The loss of two hundred thousand dollars did not dampen the ardor of Robert Owen. He paid up the debts of New Harmony, had the property surveyed and subdivided, and then deeded it to his children and immediate relatives and a few of the "staunch friends who have such a lavish and unwise faith in my wisdom"—to use his own expression.
To give work to the unemployed of England now became his immediate solicitation. He was sixty years old when he inaugurated his first co-operative store, which in fact is the parent of our modern Department-Store.
In this store he proposed to buy any useful article or product which any man might make or produce, figuring on cost of the raw material and sixpence an hour for labor. This labor was to be paid for in Labor Script, receivable in payment for anything the man might want to buy. Here we get the Labor Exchange. Owen proposed that the Government should set delinquent men to work, instead of sending them to prison. Any man who would work, no matter what he had done, should be made free. The Government would then pay the man in Labor-Exchange Script. Of course, if the Government guaranteed the script, it was real money; otherwise, it was wildcat money, subject to fluctuation and depreciation. Very naturally, the Government refused to guarantee this script, or to invest in the co-operative stores. To make the script valuable, it had to be issued in the form of a note, redeemable in gold at a certain time.
The stores were started, and many idle men found work in building mills and starting various industries. Three years passed, and some of the script became due. It was found to be largely held by saloonkeepers who had accepted it at half-price. Efforts had been constantly made to hurt Owen's standing and depreciate the market value of this currency.
The Labor Exchange that had issued the script was a corporation, and Robert Owen was not individually liable, but he stepped into the breach and paid every penny out of his own purse, saying, "No man shall ever say that he lost money by following my plans."
Next he founded the co-operative village of Harmony or Queenswood. The same general plan that he had followed at New Lanark was here carried out, save that he endeavored to have the mill owned by the workers instead of by outside capital.
Through his very able leadership, this new venture continued for ten years and was indeed a school and a workshop. The workers had gardens, flowers, books. There were debates, classes, and much intellectual exercise that struck sparks from heads that were once punk. John Tyndall was one of the teachers and also a worker in this mill. Let the fact stand out that Owen discovered Tyndall—a great, divinely human nautilus—and sent him sailing down the tides of Time.
At eighty years of age, Owen appeared before the House of Commons and read a paper which he had spent a year in preparing, "The Abolition of Poverty and Crime." He held the Government responsible for both, and said that until the ruling class took up the reform idea and quit their policy of palliation, society would wander in the wilderness. To gain the Promised Land we must all move together in a government "of the people, by the people and for the people." He was listened to with profound respect and a vote of thanks tendered him; but his speech never reached the public printer.
Robert Dale Owen became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and for several years was a member of Congress, and at the time of the death of his father was our minister to Italy, having been appointed by President Pierce.
He was in England at the time of the passing of Robert Owen, and announced the fact to the family at New Harmony, Indiana, in the following letter: