The vital spark in the Ruskin colony was Wayland’s paper. He called it “The Coming Nation.” The circulation of this paper grew to be enormous, and the soul of the paper was Wayland.
But some of the angels who had drifted into the colony became jealous of Wayland, and they made the point that the paper should not continue to be the property of Wayland—the man who had made it—but should become the common property of everybody who had drifted into the colony.
If my memory serves me right, Wayland yielded to his angel-brothers, and turned his magnificent property over to the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys who had come into Ruskin from the four corners and elsewhere.
After this, the angels found fault with Wayland about something else and then something else; and then some other thing: until the great-hearted, great-minded man threw up his hands in despair.
He surrendered everything to the Colony—paper, shops, farms and all—and went away from there, never to return.
What became of the Colony? The smart fellows who knew so much more than Wayland ran the whole thing into the ground. The brethren had hardly kicked Wayland out before they began to kick each other out. The master-hand and the master-mind being absent, the small men quarreled among themselves, and chaos ensued. The Ruskin Colony went to pieces, and one of the remnants strayed into South Georgia. There it lived a brief, troubled life, and there it died an unlamented death.
What became of the magnificent paper, “The Coming Nation?”
Wayland’s genius had made it; by every law of common sense and common justice it belonged to Wayland.
His brethren did not think so. The paper was as much theirs as his. They took it away from him. Then they didn’t know what to do with it. And it died.