NEW HARMONY.
American Socialisms, as we have defined them and grouped their
experiments, may be called _non-religious_ Socialisms. Several
religious Communities flourished in this country before Owen's
attempts, and have continued to flourish here since the collapse of
Fourierism. But they were originally colonies of foreigners, and never
were directly connected with movements that could be called national.
Owen was the first Socialist that stirred the enthusiasm of the whole
American people; and he was the first, so far as we know, who tried
the experiment of a non-religious Community. And the whole series of
experiments belonging to the two great groups of the Owen and Fourier
epochs, followed in his footsteps. The exclusion of theology was their
distinction and their boast.
Our programme, limited as it is by its title to these national
Socialisms, does not strictly include the religious Communities. Yet
those Communities have played indirectly a very important part in the
drama of American Socialisms, and will require considerable incidental
attention as we proceed.
In attempting to make out from Macdonald's collection an outline of
Owen's great experiment at New Harmony (which was the prototype of all
the Owen and Fourier experiments), we find ourselves at the outset
quite unexpectedly dealing with a striking example of the relation
between the religious and non-religious Communities.
Owen did not build the village of New Harmony, nor create the
improvements which prepared his 30,000 acres for his family of nine
hundred. He bought them outright from a previous religious Community;
and it is doubtful whether he would have ever gathered his nine
hundred and made his experiment, if he had not found a place prepared
for him by a sect of Christian Communists.
Macdonald was an admirer, we might almost say a worshiper, of Owen. He
gloats over New Harmony as the very Mecca of his devotion. There he
spent his first eighteen months in this country. The finest picture in
his collection is an elaborate India-ink drawing of the village. But
he scarcely mentions the Rappites who built it. No separate account of
them, such as he gives of the Shakers and Moravians, can be found in
his manuscripts. This is an unaccountable neglect; for their
pre-occupation of New Harmony and their transactions with Owen, must
have thrust them upon his notice; and their history is intrinsically
as interesting, to say the least, as that of any of the religious
Communities.
A glance at the history of the Rappites is in many ways indispensable,
as an introduction to an account of Owen's New Harmony. We must
therefore address ourselves to the task which Macdonald neglected.
THE HARMONISTS.
In the first years of the present century, old Wuertemburg, a province
always famous for its religious enthusiasms, was fermenting with
excitement about the Millennium; and many of its enthusiasts were
expecting the speedy personal advent of Christ. Among these George
Rapp became a prominent preacher, and led forth a considerable sect
into doctrines and ways that brought upon him and them severe
persecutions. In 1803 he came to America to find a refuge for his
flock. After due exploration he purchased 5000 acres of land in Butler
Co., Pennsylvania, and commenced a settlement which he called Harmony.
In the summer of 1804 two ship-loads of his disciples with their
families--six hundred in all--came over the ocean and joined him. In
1805 the Society was formally organized as a Christian Community, on
the model of the Pentecostal church. For a time their fare was poor
and their work was hard. An evil eye from their neighbors was upon
them. But they lived down calumny and suspicion by well-doing, and
soon made the wilderness blossom around them like the rose. In 1807
they adopted the principle of celibacy; but in other respects they
were far from being ascetics. Music, painting, sculpture, and other
liberal arts flourished among them. Their museums and gardens were the
wonder and delight of the region around them. In 1814, desiring warmer
land and a better location for business, they sold all in Pennsylvania
and removed to Indiana. On the banks of the Wabash they built a new
village and again called it Harmony. Here they prospered more than
ever, and their number increased to nearly a thousand. In 1824 they
again became discontented with their location, on account of bad
neighbors and malaria. Again they sold all, and returned to
Pennsylvania; but not to their old home. They built their third and
final village in Beaver Co, near Pittsburgh, and called it Economy.
There they are to this day. They own railroads and oil wells and are
reported to be millionaires of the unknown grade. In all their
migrations from the old world to the new, from Pennsylvania to
Indiana, and from Indiana back to Pennsylvania; in all their perils by
persecutions, by false brethren, by pestilence, by poverty and wealth,
their religion held them together, and their union gave them the
strength that conquers prosperity. A notable example of what a hundred
families can do when they have the wisdom of harmony, and fight the
battle of life in a solid phalanx! A nobler "six hundred" than the
famous dragoons of Balaklava!
Such were the people who gave Robert Owen his first lessons in
Communism, and sold him their home in Indiana. Ten of their best years
they spent in building a village on the Wabash, not for themselves (as
it turned out), but for a theater of the great infidel experiment.
Rev. Aaron Williams, D.D., the historian to whom we are indebted for
the facts of the above sketch, thus describes the negotiations and the
transfer:
"The Harmonists, when they began to think of returning to
Pennsylvania, employed a certain Richard Flower, an Englishman, and a
prominent member of an English settlement in their vicinity, to
negotiate for a sale of their real estate, offering him five thousand
dollars to find a purchaser. Flower went to England for this purpose,
and hearing of Robert Owen's Community at New Lanark, he sought him
out and succeeded in selling to him the town of Harmony, with all its
houses, mills, factories and thirty thousand acres of land, for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This was an immense sacrifice; but
they were determined to leave the country, and they submitted to the
loss. Having in the meantime made a purchase of their present lands in
Pennsylvania, on the Ohio river, they built a steamboat and removed in
detachments to their new and final place of settlement."
Thus Owen, the first experimenter in non-religious Association, had
substantially the ready-made material conditions which Fourier and his
followers considered indispensable to success.
We proceed now to give a sketch of the Owen experiment chiefly in
Macdonald's words. When our own language occurs it is generally a
condensation of his.
OWEN'S NEW HARMONY.
"Robert Owen came to the United States in December 1824, to complete the
purchase of the settlement at Harmony. Mr. Rapp had sent an agent to
England to dispose of the property, and Mr. Owen fell in with him there.
In the spring of 1825 Mr. Owen closed the bargain. The property
consisted of about 30,000 acres of land; nearly 3,000 acres under
cultivation by the society; 19 detached farms; 600 acres of improved
land occupied by tenants; some fine orchards; eighteen acres of
full-bearing vines; and the village, which was a regularly laid out
town, with streets running at right angles to each other, and a public
square, around which were large brick edifices, built by the Rappites
for churches, schools, and other public purposes."
We can form some idea of the size of the village from the fact which
we learn from Mr. Williams, that the Rappites, while at Harmony,
numbered one thousand souls. It does not appear from Macdonald's
account that Owen and his Community made any important additions to
the village.
"On the departure of the Rappites, persons favorable to Mr. Owen's
views came flocking to New Harmony (as it was thenceforth called) from
all parts of the country. Tidings of the new social experiment spread
far and wide; and, although it has been denied, yet it is undoubtedly
true, that Mr. Owen in his public lectures invited the 'industrious
and well disposed of all nations' to emigrate to New Harmony. The
consequence was, that in the short space of six weeks from the
commencement of the experiment, a population of eight hundred persons
was drawn together, and in October 1825, the number had increased to
nine hundred."
As to the character of this population, Macdonald insists that it was
"as good as it could be under the circumstances," and he gives the
names of "many intelligent and benevolent individuals who were at
various times residents at New Harmony." But he admits that there were
some "black sheep" in the flock. "It is certain," he says, "that there
was a proportion of needy and idle persons, who crowded in to avail
themselves of Mr. Owen's liberal offer; and that they did their share
of work more in the line of _destruction_ than _construction_."
_Constitution No. 1._
On the 27th of April 1825, Mr. Owen instituted a sort of provisional
government. In an address to the people in New Harmony Hall, he
informed them, "that he had bought that property, and had come there
to introduce the practice of the new views; but he showed them the
impossibility that persons educated as they were, should change at
once from an irrational to a rational system of society, and the
necessity for a 'half-way house,' in which to be prepared for the new
system." Whereupon he tendered them a _Constitution_, of which we find
no definite account, except that it was not fully Communistic, and was
to hold the people in probationary training three years, under the
title of the _Preliminary Society of New Harmony_. "After these
proceedings Mr. Owen left New Harmony for Europe, and the Society was
managed by the _Preliminary Committee_.(!)" We may imagine, each one
for himself, what the nine hundred did while Mr. Owen was away.
Macdonald compiled from the _New Harmony Gazette_ a very rapid but
evidently defective account of the state of things in this important
interval. He says nothing about the work on the 30,000 acres, but
speaks of various minor businesses as "doing well." The only
manufactures that appear to have "exceeded consumption" were those of
soap and glue. A respectable apothecary "dispensed medicines without
charge," and "the store supplied the inhabitants with all
necessaries"--probably at Mr. Owen's expense. Education was considered
"public property," and one hundred and thirty children were schooled,
boarded and clothed from the public funds--probably at Mr. Owen's
expense. Amusements flourished. The Society had a band of music;
Tuesday evenings were appropriated to balls; Friday evenings to
concerts--both in the old Rappite church. There was no provision for
religious worship. Five military companies, "consisting of infantry,
artillery, riflemen, veterans and fusileers," did duty from time to
time on the public square.
