CHAPTER XLVII.
REVIEW AND RESULTS.[ToC]
Looking back now over the entire course of this history, we discover a remarkable similarity in the symptoms that manifested themselves in the transitory Communities, and almost entire unanimity in the witnesses who testify as to the causes of their failure. General Depravity, all say, is the villain of the whole story.
In the first place Macdonald himself, after "seeing stern reality," confesses that in his previous hopes of Socialism he "had imagined mankind better than they are."
Then Owen, accounting for the failure at New Harmony, says, "he wanted honesty, and he got dishonesty; he wanted temperance, and instead he was continually troubled with the intemperate; he wanted cleanliness, and he found dirt," and so on.
The Yellow Spring Community, though composed of "a very superior class," found in the short space of three months, that "self-love was a spirit that would not be exorcised. Individual happiness was the law of nature, and it could not be obliterated; and before a single year had passed, this law had scattered the members of that society which had come together so earnestly and under such favorable circumstances, back into the selfish world from which they came."
The trustees of the Nashoba Community, in abandoning Frances Wright's original plan of common property, acknowledge their conviction that such a system can not succeed "without the members composing it are superior beings. That which produces in the world only common-place jealousies and every-day squabbles, is sufficient to destroy a Community."
The spokesman of the Haverstraw Community at first attributes their failure to the "dishonesty of the managers;" but afterward settles down into the more general complaint that they lacked "men and women of skillful industry, sober and honest, with a knowledge of themselves and a disposition to command and be commanded," and intimates that "the sole occupation of the men and women they had, was parade and talk."
The historian of the Coxsackie Community says "they had many persons engaged in talking and law-making, who did not work at any useful employment. The consequences were, that after struggling on for between one and two years, the experiment came to an end. There were few good men to steer things right."
Warren found that the friction that spoiled his experiments was "the want of common honesty."
Ballou complained that "the timber he got together was not suitable for building a Community. The men and women that joined him were very enthusiastic and commenced with great zeal; their devotion to the cause seemed to be sincere; but they did not know themselves."
At the meetings that dissolved the Northampton Community, "some spoke of the want of that harmony and brotherly feeling, which were indispensable to success; others spoke of the unwillingness to make sacrifices on the part of some of the members; also of the lack of industry and the right appropriation of time."
Collins lived in a quarrel with a rival during nearly the whole life of his Community, and finally gave up the experiment from "a conviction that the theory of Communism could not be carried out in practice; that the attempt was premature, the time had not yet arrived, and the necessary conditions did not yet exist." His experience led him to the conclusion that "there is floating upon the surface of society, a body of restless, disappointed, jealous, indolent spirits, disgusted with our present social system, not because it enchains the masses to poverty, ignorance, vice, and endless servitude; but because they can not render it subservient to their private ends. Experience shows that this class stands ready to mount every new movement that promises ease, abundance, and individual freedom; and that when such an enterprise refuses to interpret license for freedom, and insists that every member shall make their strength, skill and talent, subservient to the movement, then the cry of tyranny and oppression is raised against those who advocate such industry and self-denial; then the enterprise must become a scape-goat, to bear the fickleness, indolence, selfishness, and envy of this class."
The testimony in regard to the Sylvania Association is, that "young men wasted the good things at the commencement of the experiment; and besides victuals, dry-goods supplied by the Association were unequally obtained. Idle and greedy people find their way into such attempts, and soon show forth their character by burdening others with too much labor, and, in times of scarcity, supplying themselves with more than their allowance of various necessaries, instead of taking less."
The failure of the One Mentian Community is attributed to "ignorance and disagreements," and that of the Social Reform Unity to "lack of wisdom and general preparation."
The Leraysville Phalanx went to pieces in a grumble about the management.
Of the Clarkson Association a writer in the Phalanx says that they were "ignorant of Fourier's principles, and without plan or purpose, save to fly from the ills they had already experienced in civilization. Thus they assembled together such elements of discord, as naturally in a short time led to their dissolution."
The Sodus Bay Socialists quarreled about religion, and when they broke up, some decamped in the night, with as much of the common property as they could lay hands on. Whereupon Macdonald sententiously remarks—"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."
The Bloomfield Association went to wreck in a quarrel about land-titles.
Of the Jefferson County Association, Macdonald says, "After a few months, disagreements became general. Their means were totally inadequate; they were too ignorant of the principles of Association; were too much crowded together, and had too many idlers among them. There was bad management on the part of the officers, and some were suspected of dishonesty."
The Moorhouse Union appears to have been almost wholly a gathering of worthless adventurers.
Mr. Moore, in his Post Mortem on the Marlboro Association, very delicately observes that "the failure of the experiment may be traced to the fact that the minds of its originators were not homogeneous."
