The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff

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"M.--I have thought that his knowledge of physiology, as he uses it, is
really a hindrance to him: he knows too much about his case.

"C.--I thought I had the heart disease when I was about nineteen years
of age. My heart would beat so when I went up stairs that I had to sit
down at the top. I remember that I said to my aunt one day I was sure
that I had got that disease, because my heart had such times of beating.
'O la!' she answered,' I guess you would not live long if it did not
beat.'

"N. [probably Mr. Noyes]--I have good reason to believe that a great
many diseases which doctors pronounce incurable are so so far as their
powers are concerned, and yet can be cured by exorcism. Doctors do not
believe in possession by the devil, and of course have no means of
curing diseases of that nature. They accordingly pronounce some diseases
incurable. Yet these diseases are not incurable by persons who
understand the nature of them, and that they are spiritual obsessions. I
do not care what the doctors say about L.'s back. It is very likely
incurable so far as they know, and yet it may be very easily curable to
any body who knows about the doctrine of the possession of the devil.
There is a range of science beyond the routine of the doctors which we
must take into the account in all this dealing with disease. Just look
at the case of Harriet Hall, and see what incurable diseases she had.
Two doctors certified that she ought to be dead twenty years ago, and
here she is alive and waiting on her father. Those doctors are dead, and
she is trotting around.

"E.--I have been associated a good deal with L. in business and now in
this sickness. I have studied his case some. His attitude toward disease
is very much like his attitude in business. When he has been well and
able to do his best, he has been in the past an autocrat in our
businesses. If he said a thing would not go, or would go, his dictum was
always accepted. He has a good deal of pride in having what he predicts
turn out to be true. I have sometimes thought that he was willing to
have things break down in order to demonstrate his infallibility as an
oracle. He shows the same trait in regard to disease. If he has a
symptom, and makes up his mind that he is going to have a certain
disease, he notifies his friends of it, and seems bound to have his
prophecy come true any way.

"N.--He would rather have a good chill, I suppose, than have his
prediction prove false.

"E.--I think he really knows but very little about his case. He lost his
health, and took up the study of medicine to find out what ailed him. It
may seem paradoxical, but I think that he is suffering for want of work;
his brain is suffering for want of some healthy action. If he would use
his brain about something for only half an hour a day, he would find
himself improving right along.

"A.--I remember L. had the reputation of being an ingenious boy; but he
used to seem old even then--he had the rheumatism or some such
complaint. In thinking about him, it seems to me that the instinct of
his life is to find a soft place in the world: he is hunting up cushions
and soft things to surround himself with. His bent is rather scientific
than religious. A man that is an oracle surrounds himself with something
soft in having people defer to him. I must say I think he is too
oracular about disease, considering the amount of study he has given to
the science of medicine. He went into the study of medicine in a sort of
self-coddling way, to find out what the matter was with himself. I have
realized that it is not good for a man in this world to hunt for a soft
spot."

And so on. Mr. Noyes closed the session with this remark:

"N.--Christ's words, 'Because I live ye shall live also,' may be thrust
in the face of all incurable diseases. There is no answer to that. No
incurable disease can stand against it."

I do not know whether L. recovered or not.

On Sunday evening, about half-past six o'clock, there was a gathering in
the large hall to hear some pieces of music from the orchestra. After
half an hour's intermission, the people again assembled, this time for a
longer session. A considerable number of round tables were scattered
about the large hall; on these were lamps; and around them sat most of
the women, old and young, with sewing or knitting, with which they
busied themselves during the meeting. Others sat on benches and chairs,
irregularly ranged about.

After the singing of a hymn, a man rose and read the report of the
business meeting held that morning, the appointment of some committees,
and so on; and this was then put to vote and accepted, having elicited
no discussion, and very little interest apparently. Next a man, who sat
near Mr. Noyes in the middle of the room, read some extracts from
newspapers, which had been marked and sent in to him by different
members for that purpose. Some of these were mere drolleries, and raised
laughter. Others concerned practical matters.