_Constitution No. 2._
"Mr. Owen returned to New Harmony on the 12th of January, 1826, and
soon after the members of the Preliminary Society held a convention,
and adopted a constitution of a Community, entitled _The New Harmony
Community of Equality_. Thus in less than a year, instead of three
years as Mr. Owen had proposed, the 'half-way house' came to an end,
and actual Communism commenced. A few of the members, who, on account
of a difference of opinions, did not sign the new constitution, formed
a second Community on the New Harmony estate about two miles from the
town, in friendly connection with the first."
The new government instituted by Mr. Owen, was to be in the hands of
an _Executive Council_, subject at all times to the direction of the
Community; and six gentlemen were appointed to this function. But
Macdonald says: "Difficulties ensued in organizing the new Community.
It appears that the plan of government by executive council would not
work, and that the members were unanimous in calling upon Mr. Owen to
take the sole management, judging from his experience that he was the
only man who could do so. This call Mr. Owen accepted, and we learn
that soon after general satisfaction and individual contentment took
the place of suspense and uncertainty."
This was in fact the inauguration of
_Constitution No. 3._
"In March the _Gazette_ says that under the indefatigable attention of
Mr. Owen, order had been introduced into every department of
business, and the farm presented a scene of active and steady
industry. The Society was rapidly becoming a Community of Equality.
The streets no longer exhibited groups of idle talkers, but each one
was busily engaged in the occupation he had chosen. The public
meetings, instead of being the arenas for contending orators, were
changed into meetings of business, where consultations were held and
measures adopted for the comfort of all the members of the Community.
"In April there was a disturbance in the village on account of
negotiations that were going on for securing the estate as private
property. Some persons attempted to divide the town into several
societies. Mr. Owen would not agree to this, and as he had the power,
he made a selection, and by solemn examination constituted a _nucleus_
of twenty-five men, which _nucleus_ was to admit members, Mr. Owen
reserving the power to _veto_ every one admitted. There were to be
three grades of members, viz., conditional members, probationary
members, and persons on trial. (?) The Community was to be under the
direction of Mr. Owen, until two-thirds of the members should think
fit to govern themselves, provided the time was not less than twelve
months."
This may be called,
_Constitution No. 4._
In May a third Community had been formed; and the population was
divided between No. 1, which was Mr. Owen's Community, No. 2, which
was called Macluria, and No. 3, which was called _Feiba Peven_--a name
designating in some mysterious way the latitude and longitude of New
Harmony.
"May 27. The immigration continued so steadily, that it became
necessary for the Community to inform the friends of the new views
that the accommodations were inadequate, and call upon them by
advertisement not to come until further notice."
_Constitution No. 5._
"May 30. In consequence of a variety of troubles and disagreements,
chiefly relating to the disposal of the property, a great meeting of
the whole population was held, and it was decided to form four
separate societies, each signing its own contract for such part of the
property as it should purchase, and each managing its own affairs; but
to trade with each other by paper money."
Mr. Owen was now beginning to make sharp bargains with the independent
Communities. Macdonald says, "He had lost money, and no doubt he tried
to regain some of it, and used such means as he thought would prevent
further loss."
On the 4th of July Mr. Owen delivered his celebrated _Declaration of
Mental Independence_, from which we give the following specimen:
"I now declare to you and to the world, that Man, up to this hour, has
been in all parts of the earth a slave to a Trinity of the most
monstrous evils that could be combined to inflict mental and physical
evil upon his whole race. I refer to Private or Individual Property,
Absurd and Irrational systems of Religion, and Marriage founded on
Individual Property, combined with some of these Irrational systems of
Religion."
"August 20. After Mr. Owen had given his usual address, it was
unanimously agreed by the meeting that the entire population of New
Harmony should meet three times a week in the Hall, for the purpose of
being educated together. This practice was continued about six weeks,
when Mr. Owen became sick and it was discontinued."
_Constitution No. 6._
"August 25. The people held a meeting at which they _abolished all
officers_ then existing, and appointed three men as _dictators_."
_Constitution No. 7._
"Sept. 17. A large meeting of all the Societies and the whole
population of the town took place at the Hall, for the purpose of
considering a plan for the '_amelioration of the Society_, to improve
the condition of the people, and make them more contented.' A message
was received from Mr. Owen proposing to form a Community with as many
as would join him, and put in all their property, save what might be
thought necessary to reserve to help their friends; the government to
consist of Robert Owen and four others of his choice, to be appointed
by him every year; and not to be altered for five years. This movement
of course nullified all previous organizations. Disagreements and
jealousies ensued, and, as was the case on a former change being made,
many persons left New Harmony.