Macdonald, after studying the Prairie Home Community, says, "From all I saw I judged that it was too loosely put together, and that the members had not entire confidence in each other."
The malcontent who gives an account of the Trumbull Phalanx says: "Some came with the idea that they could live in idleness at the expense of the purchasers of the estate, and these ideas they practically carried out; while others came with good hearts for the cause. There were one or two designing persons, who came with no other intent than to push themselves into situations in which they could impose upon their fellow members; and this, to a certain extent, they succeeded in doing." And again: "I think most persons came there for a mere shift. Their poverty and their quarreling about what they called religion (for there were many notions as to which was the right way to heaven), were great drawbacks to success."
There were rival leaders in the Ohio Phalanx, and their respective parties quarreled about constitutions till they got into a lawsuit which broke them up. The member who gave the account of this Association says: "The most important causes of failure were said to be the deficiency of wealth, wisdom and goodness."
The Clermont Phalanx had jealousies among its women that led to a lawsuit; and a difficulty with one of its leading members about land-titles.
The story of the Alphadelphia Phalanx is briefly told thus: "The disagreement with Mr. Tubbs about a mill-race at the commencement of the experiment, threw a damper on it, from which it never recovered. All lived in clover so long as a ton of sugar or any other such luxury lasted. The officers made bad bargains. Laborers became discouraged. In the winter some of the influential members went away temporarily, and thus left the real friends of the Association in the minority; and when they returned after two or three months absence, every thing was turned up-side-down. There was a manifest lack of good management and foresight. The old settlers accused the majority of this, and were themselves elected officers; but they managed no better, and finally broke up the concern."
The Wisconsin Phalanx kept its quarrels below lawsuit point, but the leading member who gives account of it, says that the habit of the members was to "scold and work, and work and scold;" and that "they had among their number a few men of leading intellect who always doubted the success of the experiment, and hence determined to accumulate property individually by any and every means called fair in competitive society. These would occasionally gain some important positions in the society, and representing it in part at home and abroad, caused much trouble. By some they were accounted the principal cause of the final failure."
Mr. Daniels, a gentleman who saw the whole progress of the Wisconsin Phalanx, says that "the cause of its breaking up was speculation, the love of money and the want of love for Association. Their property becoming valuable, they sold it for the purpose of making money out of it."
The North American was evidently shattered by secessions, resulting partly from religious dissensions and partly from differences about business.
Brook Farm alone is reported as harmonious to the end.
It should be observed that the foregoing disclosures of disintegrating infirmities were generally made reluctantly, and are necessarily very imperfect. Large departments of dangerous passion are entirely ignored. For instance, in all the memoirs of the Owen and Fourier Associations, not a word is said on the "Woman Question!" Among all the disagreements and complaints, not a hint occurs of any jealousies and quarrels about love matters. In fact women are rarely mentioned; and the terrible passions connected with distinction of sex, which the Shakers, Rappites, Oneidians, and all the rest of the religious Communities have had so much trouble with, and have taken so much pains to provide for or against, are absolutely left out of sight. Owen, it is true, named marriage as one of the trinity of man's oppressors: and it is generally understood that Owenism and Fourierism both gave considerable latitude to affinities and divorces; but this makes it all the more strange that there was no trouble worth mentioning, in any of these Communities, about crossing love-claims. Can it be, we ask ourselves, that Owen had such conflicts with whiskey-tippling, but never a fight with the love-mania? that all through the Fourier experiments, men and women, young men and maidens, by scores and hundreds were tumbled together into unitary homes, and sometimes into log-cabins seventeen feet by twenty-five, and yet no sexual jostlings of any account disturbed the domestic circle? The only conclusion we can come to is, that some of the most important experiences of the transitory Communities have not been surrendered to history.
Nevertheless the troubles that do come to the surface show, as we have said, that human depravity is the dread "Dweller of the Threshold," that lies in wait at every entrance to the mysteries of Socialism.
Shall we then turn back in despair, and give it up that Association on the large scale is impossible? This seems to have been the reaction of all the leading Fourierists. Greeley sums up the wisdom he gained from his socialistic experience in the following invective:
"A serious obstacle to the success of any socialistic experiment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with many noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely philanthropic, and who are willing to labor and suffer reproach for any cause that promises to benefit mankind, there throng scores of whom the world is quite worthy—the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, and the good-for-nothing generally; who, finding themselves utterly out of place and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be. These may have failed again and again, and been protested at every bank to which they have been presented; yet they are sure to jump into any new movement as if they had been born expressly to superintend and direct it, though they are morally certain to ruin whatever they lay their hands on. Destitute of means, of practical ability, of prudence, tact and common sense, they have such a wealth of assurance and self-confidence, that they clutch the responsible positions which the capable and worthy modestly shrink from; so responsibilities that would tax the ablest, are mistakenly devolved on the blindest and least fit. Many an experiment is thus wrecked, when, engineered by its best members, it might have succeeded."
