THE SODUS BAY PHALANX.
This Association originated about the same time as the Clarkson
Association (February 1844), and in the same place (Rochester). The
following description of its domain is from the _Herald of Freedom_:
"We have at this place about 1,400 acres of choice land, three hundred
of which are under improvement. It borders on Sodus Bay, the best
harbor on Lake Ontario, and for beauty of scenery, is not surpassed by
any tract in the State. We have on the domain two streams of water,
which can both be used for propelling machinery. We number at present
about three hundred men, women and children. The buildings on the
place were nearly enough to accommodate the whole, the place having
formerly been occupied by the Shakers, who had erected good buildings
for their own accommodation."
The editor of the _Phalanx_ visited this Association in the autumn of
1844, and wrote of it as follows:
"The advantages of the location seemed to us very rare, and it was
with great pain that we discovered that the internal condition, of the
Phalanx was not encouraging. We did not find that unity of purpose,
without which a small and imperfectly provided Association can not be
held together until it has attained the necessary perfection in its
mechanism. At the commencement, as it appeared to us, there was not
sufficient caution in the admission of members. A large number of
persons were received without proper qualification, either in
character or industrial abilities. Sickness unfortunately soon arose
in the new Phalanx, and increased the confusion which resulted from a
want of unity of feeling and systematic organization. Religious
differences, pressed in an intolerant manner on both sides, had at the
time of our visit produced entire uncertainty as to future operations,
and carried disorder to its height. We left the domain with the
conviction, which reflection has strengthened, that without an entire
reorganization under more efficient leaders, the Association must fall
entirely to pieces; a fact which is greatly to be deplored on account
of the cause in general, as well as on account of the excellence of
the location, and the real worth of several individuals who have
passed unshaken through such trying circumstances. We have, however,
in the case of this Phalanx, a striking example of the folly of
undertaking practical Association without sufficient means, and
without men of proper character. No other advantages can compensate
for the want of these."
Nearly a year later (September 1845), a member of the Sodus Bay
Phalanx wrote to the _Harbinger_ in the following dubious vein:
"We have only about twelve or fifteen adult males, and we believe we
may safely say (from the amount of labor performed the present
season), not many unprofitable ones. We have learned wisdom from the
many difficulties and privations of last year, and there is now
evidently a settled and determined will to succeed in our enterprise.
There is, however, a debt which is very discouraging; $7,000 principal
(besides $2,450 interest), which will come due next spring, and an
ability on our part of paying no more than the interest."
About the beginning of 1846 John A. Collins of the Skaneateles
Community, visited Sodus Bay, and sent to his paper, the
_Communitist_, the following mournful report:
"Experience has taught them that but little confidence can be
placed on calculations which are predicated upon a
newly-organized, or more properly disorganized, body of
heterogeneous materials, during the first and second years of
its existence. There is not the least doubt, but that an
energetic and efficient individual, with sufficient capital to
erect with the least possible delay the saw-mill, lath, shingle,
broom-handle, tub and pail, fork and hoe-handle, last, and
general turning machinery, and employ as many first-class
workmen as the business would require, could in three years, pay
both principal and interest, and have the entire farm and
several thousand dollars besides. But an Association composed of
inexperienced, restless, indolent, feeble and selfish
individuals, would perish beneath the pressure of interest, ere
they could construct their mills, get their machinery in
operation, and become organized and systematized, so that all
things could be carried forward with that system and perfection
which characterize isolation and the older established
Communities.
"But had not capital stepped forth to crush this movement, other
elements equally poisonous and deadly were introduced, which
would have sealed its ruin. A great portion of its members were
brought together, not by a strong feeling or sympathy for the
poor, noble philanthropy, or self-denying enthusiasm, but by the
most narrow selfishness. Add to this, that bane of all that is
meek, pure, noble and peaceful, religious bigotry was carried in
and incorporated into the constitution of the Phalanx. Soon the
body was divided into the religious and liberal portions, both
of which carried their views, we think, to extremes.
