History of American Socialisms Part 24

"We had no property qualifications. All male and female members over eighteen years of age were voters upon all important matters, excepting the investment and outlay of capital. No religious or political tests were required. The chief principle upon which we endeavored to found our a.s.sociation, was to establish justice and judgment in our little earth at Clarkson domain, and as much further as possible.

"Our means were ample; but, as it proved, unavailable. The beginning and ending of our troubles was this--and let all readers consider it--we were without the pale and protection of law, for want of incorporation. Consequently we could do no business, could not buy or sell land or other property, could not sue or be sued, could neither make ourselves responsible, nor compel others to become so; and as a majority of us were never able to adopt the dreamy abstractions of non-resistance and no-law, we were unable to live and prosper in that kingdom of smoke 'above the world.'

"The members, in different proportions, had placed in the hands of trustees, after the manner of religious societies in this State, ninety-five thousand dollars worth of choice landed property, to be sold, turned into cash, and invested in Clarkson domain. We purchased of a Mr. Richmond Church and others, over two thousand acres of first-rate land, all on trust, excepting twenty acres bought for cash. The rise in value of our large purchase since our dispersion, has exceeded fifty thousand dollars. We probably took on to the domain some ten thousand dollars worth of goods and chattels.

"Our property was not considered common stock; we only recognized a common cause. Our agreement gave capital to labor for less than half of the world's present interest, and gave to labor its full reward, according to merit, that is, skill, strength, and time; establis.h.i.+ng 'Do as you would be done by'

first; and attending to the questions of brotherhood afterward, such as home for life, respect, comfort, and all needful or desirable things to the old, the infant, the disabled, etc. This was the extent of our Communism. Our company stock was divided into twenty-five dollar shares. About one-third of the members owned none at all at first, although their rights were considered equal; and that point, be it said to the glory of the domain, was never mooted and scarcely mentioned.

"We commenced our new life at Clarkson in March, April and May, 1844; building our temporary, and enlarging our established, houses, and beginning to marshal our forces of toil. In April we 'numbered Israel,' and found we were four hundred and twenty souls, as happy and joyous a family as ever thronged to an Independence dinner. If, in our fiscal affairs we were not Communists, in our moral and social feelings we were a house not divided against itself.

"In relation to education, natural intelligence, and morality, I candidly think we were a little above the average of common citizens at large in the State, and no more. Trades and occupations were multiform. Our doctor and minister were academical scholars merely. We had one ripe merchant (a great rogue, too), some first-rate mechanics of all the substantial trades, and a n.o.ble lot of common farmers.

"As for religion, we had seventy-four praying Christians, including all the sects in America, excepting Millerites and Mormons. We had one Catholic family (Dr. Th.e.l.ler's), one Presbyterian clergyman, and one Universalist. One of our first trustees was a Quaker. We had one Atheist, several Deists, and in short a general a.s.sortment; but of Nothingarians, none; for being free for the first time in our lives, we spoke out, one and all, and found that every body did believe something. All the gospels were preached in harmony and good fellows.h.i.+p. We early got up a committee on preaching the gospel, placing one of each known denomination upon said committee, including a Deist, who being a liberal soul, and no bigot in his infidelity, was chosen chairman on the gospel; and allow him modestly to say, he did acquit himself to the entire satisfaction of his more fortunate brethren in the faith. One word about our Atheist--our poor unfortunate Atheist; he was beloved by every soul on the domain, and was an intimate friend of our orthodox minister. We had no difficulties on the score of religion, and had we remained, we should have been nearer to love to G.o.d and love to man, than we are now, scattered as we are, broadcast over the continent. For members.h.i.+p, we required a decent character--no more. No oaths nor fines were required. Honorable pledges were given and generally kept.

"Our domain was located at the mouth of Sandy Creek, on Lake Ontario. It was a slightly rolling plain, and the best soil in the world. On account of so much water (Lake, Bay and Creek), it was rather unhealthy, but would improve in time by cultivation.

