The Lehi banner. [volume] (Lehi, Utah) 1891-1917, 1894-09-06
A Peculiar and Prosperous Com
munity OF Iowa
Although II Was Started as an Expevs-
ment. the Colony Has Grown and
fiourished-A kemarka-
bic People.

Most socialistic experiments in this
country have fallen fiat, but there are
few remarkable exceptions, says the
ST. Louis Republic. One of these is
situated in Iowa county, Ia, and ID
called the Amana society, or Commu-
nifty of True Inspiration. This social
istic society has stood the test OF time,
for II Is very nearly as old as the state
OF Iowa. Indeed, IL traces its carly be-
ginning back 10 the German Pietists OF
the seventeenth century. But in this
country and in Iowa il was incorpo-
rated in 1889
This society Is a shining example. IL
has succeeded. IL numbers now about
seventeen hundred souls and they are
all healthy and happy and fast grow
ing rich. They own some twenty-five
thousand acres OF land, all cultivated
supplied with live stock, and they
have mills and manufactures of al
most every description. They carry
on these many enterprises with
the energy and skill of peo-
pie who believe that all must work.
Not even the old are exempt from the
universal law. You may visit Amana
society any day except Sunday and you
will find everybody at work, one equal
to the other, men and women, some in
the fields or vineyards, some in the
factories and a 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 10 mark his
resting place. A few do, indeed, pos
sess thoir own families, but even this
is discouraged, and life Of celibacy
held up instead as the highest ideal.
They area simple, PLAIN folk, but
thoy are always apparently contcntcd
and happy a visitor viii be surprised
10 find so large a proportion OF old peo-
pie among them. for very few die OF
youth or middle age, and few are ever
sick. There are no cases OF nervous
prostratiou here, and insanity and sui
eide are unknown. Nor has any mem
Der of tAe community ever filled a fell
on's cell
This appears like a beautiful illus
tration OF the good things attendant
upon socialism and NJ. Zola's panacca
of 'incessant work. and IL seems too
bad for The sake Of the theory that the
Amanitos do not base their success
upon these principles. They claim,
rather, that socialism and "incessant
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 ard beautiful that one readily
sees Il Is potent factor OF their sue
cess. Like their lives, il is without
establishment or show. IL teaches
them TO speak the truth, to do no muir
der, not oven in war, TO love one an
other, and TO listen often for the Sin
ward voice. Of revelation. Thus they
live, like the patriarchs of old, "a pc
euliar people" not for the sake OF ex.
pertinent, but because they desire SC
to do, and with all their peculiarly
they find themselves happy and pros
nNroua.