The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-25
PASSING OF THE ICARIANS.

End of a Long Lived and Famous
 Communistic Experiment-Existed
 Half a Century-Founded by Etienne
 Cabet It Flourished for a Time, but
 Individualism Finally Killed It.
 The most tong lived and undoubtedly the most nearly successful of all the experiments ever made in the Western Hemisphere with pure communion camet an end the last day of Octo- Der, when Judge H. M Towner, in the District Court, entered an order dis charging the receiver of the New Icari- an Community and formally declaring the community and all it's affairs ended.
 Etienne Cabet, scholar, historian, so- biologist, and philantrophist, who two generations ago was stirring all France writings, and who contributed much toward melting the revolution of 1s4S, of which he was afterward the histor- ian; Etienne Cabet, contemporary and co-worker of Proudhon in behalf of the poor and oppressed of France-agitat- or, essayist, historian, scientist, and, finally, exile from his native country was founder of the community, which, after an existence of almost half a een- tury, came to an end yesterday. In it's palmy days, twenty years ago, Ameri- can students of sociology used to come many hundreds miles to study the workings of what was said to be the most successessful communistic com munity in the world.
 Cabet tried to found his first experi- mental colony in France, but the gov- ernment of Louis Philippe was bitter Iy opposed to such experiments, and it's opposition forced the Icarians, as the adherents of the new communistfc doc trines were called, to go to the New World The movement had become al most national one in France; Cabets
 "Icaria" and Proudhon's Bank of the People" had set all France by the ears, and the established order of things was in serious danger of being overturned. Driven from their own country for their first experiment in communism, the Icarians went first to Texas, where they were offered an area as large as good- sized French department for their ex- pertinent. Their emissaries, after lock- ing over the country, decided against it. and went to New Orleans. Here they were joined by others, and at 1 last, when the Mormons left their seat at Nauvoo, Ill., the Icarians who had brought considerable money, bought 1 the old Mormon holdings in Illinois and secured from the legislature of Illinois 1 a charter granting them certain spe- 1 cial privileges and immunities. About | 2000 French enthusiasts joined them | there, Cabet at the head. He was prac- l tically dictator to the community; for years no question was raised as to his | absolute authority in all things relat- | ing to the conduct of the community,
 and so long as he was left in charge all went well. The community grew and | prospered, and there was peace and l plenty. l But the country round about settled
 up by people who saw no charm in the | communistic idea; shre'wd Yankees, 1 who, instead of believing that the com 1 munity ought to own everything, con- l sidered themselves called to secure in- 1 dividual control of the largest Dossi-
 ble part of the community; pressed | about the little settlement of commun- ists. The new generation of Icarians was brought up constantly confronted l by the striking contrasts between their own simple plain, and frugal living and
 the comparative luxury and independ-
 ence of the better classes of people
 around them. Of course, they always l made the comparison with the more
 well-to-do of their neighbors; human nature could not have been expected l to be more discriminating; and their 1 conclusion was too often to the disad- | vantage of their own style of living | Dissensions arose. Cabet had given ur
 his dictatoriaI powers and granted 8 charter under which the community by ballot, chose annually sort of di- rectorate. After an experience with this | plan he found it a failure: individuals ism was everywhere creeping in. He i demaned that the elected directorate
 be abolished and that he be vested witt
 power to appoint directors. But he was
 defeated the rising tide of individual istic ideas beat ever harder and more fiercely upon the little islet of com. | munism; every year the instinct of hrl- i man selfishness more and more over.
 came the sentiment of devotion to pure principle that had characterized tht | patriarchs of Icaria. At last a schisn | came; Cabet and his minority of fol
 lowers withdrew and established an
 other colony at Cheltenham, Mo-, a few miles from St. Louis. It lasted only { few years and dissolved.
 Two or three years before this schisn
 Cabot, realized that his social ordei
 could never be maintained in the mids
 of a great community, inspired by wha he considered the selfishness of indi
 vidualism, had concluded that he mus
 transplant his communistic seed tt
 some new region far beyond the con
 fines of civilization; and fondly be lieving that civilization would not pene
 trate far beyond the Mississippi fol
 generations to come, he sent agents tt Western Iowa seeking a location. The!