History of American Socialisms Part 38

1847. Earnings of labor 12.02 per month.

of capital 05.6 per cent.

1848. Earnings of labor 14.10 per month.

of capital 05.7 per cent.

1849. Earnings of labor 13.58 per month.

of capital 05.6 per cent.

1850. Earnings of labor 13.58 per month.

of capital 05.52 per cent.

1851. Earnings of labor 14.59 per month.

of capital 04.84 per cent.

"It is to be noted that when we took possession of our domain, the land was in a reduced condition; and upon our improvements we have made no profit excepting subsequent increased revenue, they having been valued at cost. Also that our labors were mainly agricultural until within the last three years, when milling was successfully introduced. We have, it is true, carried on various mechanical branches for our own purposes, such as building, smith-work, tin-work, shoe-making, etc.; but for purposes of revenue, we have not to much extent succeeded in introducing mechanical branches of industry.

"Furthermore, we divide our profits upon the following general principles: For labors that are necessary, but repulsive or exhausting, we award the highest rates; for such as are useful, but less repugnant or taxing, a relatively smaller award is made; and for the more agreeable pursuits, a still smaller rate is allowed.

"Thus observing this general formula in our cla.s.sification of labor, viz.: the necessary, the useful, and the agreeable; and also awarding to the individual, first, for his labor, secondly, for the talent displayed in the use of means, or in adaptation of means to ends, wise administration, etc., and thirdly, for the use of his capital; it will be perceived that we make our award upon a widely different basis from the current method. We have a theory of awards, a scientific reason for our cla.s.sification of labor and our awards to individuals; and one of the consequences is that women earn more, relatively, among us than in existing society.

"In matters of education we have hitherto done little else than keep, as we might, the common district school, introducing, however, improved methods of instruction. Other interests have pressed upon us; other questions clamored for solution. We were to determine whether or not we could a.s.sociate in all the labors of life; and if yea, then whether we could sufficiently command the material means of life, until we should have established inst.i.tutions that would supersede the necessity of strenuous personal effort. It will be understood that this work has been sufficiently arduous, and consequently that our children, being too feeble in point of numbers to a.s.sert their rights, have been pushed aside."

Here follows a labored disquisition on the possibilities of serial education, which we omit, as the substance of it can be found in the standard expositions of Fourierism.

"If now we are asked, what questions we have determined, what results we may fairly claim to have accomplished through our nine years of a.s.sociated life and efforts at organization, we may answer in brief, that so far as the members of this body are concerned, we meet the universal demand of this day with inst.i.tutions which guarantee the rights of labor and the products thereof, of education, and a home, and social culture.

This is not a mere declaration of abstract rights that we claim to make, but we establish our members in the possession and enjoyment of these rights; and we venture to claim that, so far as the comforts of home, private rights and social privileges are concerned, our actual life is greatly in advance of that of any mixed population under the inst.i.tutions of existing civilization, either in town or country. We claim, so far as with our small number we could do, to have organized labor through voluntary a.s.sociation, upon the principle of unity of interests; so reconciling the hitherto hostile parties of laborer and capitalist; so settling the world-old, world-wide quarrel, growing out of antagonistic interests among men; that is, we have organized the production and distribution of wealth in agricultural and domestic labor, and in some branches of mechanics and manufactures, and thus have abolished the servile character of labor, and the servile relation of employer and employed. And it is precisely in the point where failure was most confidently predicted, viz., in domestic labor, that we have most fully succeeded, because mainly, as we suppose, in the larger numbers attached to this industry we had the conditions of carrying out more fully the serial method of organization.

"In distributing the profits of industry we have adopted a law of equitable proportion, so that when the facts are presented, we have initiated the measure of attaining to practical justice, or in the formula of Fourier, 'equitable distribution of profits.' We claim also that we guarantee the sale of the products of industry; that is, we secure the means of converting any and every form of product or fruit of labor at the cost thereof, into any other form also at cost. For all our labor is paid for in a domestic currency. In other words, when value is produced, a representative of that value is issued to the producer; and only so far as there is the production of value, is there any issue of the representative of value; so that property and currency are always equal, and thus we solve the problem of banking and currency; thus we have in practical operation, what Proudhon vainly attempted to introduce into France; what Kellogg proposed to introduce under governmental sanction in this country; what Warren proposes to accomplish by his labor notes and exchanges at cost.