We had one good flour-mill, two saw-mills, one machine-shop, some good farm buildings and barns, and about half a mile in length of temporary rows of board buildings; a dry goods store for a portion of the time, and over 400 acres of land, under fair cultivation. At one period of our career, we had about four hundred sheep, forty cows, twenty-five span of horses, twelve yoke of oxen, swine, guinea fowls, barn fowls, geese, ducks, bees, etc., etc., in great abundance. We cultivated several acres of vegetable garden, reaped one hundred acres of wheat, and had corn, potatoes, peas, etc., to a large amount--I should think seventy-five acres. We had abundance of pasture, and must have cut two hundred tons of hay. Of wild berries there must have been gathered hundreds of bushels.

"Our regularly elected officers managed the receipts and expenditures; and they were, I believe, honestly managed up to a certain time.

"The four hundred and twenty members kept together until the autumn of the first year, and then were forced to break up and divide property, having but little to sustain themselves, because our capital was wrongfully tied up, in the hands of trustees: this course having been pursued by advice of certain great lawyers, who, when our legal troubles commenced, appeared in the courts against us. No purchasers could be found to buy the lands in the hands of the trustees; so we had come to a dead lock, and were obliged to break up or down, as the fact may be estimated. The a.s.sociates did not disagree at all save in one thing, and that was, as to these bad property arrangements, which compelled them to break up. They staid or went by lots cast. Two hundred persons staid on the domain some four months longer, and then, the hope of a legal foundation having entirely died out, the whole matter was necessarily thrown into the court of Chancery, and the lawyers, as usual, took the avails of the hard earnings of the disappointed members.

"The regularly organized a.s.sociation kept together nearly one year. A remnant of the band remained after the court of chancery had adjudged a transfer of the estate back into the hands of the original owners. That remnant tried every little scheme and new contrivance that imagination could devise (except Fourierism), to stick together in a joint-stock capacity for a year longer or so, and then broke and ran all over the world, proclaiming Fourierism a failure. The Heavens may fall, and Fourier's industrial science may fail; but it must be tried first; till then it can not fail.

"In short the reason why the attempt at Clarkson failed, and the only reason, was, that the founders missed the entrance door, viz., a legal foundation; by which they would have made friends with the old world, and begun the new in a constructive way, obtaining the right men and plenty of the 'mammon of unrighteousness.' They should have got incorporated under a general law like our manufacturing law, and obtained a suitable domain of at least 5760 acres of land or three miles square, and should have built and furnished a sufficient portion of a phalanstery to accommodate at least 400 persons, at the outset of organization. I boldly p.r.o.nounce all partial attempts, short of such a beginning, a waste, and worse than a waste, of time and brain, blood and muscle, soul and body.

JOHN GREIG."

A writer in the _Phalanx_ (July 1844), viewing things from a standpoint a little further off than Mr. Greig's, gave the following more probable account of the Clarkson failure:

"The original founders of this a.s.sociation, no doubt actuated by good motives, but lacking discretion, held out such a brilliant prospect of comfort and pleasure in the very infancy of the movement, that hundreds, without any correct appreciation of the difficulties to be undergone by a pioneer band, rushed upon the ground, expecting at once to realize the heaven they so ardently desired, and which the eloquent words of the lecturers had warranted them to hope for. Thus, ignorant of a.s.sociation, possessed, for the most part, of little capital, without adequate shelter from the inclemency of the weather, or even a sufficient store of the most common articles of food, without plan, and I had almost said, without purpose, save to fly from the ills they had already experienced in civilization, they a.s.sembled together such elements of discord as naturally in a short time led to their dissolution."

One feature of Mr. Greig's entertaining sketch deserves notice in pa.s.sing, viz., his cheerful boast of the multiplicity of religions in the Clarkson a.s.sociation, and the wonderful harmony that prevailed among them. The meaning of the boast undoubtedly is, that religious belief was so completely a secondary and insignificant matter, that it did not prevent peaceful family relations, even between the atheists and the orthodox. This kind of harmony is often spoken of in the accounts of other a.s.sociations, and seems to have been a general characteristic, or at least a _desideratum_, of the Owen and Fourier schools. It is this harmonious indifference, which we refer to when we speak of the a.s.sociations of those schools as _non-religious_.