To this reading, which was brief, followed a discussion of the power of
healing disease by prayer. It was asserted to be "necessary to regard
Christ as powerful to-day over diseases of the body as well as of the
spirit." When several had spoken very briefly upon this subject, and the
conversation was evidently closed, a considerable number of the people
concurred in what had been said by short ejaculations, as "I confess the
power of Christ in my heart;" "I confess the power of healing;" "I
confess to a tender conscience;" "I confess Christ;" "I confess a love
for all good people," and so on.

Next a hymn was sung relating to community life, which I copy here as a
curiosity:

"Let us sing, brothers, sing,
In the Eden of heart-love--
Where the fruits of life spring,
And no death e'er can part love;
Where the pure currents flow
From all gushing hearts together,
And the wedding of the Lamb
Is the feast of joy forever.
Let us sing, brothers, sing.

"We have built us a dome
On our beautiful plantation,
And we all have one home,
And one family relation;
We have battled with the wiles
Of the dark world of Mammon,
And returned with its spoils
To the home of our dear ones.
Let us sing, brothers, sing.

"When the rude winds of wrath
Idly rave round our dwelling,
And the slanderer's breath
Like a simoon was swelling,
Then so merrily we sung,
As the storm blustered o'er us,
Till the very heavens rung
With our hearts' joyful chorus.
Let us go, brothers, go.

"So love's sunshine begun:
Now the spirit-flowers are blooming,
And the feeling that we're one
All our hearts is perfuming;
Toward one home we have all
Set our faces together,
Where true love doth dwell
In peace and joy forever.
Let us sing, brothers, sing."

This was presently followed by another song peculiar to the Oneida
people. A man sang, looking at a woman near him:

"I love you, O my sister,
But the love of God is better;
Yes, the love of God is better--
O the love of God is best."

To this she replied:

"I love you, O my brother,
But the love of God is better;
Yes, the love of God is better--
O the love of God is best."

Then came the chorus, in which a number of voices joined:

"Yes, the love of God is better,
O the love of God is better;
Hallelujah, Hallelujah--
Yes, the love of God is best."

Soon after the meeting broke up; but there was more singing, later, in
the private parlors, which I did not attend. Thus ended Sunday at the
Oneida Community; and with this picture of their daily life I may
conclude my account of these people.

THE AURORA AND BETHEL COMMUNES.

Twenty-nine miles south of Portland, on the Oregon and California
Railroad, lies the village of Aurora, more commonly known along the road
as "Dutchtown." As you approach it on the train, you will notice on an
eminence to the left a large wooden church; in the deep ravine which is
spanned by a railroad-bridge, a saw-mill; and, scattered irregularly
over the neighboring country, a number of houses, most of them differing
from usual village dwellings in the United States, mainly because of
their uncommon size, and the entire absence of ornament. They are three
stories high, sometimes nearly a hundred feet deep, and look like
factories.

Opposite the railroad station, upon elevated ground, stands one of these
houses, which is called the hotel, and is an excellent, clean country
inn, famous all over Oregon for good living. When I mentioned to an
acquaintance in Portland my purpose to spend some days at Aurora, he
replied, "Oh, yes--Dutchtown; you'll feed better there than any where
else in the state;" and on further inquiry I found that I might expect
to see there also the best orchards in Oregon, the most ingenious
expedients for drying fruits, and an excellent system of agriculture.
Beyond these practical points, and the further statement that "these
Dutch are a queer people," information about them is not general among
Oregonians. The inn, or "hotel," however, at Aurora, is used as a summer
resort by residents of Portland; the Aurora band is employed at
festivities in Portland; the pleasure-grounds of the community are
opened to Sunday-school and other picnics from the city in summer and
fall; and at the State Agricultural Fair, held at Salem, the Aurora
Community controls and manages the restaurant, and owns the buildings in
which food is prepared and sold. In these ways it comes into direct
communication with the outside world.

I found the hotel a plainly furnished but scrupulously neat and clean
house, at which I was received with very little ceremony. Nor did any
one volunteer to guide me about or give me information concerning the
society: curiosity does not seem to be a vice of the place. A note of
introduction to that member of the society who acts as its purchasing
agent, with which fortunately I was provided, secured me his attention
after I had found him. He was just then at work as a carpenter, putting
up a small house for a newly married couple.

