The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff

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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 assured 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 Constitution, 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 butter; 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.

[Illustration: 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 class,
and they live comfortably after their fashion. 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
principal 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 amusement 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 constitution 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.

They bought at Nauvoo houses sufficient to accommodate them, but very
little land, renting such farms as they needed. They lived there on a
communal system, and ate in a great dining-room. But Cabet, I have been
told, did not intend to form his colony permanently there, but regarded
Nauvoo only as a rendezvous for those who should join the community,
intending to draft them thence to the real settlements, which he wished
to found in Iowa.

If Cabet had been a leader of the right temper, he might, I believe,
have succeeded; for he appears to have secured the only element
indispensable to success--a large number of followers. He had at Nauvoo
at one time not less than fifteen hundred people. With so many members,
a wise leader with business skill ought to be able to accomplish very
much in a single year; in ten years his commune, if he could keep it
together, ought to be wealthy.

The Icarians labored and planted with success at Nauvoo; they
established trades of different kinds, as well as manufactures; and
Cabet set up a printing-office, and issued a number of books and
pamphlets in French and German, intended to attract attention to the
community. Among these, a pamphlet of twelve pages, entitled, "Wenn ich
$500,000 hätte" ("If I had half a million dollars"), which bears date
Nauvoo, 1854, gives in some detail his plans and desires. It is a
statement of what he could and would achieve for a commune if some one
would start him with a capital of half a million; and the fact that four
years after he came to Nauvoo he should still have spent his time in
such an impracticable dream, shows, I think, that he was not a fit
leader for the enterprise. For nothing appears to me more certain than
that a communistic society, to be successful, needs above all things to
have the training, mental and physical, which comes out of a life of
privation, spent in the patient accumulation of property by the labors
of the members.

Moreover, in Cabet's first paragraph he shows contempt for one of the
vital principles of a communistic society. "If I had five hundred
thousand dollars," he writes, "this would open to us an immense credit,
and in this way vastly increase our means." But it is absolutely certain
that debt is the bane of such societies; and the remnant of Icarians who
have so tenaciously and bravely held together in Iowa would be the first
to confess this, for they suffered hardships for years because of debt.

If he had half a million, Cabet goes on to say, he would be able to
establish his commune upon a broad and generous scale; and he draws a
pretty picture of dwellings supplied with gas and hot and cold water; of
factories fitted up on the largest scale; of fertile farms under the
best culture; of schools, high and elementary; of theatres, and other
places of amusement; of elegantly kept pleasure-grounds, and so on. Alas
for the dreams of a dreamer! I turned over the leaves of his pamphlet
while wandering through the muddy lanes of the present Icaria, on one
chilly Sunday in March, with a keen sense of pain at the contrast
between the comfort and elegance he so glowingly described and the
dreary poverty of the life which a few determined men and women have
there chosen to follow, for the sake of principles which they hold both
true and valuable.

I have heard that Cabet developed at Nauvoo a dictatorial spirit, and
that this produced in time a split in the society. The leader and his
adherents went off to St. Louis, where he died in 1856. Meantime some of
the members were already settled in Iowa, and those who remained at
Nauvoo after Cabet's desertion or flight dispersed; the property was
sold, and the Illinois colony came to an end. The greater part of the
members went off, more or less disappointed. Between fifty and sixty
settled upon the Iowa estate, and here began life, very poor and with a
debt of twenty thousand dollars in some way fixed upon their land.

Their narrow means allowed them to build at first only the meanest mud
hovels. They thought themselves prosperous when they were able to build
log-cabins, though these were so wretched that comfort must have been
unknown among them for years. They were obliged to raise all that they
consumed; and they lived, and indeed still live, in the narrowest way.

The Icarian Commune lies about four miles from Corning, a station on the
Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, in Iowa. They began here with
four thousand acres of land, pretty well selected, and twenty thousand
dollars of debt. After some years of struggle they gave up the land to
their creditors, with the condition that they might redeem one half of
it within a certain stipulated time. This they were able to do by hard
work and pinching economy; and they own at present one thousand nine
hundred and thirty-six acres, part of which is in timber, and valuable
on that account.

There are in all sixty-five members, and eleven families. The families
are not large, for there are twenty children and only twenty-three
voters in the community.

They possess a saw-mill and grist-mill, built out of their savings
within five years, and now a source of income. They cultivate three
hundred and fifty acres of land, and have one hundred and twenty head of
cattle, five hundred head of sheep, two hundred and fifty hogs, and
thirty horses. Until within three years the settlement contained only
log-cabins, and these very small, and not commodiously arranged. Since
then they have got entirely out of debt, and have begun to build frame
houses. The most conspicuous of these is a two-story building, sixty by
twenty-four feet in dimensions, which contains the common dining-room,
kitchen, a provision cellar, and up stairs a room for a library, and
apartments for a family. In the spring of 1874 they had nearly a dozen
frame houses, which included the dining-hall, a wash-house, dairy, and
school-house. All the dwellings are small and very cheaply built. They
have small shops for carpentry, blacksmithing, wagon-making, and
shoemaking; and they make, as far as possible, all they use.

