The Republican journal., 1886-04-29
dend in them. But people, though poor, by or


| ganzaton can have these things.
1t will he seen that we can have our cooking
| all done in one bakery, our washing in one
| laundry, our reading in one library, our sick in
one hospital and our children nursed and edu-
Gated Ill one institution, and still each family
| can live i'll separate and distinct houses, and
avoid that much dreaded and ill-founded terror
of 'hlving" all in one building. That this ten
dency to "hiving,' as it is derisively called is
one OF the tendencies of the age, is easily
seen IN the fact that the most enlightened and
independent families spend more and more
of their summers, and winters also, in hotels in
preference to private dwellings. Every human
being demands both an access to society, and
an opportunity to get back into absolute seclu-
sion, and the modern summer hotel offers the
easiest access from each of these extremes into
the other. Pass through your door and ten
feet across a hall and you are in society. Go
back to your room again and you arc in perfect
seclusion, if the walls are deadened so no sound
will come through. If you lived miles out in
secluded country in lonely house which by a
long road was connected with the liveiest part
of a great city, the termini of that road would
offer you no more of the extremes of life than
you could find by walking ten feet in a hotel.
The hotel is simp'i al effort % answer one Of
the demands of civilization. That it does not
fully answer the demand is certain. This diff
hculty comes partly from the fact that there
are no features introduced in hotel unless
they directly or indirectly yield a dividend to
the proprietor. This fact besides keeping out
much that is agreeable, introduces much that
is diSaSrceable. 4 hotel is also a master and
servant institution which rising generations are
demanding relief from, not because they object
to being mastered but because they object to
being menas. Serving as equals is no task
when we expect our services to be returned or
handed on to others. But serving a person
like a superior whom we do not believe to be
superior. and serving against our will and on
half pay and without gratitude. is simply
drudgery and is degrading and ought not to be-
4 cooperative colony living all in one immense
building would be partially If not wholly re-
lieNed of these diSagreeahle features, and
would introduce many domestic advantages
that the hotel does not admit of, among which
is the domestic training of the Young ladies'
The man who rears his daughters i'll Il hotel
must bring them up almost wholly ignorant Of
all domestic requirements. A woman ignorant
of these things, whether rich or poor, is never
the actual head of family. She is only NOM
lnally so. The actual head of such family
must be foreign servant, who, perhaps, can
neither read or write. Such daughters, how
ever well read, are not educated, ana are
worthless in marriage. No institution can long
succeed that fosters ignorance in the useful
branches Nevertheless, it must be admitted
that there are many features in the modern ho-
tel that have come to stay and make a part of
the grand system of cooperation. The fact
that all the furniture and fixtures stay with
the house and that parties moving have to car
ry but very little baggage is another good and
enduring feature, because members of cooper
ativc colonies cannot be expected to travel less
or carry more baggage. Travelling from colony
to colony will some day, no doubt, take Il per
son the world over, and with the railroads and
steamboats, belonging to the colonies will make
travel wholly inexpensive, the same as any
member of Il family can ride in the family bug
wthoutany financial difference to themselves
or family whether they ride or not. 1t is as
aaS tn ,,.tl fhr +i,,, f,,...
community as it is to own horse for the free
use of the family, and for the same natural
reason, one privilege will not be abused any
more than the other People think that ab>0-
lutcly free travel for the whole people cannot
he established and maintained; and others say
it can only be done by coercive laws and severe
taxation. But an examination into the subject
shows it TO be an easy matter to accomplish
without either law or taxation. That in fact
free travel is the natural practical result of the
law Of cooperative combination, which com
bination cannot he complete without it.
In this letter have only touched upon the
advantages Of cooperation on the farm. in the
workshop. III the construction of railroads and
in our household affairs, only to pave the way
to other less rambling and more conclusive
matter. The arguments against cooperation
are all practically worthless: it is prejudice and
not argument that keeps it in the background.
Cooperation, free lovciSm and several other
iSlns are by Il thoughtc>s community all
thrown together i'll pile and labeled "a nasty
heap and this stupid course, more than any
thing el>e, has kept alive Il prejudice against
cooperative industry. 1t is very shallow
thinker who thinks that union and licenti0uS-
ness always run together. There are no class
of men more corrupt than those most isolated
from the society of women. which fact is we'll
illustrated by sailors. miners and regular army
soldiers; and the strictly female work rooms in
factories show the corrupting tendencies of
isolation from the opposite sex. 1t is isola-
ton and not union that corrupts the morals.
Cities are not corrupt because they are denScN
packed, but because the members are SOCIALLY
isolated. In Il city you are in world Of
strangers none of whom can praise Your viz
tues or condemn your vices. You can CLOSELY
approach no one except in vicious places. 1t
is therefore the isolation and not the union
that makes the city vicious. This source Of
immortality i, wholly removed in a cooperative
colony.
! have briefly presented thi, part of the sub
iiect in a somewhat direct manner because the
prejudice being most silent was most potent.
The remainder of the subject shall he more
agreeable.