The primary Ma.s.sachusetts Communities, however, were hardly so free from religious limitations, though they issued from the sects commonly called liberal. The Brook Farmers, we have seen, covered the National Convention all over with the mantle of piety, insisting that they were at work as devout Christians, and that Fourierism, as they held it, was Christianity. And Hopedale was even more zealous for Christianity than Brook Farm. Collins's Community at Skaneateles, on the other hand, went clear over to exclusive anti-religion; and actually barred out by its original creed, all kinds of Christians, tolerating n.o.body but sound Atheists and Deists.

The Northampton a.s.sociation, which we have termed Nothingarian, seems to have invented the happy medium of the Clarkson platform, and in that respect may be regarded as the prototype of the whole cla.s.s of Fourier a.s.sociations. The mixture of religions, however, at Northampton, was not so harmonious as at Clarkson. The historian of the Northampton Community says: "The carrying out of different religious views was perhaps the occasion of more disagreement than any other subject; and this disagreement, operated to general disadvantage, as in consequence of it several valuable members withdrew." We shall meet with similar disagreements and disasters in the Sodus Bay Phalanx and other a.s.sociations, to be reported hereafter. So that it does not seem altogether safe to huddle a great variety of contradictory religions together in close a.s.sociation, notwithstanding the apparent results in the Clarkson case. And it occurs, as a natural suggestion, that possibly the Clarkson a.s.sociation did not last long enough to fairly test the results of a general mixture of religions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SODUS BAY PHALANX.

This a.s.sociation originated about the same time as the Clarkson a.s.sociation (February 1844), and in the same place (Rochester). The following description of its domain is from the _Herald of Freedom_:

"We have at this place about 1,400 acres of choice land, three hundred of which are under improvement. It borders on Sodus Bay, the best harbor on Lake Ontario, and for beauty of scenery, is not surpa.s.sed by any tract in the State. We have on the domain two streams of water, which can both be used for propelling machinery. We number at present about three hundred men, women and children. The buildings on the place were nearly enough to accommodate the whole, the place having formerly been occupied by the Shakers, who had erected good buildings for their own accommodation."

The editor of the _Phalanx_ visited this a.s.sociation in the autumn of 1844, and wrote of it as follows:

"The advantages of the location seemed to us very rare, and it was with great pain that we discovered that the internal condition, of the Phalanx was not encouraging. We did not find that unity of purpose, without which a small and imperfectly provided a.s.sociation can not be held together until it has attained the necessary perfection in its mechanism. At the commencement, as it appeared to us, there was not sufficient caution in the admission of members. A large number of persons were received without proper qualification, either in character or industrial abilities. Sickness unfortunately soon arose in the new Phalanx, and increased the confusion which resulted from a want of unity of feeling and systematic organization. Religious differences, pressed in an intolerant manner on both sides, had at the time of our visit produced entire uncertainty as to future operations, and carried disorder to its height. We left the domain with the conviction, which reflection has strengthened, that without an entire reorganization under more efficient leaders, the a.s.sociation must fall entirely to pieces; a fact which is greatly to be deplored on account of the cause in general, as well as on account of the excellence of the location, and the real worth of several individuals who have pa.s.sed unshaken through such trying circ.u.mstances. We have, however, in the case of this Phalanx, a striking example of the folly of undertaking practical a.s.sociation without sufficient means, and without men of proper character. No other advantages can compensate for the want of these."

Nearly a year later (September 1845), a member of the Sodus Bay Phalanx wrote to the _Harbinger_ in the following dubious vein:

"We have only about twelve or fifteen adult males, and we believe we may safely say (from the amount of labor performed the present season), not many unprofitable ones. We have learned wisdom from the many difficulties and privations of last year, and there is now evidently a settled and determined will to succeed in our enterprise.

There is, however, a debt which is very discouraging; $7,000 princ.i.p.al (besides $2,450 interest), which will come due next spring, and an ability on our part of paying no more than the interest."

