THE GENERAL SYSTEM—PROGRESS THE FIRST YEAR—LAND TITLES—LABOR ORDERS.
The city of Co-opolis was established, after the surrounding region was
duly explored, upon the site of our first camp in Deer Valley. The
Hacket ranch and water rights were acquired by our company at a small
expense, the farmers went to work upon it immediately and in a
comparatively short time we had many acres of land broken and planted.
We sowed very little wheat the first year, but made a specialty of corn,
calculating that we could feed it to our cattle and hogs, and believing
that we could realize more from our live stock than from the raising and
sale of wheat. We also planted vegetables of all kinds in quantities
which we believed would not only suffice for our company for the
following winter, but would enable us to dispose of a surplus in the
mining camps in the mountains.
The ex-surveyor, meanwhile, proceeded to lay out a town. This was a very
simple task, as our plan was to construct a public hall and office
building in the center of a large square, surround the latter by a wide
street, and erect our store, hotel and residences on this street. If the
city grew it was considered that we had ample space at our command.
Meanwhile the sawmill had arrived and had been conveyed to a place on
the banks of the stream and placed in charge of the sawmill men. One of
these having great experience in the forests of Wisconsin, took a number
of picked commoners and went to the headwaters of the stream in the
mountains and was soon able to send a large quantity of pine logs down
the current, where they were caught and sawed into lumber of various
dimensions. In three weeks after we started our camp our carpenters had
built a temporary frame store building, a rather crude hotel and had
supplied these with furniture which was rather crude and unfinished but
sufficient for our purposes. It was not considered prudent to erect any
permanent structures until our lumber should become better seasoned, but
carpenters, masons and stonecutters proceeded to excavate for the fifty
cottages which we designed to construct for our members and their
families. In the latter part of June, such was our industry, we had a
very respectable appearing village, with carpenter and blacksmith shops
and general store. The last was the feature of the village, containing a
stock of hardware, dry goods and groceries and a stock of drugs of
various kinds. The hotel furnished board and lodging to all our company.
Shortly after our arrival at Co-opolis, at a series of meetings held for
that purpose, we had formed our permanent organization, taken as our
name “The Co-opolitan Association” and adopted a constitution and
by-laws to regulate our colony.
The constitution dealt only with the system of government and invested
the lawmaking body, which it created, with unlimited powers as to all
other matters.
The President was to hold office for seven years and was ineligible to
re-election.
The Vice-President was elected for the same period.
The first President and Vice-President were elected by all active
members, and any member was eligible, but after seven years these
officers must be elected from among heads of departments only.
Heads of departments were to be denominated chiefs and were to be chosen
by popular vote from among foremen and the latter by the Legislative
Council.
The lawmaking power was to consist of the heads of departments and
President and Vice-President, the former presiding at all legislative
meetings and the latter, by virtue of his office, being a member of the
Legislative Council with the right to speak and vote on all
propositions.
Whenever twenty per cent of the men and women of the Association should
petition the Legislative Council to declare any office vacant it was
bound to submit the question as to whether such vacancy should be so
declared to popular vote, and if a majority decided in the affirmative
then the Council must declare it. The incumbent whose office or position
was thus vacated was not eligible again for the remainder of his
unexpired term and the full term following.
Officers found guilty by the Council of misfeasance or malfeasance in
office were also subject to impeachment by the Council, who were
required to pass on the particular charges submitted to them.
The legislative and judicial functions were both conferred upon the
Legislative Council, and this body could initiate and complete
legislation, but on petition of twenty per cent of all voters proposing
a new law the Legislative Council was required to submit such law to
popular vote and the decision of a majority of such voters operated as
either an enactment or repeal. This action was effectual to permanently
dispose of such law for five years. The constitution was also subject to
revision, correction, amendment or repeal by the same method.
The constitution further provided that every person under twenty years
of age should be in charge of the department of education, that no man
or woman should in any event be required to work more than twenty-five
years, but that after having contributed twenty-five years’ labor should
become entitled to his full share of the profits distributed annually
among members.
