The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-22
DEBs's COMMONWEALTH.
1t VIII Probably Meet the Fate of
Other SOcialistic Communities.

E. " Smalley, in Chicago Times-Herald.
1 hope that Eugene V. Debs VIII go ahead
and plant his cooperative society. The
spectacle of some hundreds of the pushing.
pugnacious members of the American Rail-
way Union trying to live and work to-
gether on the socialistic plan will be one
for gods and men, The dreamers of all
nations and the longers for the good time
coming will look on with lively hope and
practical people everywhere will predict a
speedy failure. should strongly ADVISE
Mr.. Debs to go out to the State of Wash
ington for foothold for his enterprise. He
must not expect to find any considerable
Gent rainfall open to first settlement.
There is not now remaining anywhere In
the west a large body OF agrlcultuTal land
that can be had for nothing under the
homestead law. Debs and his people can
buy good land tolerably cheap, however,
near railroads and towns 1 would recon-
mend him to look at the strip of country
lying partly in Washington and partly in
Idaho and known as the Palonse country,
in the neighborhood say of MOSCOW and
Pullman. The climate is good, the soil very
rich timber is close at hand on the near
mountains, gold can be washed out of the
streams fruit grows We'll and there are all
the natural conditions for success in farm
ing. The new community might establish
a small town, do little manufacturing of
wool and lumber and can and preserve
fruits, thus having the advantage of a
variety of industrial pursuits. The COM
petittve railway systems operate in that re-
gion; A Holland mortgage company has
big lot of land in the district, which can
no doubt be bought for from $40 to 500 an
acre. and much of it is improved with
buildings and fences The shrewd Dutch
men will not be likely to repose any faith
in the promises to pay of the communists
gage, and as Debs is down upon mortgages
1t would be well for him to gather up
enough to buy the land outright.
L used to take a good deal of interest in
communistic schemes. That was when l
was young man and did not know much
of human nature. l knew well the late
vyhn nj IF
Fourier, and who induced Horace Greeley
to open the columns of his Tribune to
discussion of the ideas of the great French
Socialist. The result was the planting Of
number of communities in different parts
Of the United States, substantially on the
plan now advocated by Debs. They all
came to grief. One in Wisconsin lived the
longest, because its land became quite val
liable with the development of that State,
but in the end it disintegrated. Charles
Nordhoff gathered up the annals of all
these communities and wrote a book about
them some twenty years ago. The real
trouble with them all was that the lazy
members had warnings for equal d.
vision of unequal earnings" and the smart
Industrious members soon discovered that
they could get along better in the big COM
petitive world outside of the community.
About twenty-five years ago l went down
into western North Carolina to visit a So
clalist community established on the
French Broad river. They were intelligent
Eastern people, with no peculiar religious
notions, and they had bought and made
first payment on an old hotel property, in
Guiding a warm spring and some farming
land. The location was charming; the
broad plazzas and splint- bottom chairs of
the hotel invited to repose, and the colo
nists did a great deal of reposirg. There
the property, and the women preferred
playing on 1t to cooking and washing dish
es. Few of the men seemed disposed to do
any hard work on the farm. Those that
did work were ali the time grumbling at
the philosophers who sat on the plaZzas
and discussed the great questions of life.
n he III
mild-eyed type, who talked and talked and
looked away to the mountain tops. Many
of the women were more energetic. They
wore their hair short and were the sort
of women that usually marry that sort of
men. Some were self-Sacrificing enough to
work in the kitchen, but they spoke briefly
about their sisters who played the piano.
The year after my visit the community col
lapsed and the owners OF the property TOOK
it back by foreclosure.
| assume that Debs's colonists will rot be
of the long-haired and mild-eyed type. If
they are recruited from among the lead
ers in his great railway strike they will be
combatiVe energetic and intelligent men,
and they will mean business They will not
be religious cranks looking for the end of
the world, and they will have no peculiar
notions about the marriage relation to get
them into trouble with public sentiment or
a good organizer like Debs will have every
thing in their favor for achieving ma
terial success. But they will be as selfish
as other men, and they will not, like the
Shakers, have a strong religious fanaticiSm
to restrain their selfiShnesS and make them
submit patiently to the government of their
leaders. They will feel that the eyes of
socialists all over the world are turned to
them with new hope and longing, and this
may for time keep them from quarreling,
but in the end 1 believe that they will
quarrel and disintegrate. Ambition Jeal-
Ousy and seIf-seeking are not going to be
eliminated by the signing of a social con-
tract The strong will intrude ON the rights
of the the weak the lazy will loaf at the
expense of the industrious. Our entire civ
ilization is based on a competitive struggle
for the welfare Of the individual man and
his family and there are no signs in the
heavens that the world is any nearer be-
coming an Altruria than it was fifty years
ago, when Brisbane wrote in the Tribune
and the Fourieristic societies were founded