Chapter I (8)

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."

"Do you have no disagreements from envy or jealousy among you," I asked Dr. Keil; who replied, "Very seldom now; the people have been too long and too thoroughly trained; they are too well satisfied of the wisdom of our plan of life; they are practiced in self-sacrifice, and know that selfishness is evil and the source of unhappiness. In the early days we used sometimes to have trouble. Thus a man would say, 'I brought money into the society, and this other man brought none; why should he have as much as I;' but my reply was, 'Here is your money--take it; it is not necessary; but while you remain, remember that you are no better than he.' Again, another might say, 'My labor brings one thousand dollars a year to the society, _his_ only two hundred and fifty;' but my answer was, 'Thank God that he made you so much abler, stronger, to help your brother; but take care lest your poorer brother do not some day have to help you, when you are crippled, or ill, or disabled.'"

The children who have in these years, since 1844, grown up in the community generally remain. I spoke with a number of men who had thus passed all but their earliest years in the society, and who were content. Men sometimes return, repentant, after leaving the society. "The boys and girls know that they can leave at any time; there is no compulsion upon any one; hence no one cares to go. But they generally see that this is the best place. We are as prosperous and as happy as any one; we have here all we need."

As all work for the common good, so all are supplied from the common stores. I asked the purchasing agent about the book-keeping of the place; he replied, "As there is no trading, few accounts are needed. Much of what we raise is consumed on the place, and of what the people use no account is kept. Thus, if a family needs flour, it goes freely to the mill and gets what it requires. If butter, it goes to the store in the same way. We need only to keep account of what we sell of our own products, and of what we buy from abroad, and these accounts check each other. When we make money, we invest it in land." Further, I was told that tea, coffee, and sugar are roughly allowanced to each family.

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 title-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 illustration 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 illustrations mostly from the New Testament; and evidently laid much stress on the parental character of God. 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 God'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 God 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 God'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.

It is probable, however, that in the minds of most of them, the value of united action, the value to each of the example of the others, and the security against absolute poverty and helplessness in the first years of hard struggle, as well as the comfort of social ties, has counted for a great deal.

Nor ought I to forget the moral advantages, which appear to me immense and not to be underrated. Since the foundation of the colony, it has not had a criminal among its numbers; it has sent no man to jail; it has not had a lawsuit, neither among the members nor with outside people; it has not an insane person, nor one blind or deaf and dumb; nor has there been any case of deformity. It has no poor; and the support of its own helpless persons is a part of its plan.

This means that the Aurora community has not once in nineteen years of its existence used the courts, the jails, or the asylums of the state; that it has contributed nothing to the criminal or the pauper parts of the population.

This result in a newly settled state, and among a rude society, will appear not less remarkable when I add that the community has no library; that its members, so far as I could see, lack even the most common and moderate literary culture, aspiring to nothing further than the ability to read, write, and cipher; that from the president down it is absolutely without intellectual life. Moreover, it has very few amusements. Dancing is very little practiced; there is so little social life that there is not even a hall for public meetings in the village; apple-parings and occasional picnics in the summer, the playing of a band, a sermon twice a month, and visiting among the families, are the chief, indeed the only excitements in their monotonous lives. With all this there is singularly little merely animal enjoyment among them: they do not drink liquor; the majority, I was told, do not even smoke tobacco; there is no gayety among the people. Doubtless the winter, which brings them all together in the village, leads to some amusements; but I could hear of nothing set, or looked forward to, or elaborately planned. "The women talk, more or less," said one man to me, when I asked if there were never disagreements and family jars; "but we have learned to bear that, and it makes no trouble."

It seemed to me that I saw in the faces and forms of the people the results of this too monotonous existence. The young women are mostly pale, flat-chested, and somewhat thin. The young men look good-natured, but aimless. The older women and men are slow in their movements, placid, very quiet, and apparently satisfied with their lives.

I suppose the lack of smart dress and finery among the young people on Sunday, and at the wedding, gave a somewhat monotonous and dreary impression of the assemblage. This was probably strengthened in my mind by the fact that the somewhat shabby appearance of the people was only of a piece with the shabby and neglected look of their village, so that the whole conveyed an impression of carelessness and decay. Nineteen years of steady labor ought to have brought them, I could not but think, a little further: ought to have given them tastefully ornamented grounds, pretty houses, a public bath, a library and assembly-room, and neat Sunday clothing. It appeared to me that the stern repression of the whole intellectual side of life by their leader had borne this evil fruit. But it may be that the people themselves were to blame: they are Germans of a low class, and "Pennsylvania Dutch"--people, too often, who do not aim high. Then, too, it must be admitted that farm-life in Oregon is not, in general, above the plane of Aurora. Dutchtown is an Oregonian paradise; and the Aurora people are commonly said to "have every thing very nice about them."

Moreover, I could see that such a community must, unless it has for its head a person of strong intellectual life, advance more slowly and with greater difficulty than its members might, if they were living in the great world and thrown upon their individual resources.