The Aurora Commune is an offshoot of a society formed upon the same
principles in Bethel, Shelby County, Missouri. Dr. Keil, the President
of Aurora, was the founder of Bethel, and still rules both communities.
He removed from Missouri to Oregon because he imagined that there would
be a larger field for his efforts in a new state; and also, I imagine,
because of an innate restlessness of disposition.

Dr. Keil is a Prussian, born in 1811; and was a man-milliner in Germany.
He became a mystic, and he seems to have dealt also in magnetism, and
used this as a curative agent for diseases. After living for some time
in New York, he came to Pittsburgh, where he gave himself out as a
physician, and showed, it is said, some knowledge of botany. He
professed also to be the owner of a mysterious volume, written with
human blood, and containing receipts for medicines which enabled him, as
he professed, to cure various diseases. Presently he became a Methodist,
and thereupon burned this book with certain awe-inspiring formalities.
He seems to have been a fanatic in religious matters, for he soon left
the Methodists to form a sect of his own; and it is related that he
gathered a number of Germans about him, to whom he gave himself out as a
being to be worshiped, and later as one of the two witnesses in the Book
of Revelation; and in this capacity he gave public notice that on a
certain day, after a fast of forty days, he would be slain in the
presence of his followers.

While he was thus engaged in forming a following for himself among the
ignorant and simple-minded Germans, the rogue who called himself Count
Leon came over and joined Rapp's colony at Economy; and when Leon, after
quarreling with Rapp and removing to Phillipsburg, ran away from there
to Louisiana, Keil managed to secure some of Leon's people as his
adherents, and thereupon began to plan a communistic settlement,
somewhat upon the plan of Rapp's, but with the celibate principle left
out. In the year 1844, his followers, among whom were by good luck some
of the seceders from Economy, began a settlement in accordance with
these plans in Missouri. They were all either Germans or "Pennsylvania
Dutch," and people of limited means. It is probable that Keil had
nothing, for he appears for some years previously to have followed no
regular business or profession. They removed to Bethel, a point
forty-eight miles from Hannibal, in Missouri, and thirty-six miles from
Quincy; and began in very humble style. Not all the colonists came out
at once. He took with him at first two families and a number of young
people. These broke ground in the new settlement, and others followed as
they sold their property at home.

Shelby County, Missouri, was then a new country. The colonists took up
four sections, or two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of land, to
which they added from time to time until they possessed four thousand
acres. Upon a part of this estate they gradually established a
distillery, grist-mill, sawmill, carding machinery, a woolen-mill, and
all the mechanical trades needed by the farmers in their neighborhood,
and thus they made a town. As soon as they were able they set up a
general store, and a post-office was of course established by the
government. Among their first buildings was a church; for Dr. Keil was
their spiritual as well as temporal head.

At Bethel they prospered; and there four hundred of these Communists
still live. I shall give an account of them later.

Keil's ideas grew with the increasing wealth of the people; and his
unrestful spirit longed for a new and broader field of labor. He
imagined that on the Pacific coast he might found a larger communistic
society upon a broader domain; and he did not find it difficult to
persuade his people that the attempt ought to be made.

In 1855, accordingly, Dr. Keil set out with ten or twelve families,
eighty persons in all, across the plains, carrying along household
utensils and some cattle. A few families started later, and crossed the
Isthmus; and all gathered at Shoalwater Bay, north of the mouth of the
Columbia River, and in Washington Territory. There a few families
belonging to Aurora still live, managing farms of the community; but in
June, 1856, the main body of the society removed to Aurora, and began
there, with tedious and severe labor, a clearing among the firs.

The upper part of the Willamette Valley is a broad, open plain, easy to
till, and inviting to the farmer. Dr. Keil and his companions avoided
this plain: they chose to settle in a region pretty densely grown over
with timber. I asked him why he did so. He replied that, meaning to
establish a sawmill, they wished to use the trees cut down in clearing
the land to make into lumber for houses and fences. There was at that
time no railroad, and lumber in the open prairie was expensive. "The end
proved that we were right," said he; "for, though we had hard work at
first, and got ahead slowly, we were soon able to buy out the prairie
farmers, who had got into debt and were shiftless, while we prudent
Germans were building our place." He added a characteristic story of
their early days--that when they first settled at Aurora, having no
fruit of their own, he used to buy summer apples for his people from the
nearest farmers for a dollar a bushel. These were eaten in the families;
but he taught them to save the apple-parings, and make them into
vinegar, which he then sold to the wives of his American farming
neighbors at a dollar and a half per gallon.