"Nov. 1. The _Gazette_ says: 'Eighteen months experience has proved to
us, that the requisite qualifications for a permanent member of the
Community of Common Property are, 1, Honesty of purpose; 2,
Temperance; 3, Industry; 4, Carefulness; 5, Cleanliness; 6, Desire for
knowledge; 7, A conviction of the fact that the character of man is
formed for, and not by, himself.'
"Nov. 8. Many persons leaving. The _Gazette_ shows how impossible it
is for a Community of common property to exist, unless the members
comprising it have acquired the genuine Community character.
"Nov. 11. Mr. Owen reviewed the last six months' progress of the
Community in a favorable light.
"In December the use of ardent spirits was abolished.
"Jan. 1827. Although there was an appearance of increased order and
happiness, yet matters were drawing to a close. Owen was selling
property to individuals; the greater part of the town was now resolved
into individual lots; a grocery was established opposite the tavern;
painted sign-boards began to be stuck up on the buildings, pointing out
places of manufacture and trade; a sort of wax-figure-and-puppet-show
was opened at one end of the boarding-house; and every thing was getting
into the old style."
It is useless to follow this wreck further. Everybody sees it must go
down, and _why_ it must go down. It is like a great ship, wallowing
helpless in the trough of a tempestuous sea, with nine hundred
_passengers_, and no captain or organized crew! We skip to Macdonald's
picture of the end.
"June 18, 1827. The _Gazette_ advertised that Mr. Owen would meet the
inhabitants of New Harmony and the neighborhood on the following
Sunday, to bid them farewell. I find no account of this meeting, nor
indeed of any further movements of Mr. Owen in the _Gazette_. After
his departure the majority of the population also removed and
scattered about the country. Those who remained returned to
individualism, and settled as farmers and mechanics in the ordinary
way. One portion of the estate was owned by Mr. Owen, and the other
by Mr. Maclure. They sold, rented, or gave away the houses and lands,
and their heirs and assigns have continued to do so to the present
day."
Fifteen years after the catastrophe Macdonald was at New Harmony,
among the remains of the old Community population, and he says: "I was
cautioned not to speak of Socialism, as the subject was unpopular. The
advice was good; Socialism was unpopular, and with good reason. The
people had been wearied and disappointed by it; had been filled full
with theories, until they were nauseated, and had made such miserable
attempts at practice, that they seemed ashamed of what they had been
doing. An enthusiastic socialist would soon be cooled down at New
Harmony."
The strength of the reaction against Communism caused by Owen's
failure, may be seen to this day in the sect devoted to "Individual
Sovereignty." Josiah Warren, the leader of that sect, was a member of
Owen's Community, and a witness of its confusions and downfall; from
which he swung off into the extreme of anti-Communism. The village of
"Modern Times," where all forms of social organization were scouted as
unscientific, was the electric negative of New Harmony.
Macdonald thus moralizes over his master's failure:
"Mr. Owen said he wanted honesty of purpose, and he got dishonesty. He
wanted temperance, and instead, he was continually troubled with the
intemperate. He wanted industry, and he found idleness. He wanted
cleanliness, and found dirt. He wanted carefulness, and found waste.
He wanted to find desire for knowledge, but he found apathy. He wanted
the principles of the formation of character understood, and he found
them misunderstood. He wanted these good qualities combined in one
and all the individuals of the Community, but he could not find them;
neither could he find those who were self-sacrificing and enduring
enough, to prepare and educate their children to possess these
qualities. Thus it was proved that his principles were either entirely
erroneous, or much in advance of the age in which he promulgated them.
He seems to have forgotten, that if one and all the thousand persons
assembled there, had possessed the qualities which he wished them to
possess, there would have been no necessity for his vain exertions to
form a Community; because there would of necessity be brotherly love,
charity, industry and plenty. We want no more than these; and if this
is the material to form Communities of, and we can not find it, we can
not form Communities; and if we can not find parents who are ready and
willing to educate their children, to give them these qualities for a
Community life, then what hope is there of Communism in the future?"
Almost the only redeeming feature in or near this whole scene of
confusion--which might well be called New Discord instead of New
Harmony--was the silent retreat of the Rappite thousand, which was so
orderly that it almost escaped mention. Remembering their obscure
achievements and their persistent success, we can still be sure that
the _idea_ of Owen and his thousand was not a delusion, but an
inspiration, that only needed wiser hearts, to become a happy
reality.