The Indianapolis journal., 1893-10-28
THE AMANA SOCIETY
Socialistic Community in Iowa
That Is Said to Be q Success.
Bellamy's Idea Partially Carried Out on
Small Scale-No Drones-A Simple
Religion that Brings Happiness.

CINCINNATI, Oct. IA local newspa-
per prints a letter from correspondent at
Hllsboro, ILL., telling of a community,
patterned somewhat after Bellamy's plan.
but founded long before that imaginative
writer gave his views to the public. The
correspondent says that most socialistic
experiments in this country have fallen
fat but there are few remarkable excep-
tions. One of these is situated in Iowa
county Iowa, and is called the Amana So
ciety, or Community of True Inspiration.
This socialistic society has stood the test
of time, for it is very nearly as old as the
State Of Iowa. Indeed, it traces it's early
beginning back to the German Pietists of
the seventeenth century. But in this coun-
try, and in Iowa, it was incorporated in
1859. This society is shining example. 1t
has succeeded. 1t numbers now about LOO
souls. and they all healthy and happy,
and fast growing rich. They own some
q, 900 acres of land, all cultivated up to the
highest notch, and well supplied with live
stock and they have mills and manufact-
cries of almost every description.
They carry on these many enterprises
with the energy and skill of a people who
believe that all must work. Not even the
old are exempt from the universal law.
You may visit Aniana Society any day ex-
cept Sunday and you will find everybody
at work, one equal to the other. men and
women, some in fields or vineyards, some
in the factories, and large contingent,
most of these women as it happens, in the
large cooperative kitchens, where the
meals are served They are brothers" and
sisters" together, as they say They all
eat the same food, wear the same blue
Jeans or blue calico, live in houses equally
free from paint and when they die each
one is given the same kind of wooden
slab to mark his resting place. A few do,
indeed, possess their own families, but even
this is discouraged, and a life of celibacy
are a simple, plain folk, but they are al
ways apparently cCntented and happy A
visitor will be surprised to find so large a
proportion of old people among them, for
very few die in youth or middle age, and
few are ever sick. There are no cases of
nervous prostration here, and insanity and
suicide are unknown. Nor has any member
, OF the community ever filled felon's cell.
This appears like beautiful illustration
of the good things attendant upon social
ism and NJ. Zola's panacea of "incessant
work." and 1t seems too bad for the sake
Of the theory that the An.anaites do not
base their success upon these principles.
They claim, rather, that socialism and Gin
cessant work. are only the means by which
they attain a higher good. This higher
good is freedom in observing their own
religion. This religion of theirs however
is so pure and beautiful that one readily
sees it is a potent factor of their success
Like their lives, 1t is without embellish-
ment or show. 1t teaches them to speak
the truth, to do no murder, not even in
war, to love one another and to listen
often for the onward voice. of revelation
Thus they live, like the patriarchs of old
"a peculiar people," not for the sake of ex>
pertinent but because they desire SO to do,
and with all their peculiarities they find
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