About the beginning of 1846 John A. Collins of the Skaneateles Community, visited Sodus Bay, and sent to his paper, the _Communitist_, the following mournful report:

"Experience has taught them that but little confidence can be placed on calculations which are predicated upon a newly-organized, or more properly disorganized, body of heterogeneous materials, during the first and second years of its existence. There is not the least doubt, but that an energetic and efficient individual, with sufficient capital to erect with the least possible delay the saw-mill, lath, s.h.i.+ngle, broom-handle, tub and pail, fork and hoe-handle, last, and general turning machinery, and employ as many first-cla.s.s workmen as the business would require, could in three years, pay both princ.i.p.al and interest, and have the entire farm and several thousand dollars besides. But an a.s.sociation composed of inexperienced, restless, indolent, feeble and selfish individuals, would perish beneath the pressure of interest, ere they could construct their mills, get their machinery in operation, and become organized and systematized, so that all things could be carried forward with that system and perfection which characterize isolation and the older established Communities.

"But had not capital stepped forth to crush this movement, other elements equally poisonous and deadly were introduced, which would have sealed its ruin. A great portion of its members were brought together, not by a strong feeling or sympathy for the poor, n.o.ble philanthropy, or self-denying enthusiasm, but by the most narrow selfishness. Add to this, that bane of all that is meek, pure, n.o.ble and peaceful, religious bigotry was carried in and incorporated into the const.i.tution of the Phalanx. Soon the body was divided into the religious and liberal portions, both of which carried their views, we think, to extremes.

"We were present at a business meeting, in the early part of the fall of 1844. Each party, it seemed, felt bound to oppose the wishes, plans and movements of the other. We advised the more liberal portion of the society quietly to withdraw, and allow the other party to succeed if it possibly could. But they did not feel at liberty to do so; and soon after the religious body left, taking with them what of their property they could find, leaving those who remained (the liberal portion of the society), comparatively dest.i.tute. They felt determined to succeed, and n.o.bly have they combated, to the present time, the hostile elements which have warred against them with terrible force.

United in sympathy and feeling, they re-organized last spring; but the interest was too much for them to meet, and now there is no prospect of their remaining as an a.s.sociation longer than the approaching April. Could those now upon the domain purchase three or four hundred acres of the land, we have not the least doubt but that they would succeed, and ultimately come into possession of the valuable wood-land adjoining. But this is impossible. In the evening all the adults convened together, and at their earnest request, we spoke for the s.p.a.ce of an hour or more upon the signs of the times, the evidences of social progress, and the various minor difficulties that the pioneers in this movement must necessarily have to experience; proving to the satisfaction of most of them, we think, that Fourier's plan of distributing wealth, was both arbitrary and superficial; that it was a useless effort to unite two opposite and hostile elements, which have no more affinity for each other than water and oil, or fire and gunpowder; that inasmuch as individual and separate interests are the cause or occasion of nearly all the crime, poverty, and suffering in civilized society, it follows that the cause and occasion must be removed, ere the effects will disappear. Still the difference between Communists and a.s.sociationists is not so great, that they should be opposed and alienated. It should be our object to see the points of agreement, rather than seek for points of disagreement. In the former we have been too active and earnest. a.s.sociation is a great school for Communism. It will develop the false, and point out the good.

"As we left this interesting spot the following morning, it was painful to think that those men and women, who for nearly two years had struggled against great odds, with their philanthropic, manly and heroic spirit, with all their enthusiasm, zeal and confidence in the beauty and practicability of the principles of social co-operation, must soon be dispersed and thrown back again, to act upon the selfish and beggarly principles of strife and compet.i.tion."

Macdonald ends the story in his usual sombre style as follows:

"This experiment was a total failure. I have been unable to gather many particulars concerning its last days, and those I have obtained are of a very unfavorable character.

"The chief cause of failure was religious difference. Persons of various religious creeds could not agree. There were some among them who thought it no sin to labor on the Sabbath, and others who looked upon it as an outrage, which the Phalanx should take action to prevent. A committee was appointed to settle such differences, but in this they failed. Sickness was another of their troubles. They were severely afflicted with typhoid erysipelas, and at one time forty-nine of their members were upon the sick list.

"After laboring a year or two under these difficulties, there was a hasty and disorderly retreat. It is said that each individual helped himself to the movable property, and that some decamped in the night, leaving the remains of the Phalanx to be disposed of in any way which the last men might choose. The fact that mankind do not like to have their faults and failings made public, will probably account for the difficulty in obtaining particulars of such experiments as the Sodus Bay Phalanx."

