Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

CHAPTER XII.

SUMMING UP AND REVERIES.

Brook Farm was in an exceptionally good position when the associative movement broke out, like a fever, all over the country. It was no new organization. It had started two or three years before the rest. It had fixed itself in the minds of the thinking part of the community as a gathering of able, upright, conscientious men and women. There were no slurs on their moral characters. There were no vices at which to point the finger of scorn. They were not driven or urged forward by poverty to take the position they did, and the "Community" or Association, had sprung up so silently and in such a natural manner, that it seemed a vital outgrowth from the tree of society. Notices appeared in various prints pleasantly alluding to it.

It was a curious and unique life. It deserved to be kindly noticed, and not until after the "Fourierite" doctrines were preached and accepted did there appear anything in the journals of a defamatory character relating to it. Truth compels me to say that Brook Farm and its Associates were singularly free from the rude comments and public assaults that reformers of all kinds are apt to receive. But while Brook Farm was thus free, it had to bear its share in the general assaults upon the doctrines of associative life and "Fourierism" that were made elsewhere.

Mr. Greeley, in the Tribune, had gone into the work manfully, striking heavy blows for the organization of labor; announcing himself as an advocate of the doctrines of Associated Industry, with the freedom of manner and boldness of pen and purpose for which he was noted. The Tribune was the leading journal of the country as well as of the Whig party, and the associative idea came into immediate prominence. Mr. Greeley was a man who was not ruled by any party. He had too much of genuine independence to allow himself to follow strict party lines. He was ambitious. He had political enemies ready to strike him in any way that they could to reduce his political power, who did not dare to attack him or his party openly, and they went about seeking flaws in his honest coat of mail, into which they could thrust their lances, caring not how envenomed they were if they could but wound him, thinking by this means to reduce his hold on his party and the public.

I am satisfied that this was the reason of the commencement of the principal attacks on the associative doctrines; but having commenced them, many may finally have believed they were doing justice to society by continuing in their unjust course. The principal ground of attack was that the "Fourierites" were "disorganizers," that they were unsettling the foundations of society and that they wished to make their Associations entering wedges to disrupt the marriage relation and produce promiscuity and general anarchy. Their opponents even went so far as to call the leaders infidels, and made other outrageous and absurd charges against them. The New York Express was early in the field. The Courier and Enquirer and the Buffalo Advertiser soon made themselves conspicuous, and finally the New York Observer, "a religious newspaper of the Calvinistic school, of large circulation and great influence, actuated in the present case, as must be hoped, by other motives than those that envenomed its associates," says a writer in the Harbinger, "added its ability and its power to crush the social reformers."

These attacks, long continued, created great distrust and produced strong suspicions in the public mind derogatory to the morality of the movement.

The Associationists on their part denied that they were Fourierists, or that they had advocated or proposed any change in the marriage relation; they were united for the organization of industry, and had nothing to do or propose in relation to the marriage system. This denial was not enough for their opponents. They declared that the doctrines of Association led to certain results, and in proof of it cited Fourier's speculations on the subject, which had about as much to do with the social objects of the Associationists as his cosmogony, his speculations about the Arabian deserts, or his ocean of "lemonade" that had amused so many. In the study of human nature, Fourier believed he discovered inherently inconstant natures, exceptional men and women, who cannot be constant to one idea, one hope or one love; and believing that this inconstancy was a normal trait of character with some persons, who are the exceptions to the general rule, simply and honestly acknowledged the fact, and speculated on the result and the position such persons would have in the future ideal societies.

Fourier said, "The man has no claim as discoverer, or to the confidence of the world, who advocates such absurdities as community of property, absence of divine worship and rash abolition of marriage."

The Associationists of America made no proposal of any change in the marriage relation. They had no occasion to do so. They considered it one of the best and purest arrangements of present society, and that if there were in that relation oftentimes grave mistakes and errors, there were other greater and more glaring evils and universal wrongs to set right.