Meeker gloomily concludes that "generally men are not prepared; Association is for the future."
And yet, to contradict these disheartening persuasions and forbid our settling into despair, we have a respectable series of successes that can not be ignored. Mr. Greeley recognizes them, though he hardly knows how to dispose of them. "The fact," he says, "stares us in the face that, while hundreds of banks and factories, and thousands of mercantile concerns managed by shrewd, strong men, have gone into bankruptcy and perished, Shaker Communities, established more than sixty years ago, upon a basis of little property and less worldly wisdom, are living and prosperous to-day. And their experience has been imitated by the German Communities at Economy, Zoar, the Society of Ebenezer, etc. Theory, however plausible, must respect the facts."
Let us look again at these exceptional Associations that have not succumbed to the disorganizing power of general depravity. Jacobi's record of their duration and fortunes is worth recapitulating. Assuming that they are all still in existence, their stories may be epitomized as follows:
Beizel's Community has lasted one hundred and fifty-six years; was at one time very rich; has money at interest yet; some of its grand old buildings are still standing.
The Shaker Community, as a whole, is ninety-five years old; consists of eighteen large societies; many of them very wealthy.
Rapp's Community is sixty-five years old, and very wealthy.
The Zoar Community is fifty-three years old, and wealthy.
The Snowberger Community is forty-nine years old and "well off."
The Ebenezer Community is twenty-three years old; and said to be the largest and richest Community in the United States.
The Janson Community is twenty-three years old and wealthy.
The Oneida Community (frequently quoted as belonging to this class) is twenty-one years old, and prosperous.
The one feature which distinguishes these Communities from the transitory sort, is their religion; which in every case is of the earnest kind which comes by recognized afflatus, and controls all external arrangements.
It seems then to be a fair induction from the facts before us that earnest religion does in some way modify human depravity so as to make continuous Association possible, and insure to it great material success. Or if it is doubted whether it does essentially change human nature, it certainly improves in some way the conditions of human nature in socialistic experiments. It is to be noted that Mr. Greeley and other experts in socialism claim that there is a class of "noble and lofty souls" who are prepared for close Association; but their attempts have constantly been frustrated by the throng of crotchety and selfish interlopers that jump on to their movements. Now it may be that the tests of earnest religion are just what are needed to keep a discrimination between the "noble and lofty souls" and the scamps of whom the Socialists complain. On the whole it seems probable that earnest religion does favorably modify both human depravity and its conditions, preparing some for Association by making them better, and shutting off others that would defeat the attempts of the best. Earnest men of one religious faith are more likely to be respectful to organized authority and to one another, than men of no religion or men of many religions held in indifference and mutual counteraction. And this quality of respect, predisposing to peace and subordination, however base it may be in the estimation of "Individual Sovereigns," and however worthless it may be in ordinary circumstances, is certainly the indispensable element of success in close Association.
The logic of our facts may be summed up thus: The non-religious party has tried Association under the lead of Owen, and failed; the semi-religious party has tried it under the lead of Fourier, and failed; the thoroughly religious party has not yet tried it; but sporadic experiments have been made by various religious sects, and so far as they have gone, they have indicated by their success, that earnest religion may be relied upon to carry Association through to the attainment of all its hopes. The world then must wait for this final trial; and the hope of the triumph of Association can not rationally be given up, till this trial has been made.
The question for the future is, Will the Revivalists go forward into Socialism; or will the Socialists go forward into Revivalism? We do not expect any further advance, till one or the other of these things shall come to pass; and we do not expect overwhelming victory and peace till both shall come to pass.
The best outlook for Socialism is in the direction of the local churches. These are scattered every where, and under a powerful afflatus might easily be converted into Communities. In that case Communism would have the advantage of previous religion, previous acquaintance, and previous rudimental organizations, all assisting in the tremendous transition from the old world of selfishness, to the new world of common interest. We believe that a church that is capable of a genuine revival, could modulate into daily meetings, criticism, and all the self-denials of Communism, far more easily than any gathering by general proclamation for the sole purpose of founding a Community.
If the churches can not be put into this work, we do not see how Socialism on a large scale is going to be propagated. Exceptional Associations may be formed here and there by careful selection and special good fortune; but how general society is to be resolved into Communities, without some such transformation of existing organizations, we do not pretend to foresee. Our hope is that churches of all denominations will by and by be quickened by the Pentecostal Spirit, and begin to grow and change, and finally, by a process as natural as the transformation of the chrysalis, burst forth into Communism.