Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

"The true value of any property is precisely the sum on which, in the use for which it was designed or which it may be put to, it pays the requisite interest. The price of railroad stock, for example, is not regulated, either by its original cost or by the present intrinsic worth of the property it represents, but by the dividend it pays and by the condition and durability of the railroad. For any other use than as a railroad the property of the road is of course comparatively worthless, but that consideration has no effect upon its value.

"The case is entirely the same with the property of this Association. As long as it is able, in the use and under the management of the Association, to pay the stipulated interest—five per cent per annum—upon the stock shares by which it is represented, so long those stock shares will be worth par, whatever may be the nominal cost of the property, or its value for any other purposes than those of the Association.

"In accordance with these views and for other considerations which we shall hereafter allude to, this Direction is altogether of opinion that the results of this year's industry ought to be divided irrespective of the results of former years, and certificates of stock issued to those persons who are entitled to such dividends.

"To some persons it may perhaps seem remarkable that a dividend should be declared when the Association is so much in want of ready money as at present, but a little reflection will show anyone that it is a perfectly legitimate proceeding. A very large part of our industry has been engaged in the production of permanent property such as the shop, the Phalanstery and the improvements upon the farm. These are of even more value to the Association than so much money, and a dividend may as justly be based upon them as upon cash in the treasury.

"As soon as the Phalanstery shall be completed it will become necessary to establish different rates of room rent. It is a matter of doubt whether such an arrangement is not already desirable. In our present crowded condition, indeed, the general inconveniences are distributed with tolerable equality, but still it is impossible to avoid some exceptions, and it might contribute to the harmony of the Association if a just graduation of rates for different apartments should now be established. As far as possible no member should be the recipient of peculiar favors, but when all are charged at an equal rate for unequal accommodations, this is unavoidable. For the same reason a difference should be made between the price of board at the Graham tables, and those which are furnished with a different kind of food. It is only by this means that justice can be done and differences prevented.

"C. A. D."

The first thought that will arrest the attention of some in reading this report is the smallness of the figures. It does not appear to-day that the corporation was much of a financial affair, for there are thousands of persons in our land now who could easily sustain such an institution and pocket its yearly losses; but we must bear in mind that the intervening years have changed the value of money, and its relation to property. A fair price for a mechanic's labor then was a dollar for a day of ten to twelve hours; the same persons would now receive three to four times as much for less hours. We should remember also that the colossal fortunes of to-day were not in existence then. The means at the command of the Association were very small, and the wonder is that with so little money capital the enterprise should have attracted the wide notice it did.

In this report was an allusion to the Graham table. In the dining room there was always, at the time of which I write, one table of vegetarians—those who used no flesh meats, and generally no tea or coffee. They passed under the name of "Grahamities," from the founder of the vegetarian system in America, Dr. Sylvester Graham, whose name is still connected with bread made of unbolted wheat because it was by him considered the very perfection of human food. These persons were of both sexes, different ages and occupations. They worked on the farms, in the schools, the houses and the shops. They had the diet of the place, minus the meat and sometimes the tea and coffee. Little attention was paid at first to this departure from common habits, but by degrees the numbers increased until they began to be a power. Their constancy, their earnest belief, soon swept away all ridicule, and the proof that they could do their share of daily work was not wanting. Among the number were many very devoted and cheerful persons.

Dispensing with meat, with the restricted diet, led some to say: "Our table does not cost as much as the others, for we eat no meat, saving the expense of it to the Association, and we drink no tea or coffee, saving that cost also. Let us have the money we have economized, spent for us in things that we want, in additional fruit and vegetables, or in some articles of diet that we need to replace the food we do not use." The answer to it was that the Association furnished certain things, and if the members did not eat them it was their loss, as it could not be expected that the Association could cater to individual tastes. But after a while the injustice was made apparent, and it led to the notice we have just read in the report.

I have been requested to give my personal testimony as to the effect of a vegetarian diet as seen at Brook Farm. I willingly do so. For two or three years the farmers, mechanics and others worked side by side, and no one could conscientiously say that in ability to work in any field of labor, physical or mental, the vegetarians were out-matched by their companions. Their health was fully maintained and their mental cheerfulness was surpassed by none.