"We were present at a business meeting, in the early part of the
fall of 1844. Each party, it seemed, felt bound to oppose the
wishes, plans and movements of the other. We advised the more
liberal portion of the society quietly to withdraw, and allow
the other party to succeed if it possibly could. But they did
not feel at liberty to do so; and soon after the religious body
left, taking with them what of their property they could find,
leaving those who remained (the liberal portion of the society),
comparatively destitute. They felt determined to succeed, and
nobly have they combated, to the present time, the hostile
elements which have warred against them with terrible force.
United in sympathy and feeling, they re-organized last spring;
but the interest was too much for them to meet, and now there is
no prospect of their remaining as an Association longer than the
approaching April. Could those now upon the domain purchase
three or four hundred acres of the land, we have not the least
doubt but that they would succeed, and ultimately come into
possession of the valuable wood-land adjoining. But this is
impossible. In the evening all the adults convened together, and
at their earnest request, we spoke for the space of an hour or
more upon the signs of the times, the evidences of social
progress, and the various minor difficulties that the pioneers
in this movement must necessarily have to experience; proving to
the satisfaction of most of them, we think, that Fourier's plan
of distributing wealth, was both arbitrary and superficial; that
it was a useless effort to unite two opposite and hostile
elements, which have no more affinity for each other than water
and oil, or fire and gunpowder; that inasmuch as individual and
separate interests are the cause or occasion of nearly all the
crime, poverty, and suffering in civilized society, it follows
that the cause and occasion must be removed, ere the effects
will disappear. Still the difference between Communists and
Associationists is not so great, that they should be opposed and
alienated. It should be our object to see the points of
agreement, rather than seek for points of disagreement. In the
former we have been too active and earnest. Association is a
great school for Communism. It will develop the false, and point
out the good.
"As we left this interesting spot the following morning, it was
painful to think that those men and women, who for nearly two
years had struggled against great odds, with their
philanthropic, manly and heroic spirit, with all their
enthusiasm, zeal and confidence in the beauty and practicability
of the principles of social co-operation, must soon be dispersed
and thrown back again, to act upon the selfish and beggarly
principles of strife and competition."
Macdonald ends the story in his usual sombre style as follows:
"This experiment was a total failure. I have been unable to
gather many particulars concerning its last days, and those I
have obtained are of a very unfavorable character.
"The chief cause of failure was religious difference. Persons of
various religious creeds could not agree. There were some among
them who thought it no sin to labor on the Sabbath, and others
who looked upon it as an outrage, which the Phalanx should take
action to prevent. A committee was appointed to settle such
differences, but in this they failed. Sickness was another of
their troubles. They were severely afflicted with typhoid
erysipelas, and at one time forty-nine of their members were
upon the sick list.
"After laboring a year or two under these difficulties, there
was a hasty and disorderly retreat. It is said that each
individual helped himself to the movable property, and that some
decamped in the night, leaving the remains of the Phalanx to be
disposed of in any way which the last men might choose. The fact
that mankind do not like to have their faults and failings made
public, will probably account for the difficulty in obtaining
particulars of such experiments as the Sodus Bay Phalanx."
Allen and Orvis, the lecturing missionaries of Brook Farm, in that
same letter from which we quoted some time since a maledictory
paragraph on the memory of the Skaneateles Community, mention also the
bad odor of the defunct confederated Phalanxes of Western New York, in
the following disrespectful terms. Their letter is dated at Rochester,
September 1847:
"The prospect for meetings in this city is less favorable than that of
any place where we have previously visited. It is the nest wherein was
hatched that anomalous brood of birds, called the 'Sodus Bay Phalanx,'
'The Clarkson Phalanx,' the 'Bloomfield Phalanx,' and the 'Ontario
Union.' The very name of Association is odious with the public, and
the unfortunate people who went into these movements in such mad
haste, have been ridiculed till endurance is no longer possible, and
they have slunk away from the sight and knowledge of their neighbors."
The experience of the Sodus Bay Phalanx in regard to religion,
suggests reflections. Let us improve the opportunity to study some of
the practical relations of religion to Association.