This constitution did not limit the right of the people to shorten the
term of service if they so desired. It was deemed expedient to provide
for two classes of industrials, wage workers and members. The former
were such as were employed and paid reasonable wages. These were rarely
employed except in cases of emergency. The latter were such as had paid
an entrance fee and had been accepted as equal partners in the
enterprise. The wage workers were such as enlisted in the Industrial
Army for pay and they could not participate in the affairs of the
society or settlement. But any one of these who was in good health and
of sound mind could become a member on payment of the fee required and
on enlisting in the Industrial Army subject to the laws of the society.
No person was admitted who was over fifty-five years of age except such
person was able to contribute to the Association’s accumulated wealth an
amount of property equal to the full annual dividend of the average
member at the time of his application, multiplied by the number of
years’ service required by members. In later years, as is well known,
the constitution does not admit an applicant who is over forty except on
the same terms.
The constitution was by no means a perfect one at the outset, but it was
sufficiently elastic and stable in its provisions to admit of such
amendments, without danger to its substantial features, as might, from
time to time, be suggested by experience.
The most conservative force in society has been found to be, not the
wise nor the foolish, but the majority which are neither the one or the
other. These are not generally favorable to experimental legislation,
and long before the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth
Switzerland proved, by the operation of the Initiative and Referendum
provisions of their constitution, that the people were disposed to
accept changes in their social system with a caution that made progress
slow, but retrogression impossible.
The first year of the Co-operative Commonwealth was a very successful
one. We had May 1st, 1898, over one thousand persons, including men,
women and children, in our city of Co-opolis, two hundred and fifty
substantial cottages, an excellent public hall, a good hotel, a large
and sightly three-story building containing our department store,
postoffice and offices for our President, Vice-President and heads of
departments; an excellent schoolhouse with graded school and a corps of
eight teachers, consisting of our ex-clergyman, who became first
principal, and teachers who were selected from among the wives of
members. All the furniture used in our homes and buildings at this time
was manufactured of such lumber as we had and was somewhat crude, but
sufficient in all respects. In our department store were sold vegetables
produced by us, consisting of potatoes, onions, beets, parsnips and all
of the hardy variety grown on the old time “breaking” on Hacket’s ranch.
We had home-made preserves and a quantity of dried fruit. The meat
department was well supplied from our own herds of cattle or from the
surrounding country, and from our flocks of sheep, which had largely
increased, partly through natural causes and partly because much of the
money received for membership fees had been invested in that direction.
Shortly after we had definitely settled upon a site for Co-opolis we
proceeded to acquire land. This whole valley was what in the United
States land office was denominated “desert land,” not because it was
barren but because it was unproductive unless reclaimed by irrigation.
Under the law it was permitted that each man enter three hundred and
twenty acres upon declaring his intention to reclaim the same, and we
had in this manner entered, up to June 1st, some sixteen thousand acres.
We had also, for the purpose of complying with the law and completing
our titles, proceeded to a point about ten miles up the stream, and had
there constructed a dam, collecting the waters of the stream by that
means, and were engaged, whenever the weather permitted, in excavating
ditches, or building flumes so as to conduct a large quantity of water
nearly the whole length of the valley, but high up on the slopes of the
“tables” on the south. The work was by no means finished, but it was
easily estimated that when our plant was completed over eighty thousand
acres of land would be available for agricultural purposes. That was on
one side of the river. Our plans also included the irrigation of the
north side of the river in the same manner. The law was such that, being
the owners of Hacket’s water right, and having tapped the stream at a
time that no other settlers could be disturbed or interfered with, we
were entitled to the exclusive control of the stream. We found that the
law required us to file our claims to this water right for record in the
office of the Register of Deeds for the county, and did so accordingly.
It was not difficult for any one of our number to see that we were in a
position to shut out all settlers in this valley who were not members.
The water right was taken in the names of Thompson, myself, Henderson,
Ortz and three others, who constituted our first Legislative Council, as
trustees for the Association. If any member who entered the land thought
to segregate his tract ultimately from the great body of land he had
only to consider that it was entirely worthless without irrigation, and
that this was exclusively controlled by the Association.
