appended remarks explanatory of their contents.
1. A Brief Account of a Religious Scheme taught and propagated by a number of Europeans who lately lived in a place called Nisqueunia, in the State of New York, but now residing in Harvard, Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, commonly called Shaking Quakers. By Valentine Rathbone, Minister of the Gospel. To which is added a Dialogue between George the Third of Great Britain and his Minister, giving an account of the late London mob, and the original of the Sect called Shakers. The whole being a discovery of the wicked machinations of the princ.i.p.al enemies of America. Worcester, 1788.
[This is the earliest printed mention I have found of the Shakers. The pamphlet is in the Congressional Library, and came from the Force Collection. Its intention was to make the Shakers odious as British spies; and in the ”Dialogue” between the king and his minister, ”Lord Germain” is made to comfort the king with an account of ”the persons who were sent to propagate a new religious scheme in America,” whose accounts, he says, are ”very flattering,” and upon whom he depends to mislead the ignorant Americans into opposition to the ”rebels.” The ”Dialogue” pretends to have been ”printed London; reprinted Worcester, 1782.”]
2. Testimony of Christ's Second Appearing, exemplified by the Principles and Practice of the Church of Christ. History of the Progressive Work of G.o.d, extending from the Creation of Man to the Harvest, comprising the Four Great Dispensations now consummating in the Millennial Church.
Antichrist's Kingdom or Churches, contrasted with the Church of Christ's First and Second Appearing, the Kingdom of the G.o.d of Heaven. Published by the United Society called Shakers. No date. (The Preface to the first edition is dated ”Lebanon, O., 1808.” Of the fourth, ”Watervliet, N. Y., 1854;” pp. 632.)
3. Autobiography, of a Shaker, and Revelation of the Apocalypse, with an Appendix. By Frederick W. Evans. New York, American News Company, 1869, pp. 162.
4. _The Same._ London, J. Burns, 1871, with a photographic portrait of the author.
5. Shaker's Compendium of the Origin, History, Principles, Rules and Regulations, Government and Doctrines of the United Society of Christ's Second Appearing, with Biographies of Ann Lee, William Lee, James Whittaker, J. Hocknell, J. Meacham, and Lucy Wright. By F. W. Evans. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1859, pp. 189.
6. The Nature and Character of the True Church of Christ proved by Plain Evidences, and showing whereby it may be known and distinguished from all others. Being Extracts from the Writings of John Dunlavy. New York, printed by George W. Wood, 1850, pp. 93.
7. The Kentucky Revival; or a Short History of the late Extraordinary Outpouring of the Spirit of G.o.d in the Western States of America, agreeably to Scripture Promises and Prophecies concerning the Latter Day, with a Brief Account of the Entrance and Purposes of what the World call Shakerism, among the Subjects of the late Revival in Ohio and Kentucky. Presented to the _True Zion Traveler_ as a Memorial of the Wilderness Journey. By Richard McNemar. New York. Reprinted by Edward O.
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