"We might state other facts, but let this suffice for the present; and we will only say in conclusion, that when the organization of our educational series shall be completed, as we hope to see it, we shall thus have established as a body a measurably complete circle of fraternal inst.i.tutions, in which social and private rights are guaranteed; we shall then fairly have closed the first cycle of our societary life and efforts, fairly have laid the germs of living inst.i.tutions, of the corporations which have perpetual life, which gather all knowledges, which husband all experiences, and into the keeping of which we commit all material interests, and which only need a healthy development to change without injustice, to absorb without violence, the discords of existing society, and to unfold, as naturally as the chrysalis unfolds into a form of beauty, a new and higher order of human society.

"To carry on this work we need additional means to endow our agricultural, our educational, our milling and other interests, and to build additional tenements; and above all we need additional numbers of people who are willing to work for an idea; men and women who are competent to establish or conduct successfully some branch of profitable industry; who understand the social movement; who will come among us with worthy motives, and with settled purpose of fraternal co-operation; who can appreciate the labor, the conditions of life, the worth of the inst.i.tutions we have and propose to have, in contrast with the chances of private gain accompanied by the prevailing disorder, the denial of right, and the ever-increasing oppressions of existing civilization.

"The views of members and applicants upon the foregoing statement are expressed by the position of their signatures affixed below:

_Aye._

H.T. Stone, Eugenia Thomson, E.L. Holmes, Lucius Eaton, Leemon Stockwell, Gertrude Sears, Alcander Longley, R.N. Stockwell, E.A. Angell, Herman Schetter, A.P. French, J. Bucklin, W.A. French, Nathaniel H. Colson, L.E. Bucklin, John Ash, Jr., John French, Edwin D. Sayre, John H. Steel, Mary E.F. Grey, O.S. Holmes, Phebe T. Drew, Althea Sears, John V. Sears, John Gray, H. Bell Munday, P. French, Robert J. Smith, Caroline M. Hathaway, M.A. Martin, J.R. Vanderburgh, Anna E. Hathaway, L. French, James Renshaw, Anne Guillauden, Z. King, Jr., J.G. Drew, L. Munday, D.H. King, S. Martin, Chloe Sears, A.J. Lanotte, Joseph T. French, James Renshaw, Jr., W.K. Prentice, N.H. Stockwell, Emile Guillauden, Jr., Julia Bucklin, Chas. G. French, Ellen M. Stockwell, ---- Maynet.

_Nay._

"Geo. Perry believes that difficulty arises from the selfishness, cla.s.s-interest and personal ambition, of Cla.s.s No. 1 and 2; also, last and not least, absence of uniformity of attractions.

"J.R. Coleman endorses the above sentiments. James Warren, do.

H.N. Coleman, do.

"M. Hammond has very reluctantly concluded that the difficulty is in the Inst.i.tution and not in the members."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

LIFE AT THE NORTH AMERICAN PHALANX.

The following pictures from the files of the _Harbinger_, with the subsequent reports of Macdonald's three visits, give a tolerable view of life at the North American in its early and its latter days.

[Fourth of July (1845) at the Phalanx.]

"As soon as the moisture was off the gra.s.s, a group went down to the beautiful meadows to spread the hay; and the right good will, quickness, and thoroughness with which they completed their task, certainly ill.u.s.trated the attractiveness of combined industry. Others meanwhile were gathering for dinner the vegetables, of which, by the consent of the whole neighborhood, they have a supply unsurpa.s.sed in early maturity and excellence; and still others were busy in the various branches of domestic labor.

"And now, the guests from New York and the country around having come in, and the hour for the meeting being at hand, the bell sounded, and men, women and children a.s.sembled in a walnut grove near the house, where a semicircle of seats had been arranged in the cool shade. Here addresses were given by William H. Channing and Horace Greeley, ill.u.s.trating the position that a.s.sociation is the truly consistent embodiment in practice of the professed principles of our nation.

"After some hour and a half thus spent, the company adjourned to the house, where a table had been spread the whole length of the hall, and partook of a most abundant and excellent dinner, in which the hospitable sisters of the Phalanx had most satisfactorily proved their faith by their works. Good cold water was the only beverage, thanks to the temperance of the members. A few toasts and short speeches seasoned the feast.

"And now once again, the afternoon being somewhat advanced, the demand for variety was gratified by a summons to the hay-field.

Every rake and fork were in requisition; a merrier group never raked and pitched; never was a meadow more dexterously cleared; and it was not long before there was a demand that the right to labor should be honored by fresh work, which the chief of the group lamented he could not at the moment gratify. To close the festivities the young people formed in a dance, which was prolonged till midnight. And so ended this truly cheerful and friendly holiday."

[George Ripley's visit to the Phalanx.]