Allen and Orvis, the lecturing missionaries of Brook Farm, in that same letter from which we quoted some time since a maledictory paragraph on the memory of the Skaneateles Community, mention also the bad odor of the defunct confederated Phalanxes of Western New York, in the following disrespectful terms. Their letter is dated at Rochester, September 1847:

"The prospect for meetings in this city is less favorable than that of any place where we have previously visited. It is the nest wherein was hatched that anomalous brood of birds, called the 'Sodus Bay Phalanx,'

'The Clarkson Phalanx,' the 'Bloomfield Phalanx,' and the 'Ontario Union.' The very name of a.s.sociation is odious with the public, and the unfortunate people who went into these movements in such mad haste, have been ridiculed till endurance is no longer possible, and they have slunk away from the sight and knowledge of their neighbors."

The experience of the Sodus Bay Phalanx in regard to religion, suggests reflections. Let us improve the opportunity to study some of the practical relations of religion to a.s.sociation.

The object and end of a.s.sociation in all its forms, as we have frequently said, is to gather men, women and children into larger and more permanent HOMES than those established by marriage. The advantages of partners.h.i.+p, incorporation and cooperation have become so manifest in modern affairs, that an unspeakable longing has arisen in the very heart of civilization for the extension of those advantages to the dearest of all human interests--family affairs--the business of home. The charm that drew the western New Yorkers together in such rus.h.i.+ng mult.i.tudes, was simply the prospect of home on the large scale, which indeed is heaven.

Now if we consider the laws which govern the formation of homes on the small scale, we shall be likely to get some wisdom in regard to their formation on the large scale.

And in the first place, it is evident that homes formed by the conjunction of pairs in the usual way, are not all harmonious--perhaps we might say, are not generally harmonious. Families quarrel and break up, as well as a.s.sociations; and if husbands and wives were as free to separate as the members of a.s.sociation are, possibly marriage would not make much better show than Socialism has made. Human nature, as we have seen it in the Communities and Phalanxes--discordant, centrifugal--is the same in marriage. Now, as experience has developed something like a code of rules that govern prudent people in venturing on marriage, our true way is to study that code, and apply it as far as possible to the vastly greater venture of a.s.sociation.

Fourier's dream that two or three thousand discordant centrifugal individuals in one great home, would fall, by natural gravitation, into a balance of pa.s.sions, and realize a harmony unattainable on the small scale of familism, has not been confirmed by experience, and seems to us the wildest opposite of truth. We should expect, _a priori_, that with discordant materials, the greater the formation, the worse would be the h.e.l.l: and this is just what has been proved by all the experiments. Let us go back, then, and study the rules of harmony in the formation of common families.

Probably there is not one among those rules so familiar and so universally approved by the prudent, as that which advises men and women not to marry without agreement in religion This rule has nothing to do with bigotry. It does not look at the supposed truth or falsehood of different religious creeds. It simply says: Let the Catholic marry the Catholic; the Orthodox, the Orthodox; the Deist, the Deist; the Nothingarian, the Nothingarian; but don't match these discords together, if you wish for family peace. Now this is the precept which the Fourier a.s.sociations, as we see, deliberately violated; and yet they expected peace, and complained dreadfully because they did not get it! There is latent quarrel enough in the religious opposition of a single pair, to spoil a family; and yet these Socialists ventured on hundred-fold complications of such oppositions, with a heroism that would be sublime, if it were not desperately unwise.

It is useless to say that religion is an affair of the inner man and need not disturb external relations. It did disturb the external relations of the Socialists at Sodus Bay, and could not do otherwise.

They quarreled about the Sabbath. It did disturb the external relations of the Northampton Socialists. They quarreled about amus.e.m.e.nts. Religion always extends from the inner man to such external things.

It is useless to say, as Collins evidently wished to insinuate, that the bigoted sort of religionists, those of the orthodox order, were alone to blame. In the first place this is not true. All the witnesses say, Collins among the rest, that both parties pushed and hooked. And in the next place, if it were true, it would only show the importance of excluding the orthodox from a.s.sociations, and the value of the rule that forbids marrying religious discords.