We call him the Father of American Socialisms, because he took possession of this country first. Fourierism was a secondary infusion. His English practicality was more in unison with the Yankee spirit, than the theorizing of the French school. He himself claimed the Fourierites as working on his job, grading the track by their half-way schemes of joint-stock and guaranteeism for his Rational Communism. And in this he was not far wrong. Communism or nothing, is likely to be the final demand of the American people.
The most conspicuous trait in all Owen's labors and journeyings is his indomitable perseverance. And this trait he transmitted to a large breed of American Socialists. Read again the letter of John Harmon at the close of our last chapter. He is now an old man, but his faith in Communism remains unshaken; it is failure-proof. See how the veterans of Haverstraw, when their Community fell in pieces, moved to Coxsackie, and when the Coxsackie Community broke up, migrated to Ohio and joined the Kendal Community; and perhaps when the Kendal Community failed, they joined another, and another; and probably never gave up the hope of a Community-home. We have met with many such wanderers—men and women who were spoiled for the world by once tasting or at least imagining the sweets of Communism, and would not be turned back by any number of failures. Alcander Longley is a fine specimen of this class. He has tried every kind of Association, from Co-operation to Communism, including Fourierism and the nameless combinations of Spiritualism; and is now hard at work in the farthest corner of Missouri on his sixth experiment, as enthusiastic as ever! J.J. Franks is a still finer specimen. He began with Owenism. When that failed he enlisted with the Fourierites. During their campaign he bought five-thousand acres of land in the mountains of Virginia for a prospective Association, the Constitution of which he prepared and printed, though the Association itself never came into being. When Fourierism failed he devoted himself to Protective Unions. For twenty years past he has been a faithful disciple and patron of the Oneida Community. In such examples we trace the image and spirit of Robert Owen.
CHAPTER X.
CONNECTING LINKS.[ToC]
In the transition from Owenism to Fourierism and later socialist movements, we find that Josiah Warren fulfills the function of a modulating chord. As we have already said, after seeing the wreck of Communism at New Harmony, he went clear over to the extreme doctrine of "Individual Sovereignty," and continued working on that theme through the period of Fourierism, till he founded the famous village of Modern Times on Long Island, and there became the master-spirit of a school, which has developed at least three famous movements, that are in some sense alive yet, long after the Communities and Phalanxes have gone to their graves.
Imprimis, Dr. Thomas L. Nichols was a fellow of the royal society of Individual Sovereigns, and an habitue of Modern Times, when he published his "Esoteric Anthropology" in 1853, and issued his printed catalogue of names for the reciprocal use of affinity-hunters all over the country; whereby he inaugurated the system of "Free Love" or Individual Sovereignty in sexual intercourse, that prevailed among the Spiritualists. He afterwards fell into a reaction opposite to Warren's, and swung clear back into Roman Catholicism. But "though dead, he yet speaketh."
Secondly, Stephen Pearl Andrews was publishing-partner of Josiah Warren in the propagandism of Individual Sovereignty; and built or undertook to build a notable edifice at Modern Times, when that village was in its glory. He subsequently distinguished himself by instituting, in connection with Nichols and others, a series of "Sociables" for the Individual Sovereigns in New York city, which were broken up by the conservatives. He is also understood to have originated a great spiritual or intellectual hierarchy, called the "Pantarchy," and a system of Universology, which is not yet published, but has long been on the eve of organizing science and revolutionizing the world. On the whole he may be regarded as the American rival of Comte, as A.J. Davis is of Swedenborg.