_May, 14, 1846._

"Arriving about dinner time at the Mansion, we received a cordial welcome from our friends, and were soon seated at their hospitable table, and were made to feel at once that we were at home, and in the midst of those to whom we were bound by strong ties. How could it be otherwise? It was a meeting of those whose lives were devoted to one interest, who had chosen the lot of pioneers in a great social reform, and who had been content to endure sacrifices for the realization of ideas that were more sacred than life itself. Then, too, the similarity of pursuits, of the whole mode of life in our infant a.s.sociations, produces a similarity of feeling, of manners, and I could almost fancy, even of expression of countenance. I have often heard strangers remark upon the cheerfulness and elasticity of spirit which struck them on visiting our little a.s.sociation at Brook Farm; and here I found the same thing so strongly displayed, that in conversing with our new friends, it seemed as if they were the same that I had left at home, or rather that I had been side by side with them for months or years, instead of meeting them to-day for the first time. I did not need any formal introduction to make me feel acquainted, and I flatter myself that there was as little reserve cherished on their part.

"After dinner we were kindly attended by our friend Mr. Sears over this beautiful, I may truly say, enchanting domain. I had often heard it spoken of in terms of high commendation; but I must confess, I was not prepared to find an estate combining so many picturesque attractions with such rare agricultural capabilities.

"Our friends here have no doubt been singularly fortunate in procuring so valuable a domain as the scene of their experiment, and I see nothing which, with industry and perseverance, can create a doubt of their triumphant success, and that at no very distant day.

"I was highly gratified with the appearance of the children, and the provision that is made for their education, physical as well as intellectual. I found them in a very neat school-room, under the intelligent care of Mrs. B., who is devoting herself to this department with a n.o.ble zeal and the most pleasing results.

It is seldom that young people in common society have such ample arrangements for their culture, or give evidence of such a healthy desire for improvement.

"This a.s.sociation has not been free from difficulties. It has had to contend with the want of sufficient capital, and has experienced some embarra.s.sment on that account. It has also suffered from the discouragement of some of its members--a result always to be expected in every new enterprise, and by no means formidable in the long run--and discontent has produced depression. Happily, the disaffected have retired from the premises, and with few, if any, exceptions, the present members are heartily devoted to the movement, with strong faith in the cause and in each other, and determined to deserve success, even if they do not gain it. Their prospects, however, are now bright, and with patient industry and internal harmony they must soon transform their magnificent domain into a most attractive home for the a.s.sociative household. May G.o.d prosper them!"

[N.C. Neidhart's visit to the Phalanx.]

_July 4, 1847._

"It is impossible for me to describe the deep impression which the life and genial countenances of our brethren have made upon us. Although not belonging to what are very unjustly called the higher cla.s.ses, I discovered more true refinement, that which is based upon humanitary feeling, than is generally found among those of greater pretensions. There is a serene, earnest love about them all, indicating a determination on their part to abide the issue of the great experiment in which they are engaged.

"After a fatiguing walk over the domain, I found their simple but refreshing supper very inviting. Here we saw for the first time the women a.s.sembled, of whom we had only caught occasional glimpses before. They appeared to be a genial band, with happy, smiling countenances, full of health and spirits. Such deep and earnest eyes, it seemed to me, I had never seen before. Most of the younger girls had wreaths of evergreen and flowers wound around their hair, and some also around their persons in the form of scarfs, which became them admirably.

"After tea we resorted to the reading-room, where are to be found on files all the progressive and reformatory, as well as the best agricultural, papers of the Union, such as the _New York Tribune_, _Practical Christian_, _Young America_, _Harbinger_, etc. There is also the commencement of a small library.

"Only one thing was wanting to enliven the evening, and that was music. They possess, I believe, a guitar, flutes, and other instruments, but the time necessary for their cultivation seems to be wanting. The want of this so necessary accompaniment of universal harmony, was made up to us by some delightful hours which we spent in the parlor of Mrs. B., who showed us some of her beautiful drawings, and in whose intelligent society we spent the evening. This lady was formerly a member of the Clermont Phalanx, Ohio. I was sorry there was not time enough to receive from her an account of the causes of the disbandment of this society. She must certainly have been satisfied of the superiority of a.s.sociated life, to encourage her to join immediately another.

"It was my good fortune (notwithstanding the large number of visitors), to obtain a nice sleeping-room, from which I was sorry to see I had driven some obliging member of the Phalanx.

The orderly simplicity of this room was quite pleasing. It enabled us to form some judgment of the order which pervaded the Community.