Economically, I think there is no doubt that in the clearing up of their land, and the establishment of orchards and other productive industries, these Communists had a decided and important advantage over farmers undertaking similar enterprises with the help of laborers to whom they must have paid wages. For, though the wages of a day-laborer nowhere yield much more than his support and that of his family, they yield this in an uneconomical manner, a part of the sum earned being dropped on the way to middlemen, and a part going for whisky, sprees, blue Mondays, and illness arising out of bad situation, improper food, etc. The Aurora colonists labored without money wages; they could economize to the last possible degree in order to tide over a difficult place; they at all times measured their outlay by their means on hand; and I do not doubt that they made Aurora, with its orchards and other valuable improvements, for half what it would have cost by individual effort.

Nor can it be safely asserted that there is no higher future for Aurora. Dr. Keil cannot carry them further--but he is sixty-four years old; if, when he dies, the presidency should fall into the hands of a person who, with tact enough to keep the people together, should have also intellectual culture enough to desire to lift them up to a higher plane of living, I can see nothing to prevent his success. The difficulty is that Dr. Keil's system produces no such man. Moses was brought up at Pharaoh's court, and not among the Israelites whom he liberated, and who made his whole life miserable for him.

II.--BETHEL.

Bethel is, of course, the older community; I describe it here after Aurora, because my visit to it was made after I had seen the Oregon community, and also because here is shown to what Aurora tends. The two societies are still one, having their efforts in common; and I was told that if the people at Bethel could sell their property, they would all remove to Oregon.

The Bethel Community now owns about four thousand acres of good land, exclusive of a tract of thirteen hundred acres at Nineveh, in the neighboring county of Adair, where six families of the community live, who are engaged chiefly in farming, having, however, also an old saw-mill and a tannery, and a shoemaker's and a blacksmith's shop. These families were removed thither twenty-five years ago, because it was thought the land there had a valuable water-power.

Bethel has now above two hundred members, and about twenty-five families. There are fifty children in the school, I was told.

They have a saw-mill and grist-mill, a tannery, a few looms, a general store, and a drug-store, and shops for carpenters, blacksmiths, coopers, tinners, tailors, shoemakers, and hatters, all on a small scale, but sufficient to supply not only themselves but the neighboring farmers. They had formerly a distillery, but that and a woolen factory were burned down a few years ago. They mean to rebuild the last.

All the people are Germans, and I found here many relatives of persons I had met at Aurora.

The town has much the same characteristic features as Aurora, except that it has not the exceptionally large and factory-like dwellings. It has one main street, poorly kept, and in parts even without a sidewalk; cattle and pigs were straying about it, too, and altogether it did not look very prosperous. But the brick dwellings which lined the street were substantially built, and the saw and grist mill which lies at the lower end is a well-constructed building of brick. Half-way up the main street was a drug-store, large enough I should have said to accommodate with purges and cathartics a town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants; and on a cross-street was another. Besides the chief store, I was surprised to see two other smaller shops; and still more surprised to be told that they belonged to and were kept by persons who had left the community, but who remained here in its midst. Of these I shall have something to say by and by.

At the head of the street stands the tavern or hotel, kept in the German or Pennsylvania Dutch way--with a bed in the large common room, and meals served in the kitchen. The German cooking was substantial and good. To the right of the hotel, at some distance, stands the church, placed in the middle of a young grove of trees planted much too thickly ever to prosper. The church has a floor of large red tiles; a narrow pulpit at one end; a place railed off at the other end, where the band plays on high festivals, and two doors for the entrance of the sexes, who sit on separate sides of the house. From the tower I had a view of the greater part of the community's territory, which lies finely, and is evidently a well-selected and valuable tract of land.

As in Aurora, they have preaching here every other Sunday, and no week-day meetings or assemblages of any kind. They told me, however, that they have a Sunday-school for the children, where they are instructed in the Bible.

The preacher and head of this society is a Mr. Giese, appointed by Dr. Keil; he keeps also the drug-store, where I was sorry to see liquor sold to laboring men and others, but in a very quiet way.

The Bethel Society has six trustees, chosen by the members, but holding office during good behavior. As in Aurora, no business report is made to the society. Giese is cashier and book-keeper, and the trustees examine his accounts once a year.

The real estate in Bethel is held upon a very extraordinary tenure. It appears that--the settlement having begun in 1844--by 1847 there were in the society some dissatisfied persons, who clamored for a partition of the property. Dr. Keil thereupon determined to divide it, and to each member or householder a certain part was made over as his own. Out of the gains of the community in the three years was reserved sufficient to support the aged and infirm, and I believe the mills were also kept as part of the common stock. Thereupon some dissatisfied persons sold their shares and went off. The remainder lived on in common, and without changing their relations. To each person a deed was given of his share; but those who remained in the society were told--so the matter was explained to me by two of the trustees--not to put their deeds on record; and later a deed of the whole property of the community, including the individual holdings, was made out in the name of the president, Mr. Giese. I did not see this document, but presume, of course, that it gave him a title only in trust for all.

"Why did you partition 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 assured 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 associates were at least so far amicable that one of the trustees took me to him to engage my passage 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 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.

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.