Most of the people are French, and this is the language mainly spoken,
though I found that German was also understood. Besides the French,
there are among the members one American, one Swiss, a Swede, and a
Spaniard, and two Germans. The children look remarkably healthy, and on
Sunday were dressed with great taste. The living is still of the
plainest. In the common dining-hall they assemble in groups at the
tables, which were without a cloth, and they drink out of tin cups, and
pour their water from tin cans. "It is very plain," said one to me; "but
we are independent--no man's servants--and we are content."

They sell about two thousand five hundred pounds of wool each year, and
a certain number of cattle and hogs; and these, with the earnings of
their mills, are the sources of their income.

Their number does not increase, though four or five years ago they were
reduced to thirty members; but since then seven who went off have
returned. I should say that they had passed over the hardest times, and
that a moderate degree of prosperity is possible to them now; but they
have waited long for it. I judge that they had but poor skill in
management and no business talent; but certainly they had abundant
courage and determination.

They live under a somewhat elaborate constitution, made for them by
Cabet, which lays down with great care the equality and brotherhood of
mankind, and the duty of holding all things in common; abolishes
servitude and service (or servants); commands marriage, under penalties;
provides for education; and requires that the majority shall rule. In
practice they elect a president once a year, who is the executive
officer, but whose powers are strictly limited to carrying out the
commands of the society. "He could not even sell a bushel of corn
without instructions," said one to me. Every Saturday evening they hold
a meeting of all the adults, women as well as men, for the discussion of
business and other affairs. Officers are chosen at every meeting to
preside and keep the records; the president may present subjects for
discussion; and women may speak, but have no vote. The conclusions of
the meeting are to rule the president during the next week. All accounts
are made up monthly, and presented to the society for discussion and
criticism. Besides the president, there are four directors--of
agriculture, clothing, general industry, and building. These carry on
the necessary work, and direct the other members. They buy at wholesale
twice a year, and just before these purchases are made each member in
public meeting makes his or her wants known. Luxury is prohibited in the
constitution, but they have not been much tempted in that direction so
far. They use tobacco, however.

They have no religious observances. Sunday is a day of rest from labor,
when the young men go out with guns, and the society sometimes has
theatrical representations, or music, or some kind of amusement. The
principle is to let each one do as he pleases.

They employ two or three hired men to chop wood and labor on the farm.

They have a school for the children, the president being teacher.

The people are opposed to what is called a "unitary home," and prefer to
have a separate dwelling for each family.

The children are kept in school until they are sixteen; and the people
lamented their poverty, which prevented them from providing better
education for them.

Members are received by a three-fourths' majority.

This is Icaria. It is the least prosperous of all the communities I have
visited; and I could not help feeling pity, if not for the men, yet for
the women and children of the settlement, who have lived through all the
penury and hardship of these many years. A gentleman who knew of my
visit there writes me: "Please deal gently and cautiously with Icaria.
The man who sees only the chaotic village and the wooden shoes, and only
chronicles those, will commit a serious error. In that village are
buried fortunes, noble hopes, and the aspirations of good and great men
like Cabet. Fertilized by these deaths, a great and beneficent growth
yet awaits Icaria. It has an eventful and extremely interesting history,
but its future is destined to be still more interesting. It, and it
alone, represents in America a great idea--rational democratic
communism."

I am far from belittling the effort of the men of Icaria. They have
shown, as I have said, astonishing courage and perseverance. They have
proved their faith in the communistic idea by labors and sufferings
which seem to me pitiful. In fact, communism is their religion. But
their long siege at fortune's door only shows how important, and indeed
indispensable to the success of such an effort, it is to have an able
leader, and to give to him almost unlimited power and absolute
obedience.

THE BISHOP HILL COMMUNE.

I have determined to give a brief account of the Swedish colony at
Bishop Hill, in Henry County, Illinois, because, though it has now
ceased to exist as a communistic society, its story yields some
instructive lessons in the creation and maintenance of such
associations. These Swedes began in abject poverty, and in the course of
a few years built up a prosperous town and settlement. They rashly went
into debt: debt brought lawsuits and disputes into the society, and all
three broke it up.

The people of Bishop Hill came from the region of Helsingland, in
Sweden. In their own country they were Pietists, and Separatists from
the State Church, mostly farmers, scattered over a considerable
district, but united by their peculiar doctrines, and by the efforts of
their preachers. I am told that they came into existence as a sect about
1830; in 1843 their chief preacher was a man of some energy, Eric Janson
by name; and he taught them the duty of living after the manner of the
Primitive Christian Church, inculcating humble and prayerful lives,
equality of conditions, and community of property.