In order to make intelligible the means as well as the ways of their
success, I must here explain what are the social principles to which
they agree, and in accordance with which they have worked since 1844.
They are remarkable chiefly for their simplicity. Dr. Keil teaches, and
they hold that--

1st. All government should be parental, to imitate, as they say, the
parental government of God.

2d. That therefore societies should be formed upon the model of the
family, having all interests and all property absolutely in common; all
the members laboring faithfully for the general welfare and support, and
drawing the means of living from the general treasury.

3d. That, however, neither religion nor the harmony of nature teaches
community in any thing further than property and labor. Hence the family
life is strictly maintained; and the Aurora Communists marry and are
given in marriage, and raise and train children precisely as do their
neighbors the Pike farmers. They reject absolutely all sexual
irregularities, and inculcate marriage and support the family relation
as religious duties, as the outside world does. Each family has its own
house, or separate apartments in one of the large buildings.

4th. Dr. Keil, who is not only their president, but also their preacher,
holds the fundamental truth of Christianity to be, "Love one another,"
and interprets this in so broad and literal a sense as requires a
community of goods and effects. His sermons are exhortations and
illustrations of this principle, and warnings against "selfishness" and
praise of self-sacrifice. Service is held in a very commodious and
well-built church twice a month, and after the Lutheran style: opening
with singing, prayer, and reading of the Scriptures; after which the
president preaches from a chosen text.

To me he spoke with some vehemence against sects and creeds as
anti-Christian. Sunday is usually a day of recreation and quiet
amusement, with music and visiting among the people.

5th. The children of the community are sent to school, there being at
Aurora a common or free school, in which an old man, a member of the
society, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the late Horace Greeley,
is teacher. The school is supported as other free schools of the state
are; but it is open all the year round, which is not the case generally
with country schools. They aim to teach only the rudimentary studies--
reading, writing, and arithmetic.

6th. The system of government is as simple as possible. Dr. Keil, the
founder, is president of the community, and autocrat. He has for his
advisers four of the older members, who are selected by himself. In the
management of affairs he consults these, whose opinions, I imagine,
usually agree with his. When any vitally important change or experiment
is contemplated, the matter is discussed by the whole community, and
nothing is done then without a general assent.

7th. Every man is expected to labor for the general good, but there are
no established hours of work, nor is any one compelled to labor at any
special pursuit.

8th. Plain living and rigid economy are inculcated as duties from each
to the whole; and to labor regularly, and to waste nothing, are
important parts of the "whole duty of man."

9th. Each workshop has its foreman, who comes, it would seem, by natural
selection. That is to say, here, as elsewhere, the fittest man comes to
the front. But it is a principle of their polity that men shall not be
confined to one kind of labor. If brickmakers are needed, and shoemakers
are not busy, the shoe shop is closed, and the shoemakers go out and
make brick. During the spring and summer months a large proportion of
the people are engaged in the cultivation of crops. After harvest these
are drawn into the town, and find winter employment in the saw-mill and
the different shops. It is to accommodate these temporary sojourners
that the large houses are built. Here they have apartments allotted to
them, and the young people board with the different families, the young
girls being employed chiefly in household duties.

These are the extremely simple principles and practical rules which
guide the Aurora Community. Their further application I will show in
detail hereafter. I wish first to show the dollar-and-cent results.

Coming to Aurora in 1856, they have held together, with some outside
gains, and some additions from the Bethel Society, until there are now
nearly four hundred people in the settlement, who own about eighteen
thousand acres of land, scattered over several counties. They have
established a sawmill, a tan-yard, and cabinet-maker's, blacksmith's,
wagon-maker's, tailor's, shoemaker's, carpenter's, and tin shops. Also a
grist-mill, carding machinery, some looms for weaving wool; drying
houses for fruit; and there is a supply store for the community, a drug
store kept by the doctor of the society, and a general country store, at
which the neighboring farmers, not Communists, deal for cash.

