Had each member been equally capable with his fellows, had the families been of the same size, had there been no jealousies, no bickerings, had these good folk been without ambition, had they, in short, been contented, the phalanx might have remained a success. They were clothed, fed, and housed at less expense than were outsiders; they had many social enjoyments not known elsewhere in the valley; and, according to all the philosophers, should have been a happy people.
The public table, the public amusement rooms, and all that, had at first a spice of pleasant novelty; but soon there was a realization that this had not the charm of home life, that one's family affairs were too much the affairs of all. The strong and the willing saw that they were yoked to those who were weak and slothful; there was no chance for natural abilities to assert themselves, no reward for individual excellence.
Wisconsin became a State in 1848. Everywhere, ambitious and energetic citizens in the rapidly growing commonwealth were making a great deal of money through land speculations and the planting of new industries, everywhere but in Ceresco, where the community life allowed no man to rise above the common level. The California gold fields, opened the following year, also sorely tempted the young men. The members of the phalanx found themselves hampered by their bond. Caring no longer for the reformation of society, they eagerly clamored to get back into the whirl of that struggle for existence which, only a few years before, they had voted so unnecessary to human welfare.
In 1850 the good folk at Ceresco voted unanimously, and in the best of feeling toward one another, to disband their colony. They sold their lands at a fair profit to each; and very soon, in the rush for wealth and for a chance to exercise their individual powers, were widely distributed over the face of the country. Some of them ultimately won much worldly success; others fell far below the level of prosperity maintained in the phalanx, and came to bemoan the "good old days" of the social community, when the strong were obliged to bolster the weak.
A MORMON KING
In the year 1843 there came from New York to the village of Burlington, Racine county, an eccentric young lawyer named James Jesse Strang. Originally a farmer's boy, he had been a country school-teacher, a newspaper editor, and a temperance lecturer, as well as a lawyer. Possessed of an uneasy, ambitious spirit, he had wandered much, and changed his occupation with apparent ease. Strang was passionately fond of reading, was gifted with a remarkable memory, and developed a fervent, persuasive style of oratory, which he delighted in employing. He often astonished the courts by the shrewd eloquence with which he supported strange, unexpected points in law. It is related of him that, soon after he came to Wisconsin, he brought a suit to recover the value of honey which, he claimed, had been stolen from his client's hives by the piratical bees of a neighbor, and his arguments were so plausible that he nearly won his case.
In less than a year after his arrival in Burlington, the village was visited by some Mormon missionaries. They came from Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi River, where there was a settlement of so-called Latter-Day Saints, who lived under the sway of a designing knave named Joseph Smith. Strang at once became a convert, and entered into the movement with such earnestness that, with his oratory, his ability to manage men, and his keen zest for notoriety, he became one of the most prominent followers of the faith.