The record-union., 1894-05-10
FARMS FOR MILLIONS.
A Labor Federation's Very Novel
Scheme.
CoIonizIng on socialistic Lines-Four
Labor Leaders Offer a solution OF
the Unemployed Problem-A CO.
operative Farming Community.

operative Farming Community.
From the San Francisco Chronicle. May 9th.l
Four gentlemen, prominently identi-
fed with the labor movement in the East,
arrived IN the city yesterday to lay out q
farming community on semi-socialistic
lines. They believed they have solved
the unemployed problem. They think
that the only solution is 'to drive the
hungry hordes back to the source of pro-
duction," or, in other words, to provide
farms for the thousands who are over
crowding the trades and industries in the
cities. Two of the party have come to
California as the duly accredited repre-
sentatives of the largest State federation
Of labor in the country to see what Cali
fornia can afford in the way of farming
land. The other two members of the
party have accompanied them in the IN
terest of numbers of their fellow-crafts-
men who are in sympathy with the novel
undertaking, and who are disposed to
become earnest workers in its behalf
The party consists of w. III. Madden of
Chicago, President of the Illinois State
Federation of Labor; William C., Pom
eroy of Chicago, General Organizer of
the American Federation of Labor; J. r.
Jaffray, Secretary of the Belvidere Fed
eral Labor Union Of Belvidere, Ill.,, and
John Nee of New York, President of the
National Culinary Alliance. They are
all stopping at the Palace Hotel.
Their trip to California is the outcome
of the following resolution, adopted at
the annual session of the Illinois State
Federation of Labor in November last:
Resolred, That the Executive Board of the
Illinois state Federation OF Labor is hereby
instructed to have prepared and published q
plan of governmental colonization which will
tend TO reduce to a minimum the surplus
population of our cities, and at the same time
provide homes and occupations for many
citizens now homeless and unemployed.
Mr.. Madden and Mr.. Pomeroy are now
carrying out the instructions laid down
in the resolution. They declare that later
investigation has indicated that more
than 3,000,000 farms of 100 acres each are
unoccupied in the United States, but ow-
ing to the poverty-strick condition of
the average toiler he cannot avail himself
of the same. They assert that the un-
titled agricultural lands of the country
will be made the means of solving the
question which gave rise to the Coxey
movement.
"Our proposed cooperative farming
community is different from anything
else which has ever been suggested" said
Mr.. Madden yesterday. "In the first
place it has been impossible heretofore to
induce city people to give up the pleas
ures, conveniences and manifold attrac-
tions of the city to live on farm. A great
proportion of the population in the cities
to-day are people who have been brought
up in the country, and the very thought
of taking up that life again is distasteful
TO many. The tendency of the popula-
ton to-day is to centralize in the cities,
and, unless we can stop this wholesale
desertionNof the farms, the overcrowded
condition of the cities to-day is nothing
to what it will be. Now we propose to
furnish farms to these people. We will
colonize them in socialistic community,
and there will be all the attractions of the
city com bined with all the attractions of
farm life. But it will not be pure social
ism, or what is known by that term.
'Each colony will occupy block of
land two miles square, or four square
miles. It will contain 108 farms of twenty
acres each, and in the center will be plat
of community property containing $50
acres. Each person who takes up farm
of twenty acres becomes part owner in
the community property, which, how
ever, will be non-negotiable.
Here now, is how the proposed colo
nization scheme has an advantage over
everything else ever proposed. A man
takes one of the twenty-acre farms He
can do with that anything he pleases. In
the central plot will be the houses Of all
the colonists, grouped around in a circle,
with stores, schools, meeting places and
all the accommodations and means of
enjoyment and recreation to be found in
the city. A man gets a house, located in
the central plat, with his twenty-acre
farm. He can live in that or he can go
and live on his farm if he wants. Bot
the advantage of living with all the other
colonists requires no argument to be
seen. He will be with his friends and he
can enjoy their society. Without the
circle of 108 residence lots will be sown
l70 acres of public pasturage and garden,
all part of the community plat of 260
acres We have it figured down that los
families can make living from this
property, so that all the product of the
farms will be clear profit. The mem bers
of the community will not be the parts of
machine which will keep him grinding
on and on for years with no hope Of BET
tering his condition. There is no limit to
his ambition. His farm is his own. He
can raise what he wants and do with it
what he wants. The water, electric
light and sewer systems will be perfect
and will be supported by the community
as is done in every city, and there will be
colonists choose to establish for them
selves.
"People may say'that it looks very nice
on paper but it is practicable. We will
plant the farms for the buyer and he will
not move upon it until it is self-support-
ing. Then, with the products and profits
of his holdings, he can pay for what he
has received in yearly installments.
"Some might say, How will this reach
the masses of the unemployed?' main
tain that it will. While coming west
from Chicago we met a large number of
men who appealed to us for help. They
were nearly all skilled mechanics who
were out of employment on account of
the overcrowded condition of the trades
in which they had been brought up. In
the Office of the Chicago Herald. where [
work. can get twenty printers to come
to California with their families and settle
down in a farming community such as
we propose; and the same will hold good
with nearly every other printing office in
the country and every trade and industry
| in the country. How many positions
will there be opened for others now out
| of employment? When a good proper
! ton of the 4S0 000, 900 acres Of idle agri-
cultural land in this country is taken up
and tilled-and it can be done in the man
ner we propose-there will be no one out
of employment in the whole country and
there will be such prosperity as the world
| has never seen."
The visitors will leave for Merced in a
/ few days to inspect some 10000 acres OF
land owned by company OF Chicago
capitalists. Mr.. Jaffray says there are 100
are anxiously waiting the result of the
| oo,,, M ,ittaats Investigations with the hone