The object and end of Association in all its forms, as we have
frequently said, is to gather men, women and children into larger and
more permanent HOMES than those established by marriage. The
advantages of partnership, incorporation and cooperation have become
so manifest in modern affairs, that an unspeakable longing has arisen
in the very heart of civilization for the extension of those
advantages to the dearest of all human interests--family affairs--the
business of home. The charm that drew the western New Yorkers together
in such rushing multitudes, was simply the prospect of home on the
large scale, which indeed is heaven.
Now if we consider the laws which govern the formation of homes on the
small scale, we shall be likely to get some wisdom in regard to their
formation on the large scale.
And in the first place, it is evident that homes formed by the
conjunction of pairs in the usual way, are not all harmonious--perhaps
we might say, are not generally harmonious. Families quarrel and break
up, as well as Associations; and if husbands and wives were as free to
separate as the members of Association are, possibly marriage would
not make much better show than Socialism has made. Human nature, as we
have seen it in the Communities and Phalanxes--discordant,
centrifugal--is the same in marriage. Now, as experience has developed
something like a code of rules that govern prudent people in venturing
on marriage, our true way is to study that code, and apply it as far
as possible to the vastly greater venture of Association.
Fourier's dream that two or three thousand discordant centrifugal
individuals in one great home, would fall, by natural gravitation,
into a balance of passions, and realize a harmony unattainable on the
small scale of familism, has not been confirmed by experience, and
seems to us the wildest opposite of truth. We should expect, _a
priori_, that with discordant materials, the greater the formation,
the worse would be the hell: and this is just what has been proved by
all the experiments. Let us go back, then, and study the rules of
harmony in the formation of common families.
Probably there is not one among those rules so familiar and so
universally approved by the prudent, as that which advises men and
women not to marry without agreement in religion This rule has nothing
to do with bigotry. It does not look at the supposed truth or
falsehood of different religious creeds. It simply says: Let the
Catholic marry the Catholic; the Orthodox, the Orthodox; the Deist,
the Deist; the Nothingarian, the Nothingarian; but don't match these
discords together, if you wish for family peace. Now this is the
precept which the Fourier Associations, as we see, deliberately
violated; and yet they expected peace, and complained dreadfully
because they did not get it! There is latent quarrel enough in the
religious opposition of a single pair, to spoil a family; and yet
these Socialists ventured on hundred-fold complications of such
oppositions, with a heroism that would be sublime, if it were not
desperately unwise.
It is useless to say that religion is an affair of the inner man and
need not disturb external relations. It did disturb the external
relations of the Socialists at Sodus Bay, and could not do otherwise.
They quarreled about the Sabbath. It did disturb the external
relations of the Northampton Socialists. They quarreled about
amusements. Religion always extends from the inner man to such
external things.
It is useless to say, as Collins evidently wished to insinuate, that
the bigoted sort of religionists, those of the orthodox order, were
alone to blame. In the first place this is not true. All the witnesses
say, Collins among the rest, that both parties pushed and hooked. And
in the next place, if it were true, it would only show the importance
of excluding the orthodox from Associations, and the value of the rule
that forbids marrying religious discords.
Even Collins, with all his liberality, had originally too much good
sense to attempt Association in the promiscuous way of the
Fourierists. His first idea was to make his Community a sort of
close-communion church of infidelity; and, as it turned out, this was
his brightest idea; for in abandoning it he succumbed to his more
religious rival, Johnson, and admitted quarreling and weakness that
ruined the enterprise. His advice also to the liberal party at Sodus
Bay to withdraw, shows that his judgment was opposed to the
heterogeneous mixtures that were popular among the Fourierists.
On the whole it seems to us that it should be considered settled by
reason and experience, that the rule we have found governing the
prudential theory of marriage on the small scale, should be
transferred to the theory of Association, which is really marriage on
the large scale. Better not marry at all, than marry a religious
quarrel. Better have no religion, than have a dozen different
religions, as they had at Clarkson. If you mean to found a Community
for peace and permanence, first of all find associates that agree with
you in religion, or at least in no-religion, and if possible bar out
all others. Remember that all the successful Communities are
harmonious, and the basis of their harmony is unity in religion. If
you think you can find a way to secure harmony in no-religion, try it.
But don't be so foolish as to enter on the tremendous responsibilities
of Community-building, with a complication of religious quarrels
lurking in your material.