The Industrial Army at this time numbered five hundred, one hundred and
fifty being women and three hundred and fifty men. The women were
engaged largely in the Domestic department, but a number were employed
in the departments of Commerce and Education. One of the merchants had
charge of the department store, but most of the clerical help was
selected from among the women. The bookkeepers were, at that time, all
women. The chief of the Domestic department was a woman and as such
participated in all our legislative councils. The entire army was
divided into companies of twenty, and at the head of each company was a
foreman. Each company was again divided into two squads of ten and each
squad had a second or assistant foreman. In forming companies or squads
our chiefs endeavored to have the members composed, as nearly as
possible, of men having the same or kindred trades. We now had three
physicians, one of whom was regarded as an especially skillful surgeon.
We also had an incipient brass band which assisted largely in rendering
the hours of recreation pleasant.
At this time we had a rapidly increasing trade at our store and were
supplying many of the camps with such goods as they needed. Two of our
own wagons were constantly employed in conveying groceries, hardware and
other ware to our customers in the mountains, and it was not an uncommon
thing for five or six wagons to come down in the course of a day for
goods. The enterprise was successful and the prices which we obtained
for what we sold were very profitable. We were obliged, however, to
constantly replenish our stock of groceries, dry goods, hardware and
drugs from the east. We also sold large quantities of beef in the
mountains and, not caring to draw too heavily on our own herds for this
demand, we kept a number of men constantly employed hunting and
purchasing animals suitable for the purpose. We also devoted a building
to the sick and our hospital was already quite famous throughout the
entire region. Men in the camps who were injured or who had become sick
preferred to endure the journey to Co-opolis to avail themselves of our
physicians and nurses rather than risk the rough and sometimes reckless
treatment to which they were elsewhere exposed. Our hotel, store and
hospital were sources of profit which aided us largely the first and
second years of our career.
One of the most difficult problems which we had to solve the first year
was that of providing a medium of exchange for the use of our own
members and also such persons as we might employ. We recognized that,
although the money of society was at variance and inconsistent with all
our plans, until we had fully established the Co-operative Commonwealth
and acquired the state and all it contained, it would be impossible to
establish a labor-check system. We decided that money was to be treated
as a mere commodity and purchased as such, just as potatoes, wheat or
beef were purchased. In dealing with the world outside of our society we
must have money until we should become independent of it. It was on that
theory that we endeavored to keep our fund of United States currency
increasing.
How to deal among ourselves was the question. We were satisfied that
members should, as nearly as possible, receive equal shares of what was
produced in our colony, provided they were industrious and worked
honestly, but we deemed that in the formative period of the commonwealth
it was inexpedient to adopt the check system of Bellamy’s social plan
exclusively. We did, however, decide that checks should be given to
those who desired them, but that, owing to the fact that many of our
workers were to be, at the outset, mere hired men, it would be better to
issue orders for each one’s share as measured by dollars. The laws of
the United States practically denied us the right to issue money or
circulating notes, and our purpose was to build our state in entire
harmony with the constitution. We proposed to avoid a conflict with the
Federal government.
It was therefore decided that each member should receive wages, to be
established upon the basis of a distribution of sixty per cent of all
the society produced, equally divided among all persons above the age of
twenty-one, whether male or female.
The forty per cent undistributed was to be used to purchase money for
the use of the department store; in other words, sold for cash. These
wages were to be paid in orders on the treasurer, signed by the
president. They were required to read as follows: “To the Treasurer of
the Co-opolitan Association: Deliver to John Jenkins, Foreman of Company
Number One of the Industrial Army, one (or any denomination) dollar’s
worth of any product, convenience, privilege or license at your
disposal. Signed, John Thompson, President.”
These orders were to be delivered to the foreman only and it was the
foreman’s duty to endorse or stamp his name on the back so that, when
once so endorsed or stamped, they became current as a medium of
exchange, but not as a measure of value. The foreman’s duty was to pay
his men with these orders and he was held to the strictest account for
the disposition made of each order. Whenever an order was received in
any department it was stamped canceled and never again issued. Most of
our members for the first three years preferred the check. As time
passed, however, the credit labor check became more and more popular and
in time crowded out the circulating orders entirely.