Their refusal to attend church, and to submit themselves to its
ordinances, excited the attention of the government, which, probably
also alarmed at the phrase "community of goods," began to persecute them
with fines and imprisonment. Police officers were sent to break up their
congregations; they imagined themselves threatened with confiscation;
and in 1845 they sent one of their number, Olaf Olson, to the United
States, to see if they could not here find land on which to live in
peace and freedom. Olson's inquiries led him to Illinois; he selected
Henry County as a favorable situation; and in 1846, on his report, the
people determined to emigrate in a body, the few wealthy agreeing to pay
the expenses of the poor. They say that when they were ready to embark,
they were refused permission to leave their country, and Jonas Olson,
one of their leaders, had to go to the king, who, on his prayer, finally
allowed them to depart.

The first ship-load left Galfa in the summer of 1846, and arrived at
Bishop Hill in October of that year. Others followed, until by the
summer of 1848 they had eight hundred people on this spot--which they
named from an eminence in their own country.

They appear to have spent most of their means in the emigration, for
they were able during the first year to buy only forty acres of land,
and for eighteen months they lived in extreme poverty--in holes in the
ground, and under sheds built against hillsides; and ground their corn
for bread in hand-mills, often laboring at this task by turns all night,
to provide meal for the next day. A tent made of linen cloth was their
church during this time; and they worked the land of neighboring farmers
on shares to gain a subsistence. Living on the prairie, fever and ague
attacked them and added to their wretchedness.

By 1848 they had acquired two hundred acres of land, but were $1800 in
debt, which they had borrowed to keep them from starving; but in this
year they built a brick church, and they now worked a good deal of land
on shares. In 1849 they began to build a very long brick house, still
standing, which served them as kitchen and dining-hall. In the same year
Jonas Olson, a preacher, took eight young men, and with the consent of
the society went to California to dig gold for the common interest. He
returned after a year, unsuccessful.

In 1850 Eric Janson, their leader, was shot in the Henry County
court-house, while attending a trial in which a young man, not a member
of the community, claimed his wife, a girl who was a member, and whom he
wished to take away. I do not know the merits of the case, nor is it
important here. During this year Olaf Janson returned from Sweden with
several thousand dollars which he had been sent to collect--being debts
due some of the members; and this money, which enabled them to buy land,
appears to have given them their first fair start.

At this time, though they were still poor, they had built a number of
brick dwellings, had set up shops for carpentry, blacksmithing,
wagon-making, etc.; were raising flax, selling the seed, and making the
fiber into linen, some of which they sold; and they had a few cattle,
and a worn-out saw-mill. They had set up a school, even while they lived
"in the caves," and now hired an American teacher.

In 1853 they got an act of incorporation from the Illinois Legislature,
which enabled them to hold land and transact business as an association,
and in the name of trustees; until that time all they owned was held in
the name of individual members. In the same year they made a contract to
raise, during two years, seven hundred acres of broom-corn, for which
they received in cash on delivery fifty dollars a ton. As yet they had
no railroad, and had to haul their corn fifty miles. At this time, too,
they began to improve their breeds of cattle; paid high prices for one
or two short-horn bulls, and were soon famous in their region for the
excellence of their stock. They also made wagons for the neighboring
farmers, and established a grist-mill.

In 1854-5 they took a contract to grade a part of the Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy Railroad line, and to build some bridges; and as
they were able to put a considerable body of their young men upon this
work, it brought them in a good deal of money. They now began to erect
brick dwellings, a town-hall, and a large hotel, where they for a while
did a good business. They made excellent brick, and all their houses are
very solidly built, plain, but of pleasing exteriors. The most
remarkable one is the long dining-hall and kitchen, with a bakery and
brewery adjoining. In the upper story of this building a considerable
number of families lived; in the lower story all the people--to the
number of a thousand at one time--ate three times a day.

They were now prospering. In 1859 they owned ten thousand acres of land,
and had it all neatly fenced and in excellent order. They had the finest
cattle in the state; and their shops and mills earned money from the
neighboring farmers.

The families lived separately, but all ate together. They received their
clothing supplies at a common storehouse as they needed them, and
labored under the direction of foremen. Their business organization was
always loose. They had no president or single head. A body of trustees
transacted business, and made reports to the society, not regularly, but
at irregular intervals. There seems, too, to have been a speculative
spirit among them, for while in 1859 they owned ten thousand acres of
land and a town, which must have been worth at least three hundred
thousand dollars, as the land was all fenced and improved, and the town
was uncommonly well built, [Footnote: Between four and five hundred
thousand dollars was their own valuation; and in 1860 a report given in
one of the briefs of a lawsuit gives their assets at $864,000, and their
debts at less than $100,000.] they owed at that time, or in 1860,
between eighty and one hundred thousand dollars.

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