They have besides the most extensive orchards in the state, in which are
apples, pears of all kinds, plums, prunes, which do admirably here, and
all the commoner large and small fruits. There is also a large vegetable
garden, for the use of those who have none at their houses. The orchards
are in fine order, and were laden with fruit when I saw them in June,
1873. Near the orchard is a large, neatly kept house, in which the
people gather during the fruit-harvest to prepare it for market, and to
pare that which is to be dried. Beyond the orchard is a public ground of
a dozen acres, for Sunday assemblies; and here, too, are houses for
eating and dancing, with a kitchen and bake-ovens commodious enough to
cook a meal for the whole settlement, or for a large picnic party.

Thus far they have brought their affairs in seventeen years, without any
peculiar religious belief, any interference with the marriage or family
relation, without a peculiar dress, or any other habit to mark them as
Separatists, or "Come-outers," to use a New England phrase. It must be
admitted also that they have achieved thus much without long or
exhausting or enforced labor.

Their living is extremely plain. The houses and apartments are without
carpets; the women wear calico on Sunday as well as during the week, and
the sun-bonnet is their head-covering. The men wear ready-made clothing
of no particular style. Cleanliness is, so far as I saw, a conspicuous
virtue of the society. Dr. Keil, the president, was the only person with
whom I came in contact who was not very neat. He is a snuff-taker; and
he walked over the orchard with me in an untidy pair of carpet slippers.

They appear to be people of few ceremonies. On a Sunday I attended a
wedding; the marriage took place in the school-house, and was witnessed
by a small congregation of young people, friends of the bride and groom.
The young girls came to the wedding in clean calico dresses and
sun-bonnets; and I noticed that even the bride wore only a very plain
woolen dress, with a bit of bright ribbon around her neck. The ceremony
was performed by the schoolmaster, who is also a justice of the peace;
when it was over, the company quietly and somewhat shyly walked up to
congratulate the newly married, some of the young women kissing the
bride. Then there was an immediate adjournment to the house of the
bride's father, a mile off in the country. I was hospitably invited to
go to the feast; and found a small log cabin, with kitchen and bedroom
below, and a loft above, standing near a deep ravine, and with a neat
garden and small orchard back of it.

In front a bower had been formed of the boughs of evergreens, beneath
which were two or three tables, which were presently spread with a plain
but wholesome and bountiful feast, to which the strangers present and
the older people were first invited to sit down, the younger ones
waiting on the table, and with laughter and joking taking their places
afterward. Meantime the village band played; after dinner we all walked
into the garden, and in a pretty little summer-house discussed orchards,
bees, and other country living, and by and by returned to the village.
The young people were to have some dancing, and altogether it was a very
pretty, rather quiet country wedding. It struck me that the young women
were undersized, and did not look robust or strong; there were no rosy
cheeks, and there was a very subdued air upon all the congregation. The
poor little bride looked pale and scared; but the bridegroom, a stout
young fellow, looked proud and happy, as was proper. Dr. Keil was not
present, but drove out in a very plain country wagon as the weddingers
entered the schoolroom.

The community occasionally employs outside laborers; and when a man or
woman applies to join the society, he or she is at first employed at
wages, and at some trade. "We will employ and pay you as long as we need
your labor," the council says in such a case; "if after a while you are
thoroughly satisfied that this is the best life, and if we approve of
you, we will take you in." It is not necessary that the new-comer should
bring money with him; but if he has means, he is required to put them
into the common treasury, for he _must_ believe that "all selfish
accumulation is wrong, contrary to God's law and to natural laws."

Occasionally, I was told, they have had as members idle or drunken men.
Such are admonished of their wrong courses; and if they are
incorrigible, they always, I was assured, leave the place. "An idler or
dissolute person has not the sympathies of our people; he has no
connection with the industries of the society; as he does not work, he
can hardly be so brazen as to ask for supplies. The practical result is
that presently he disappears from among us."

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