The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-08-18
IDEAL COLONY FAILED.
Author of "Quo vadis' and Helena
Modieska's Once Big Scheme.


Modjeska's Once Big Scheme.
San Francisco, Aug. 1s.-That Henry
Sienkiewicz, the foremost novelist of
Poland, the author of "Quo Vadis, who
is still, two summers after the birth
of his great novel, probably the most
prominent figure in the literary world
was once upon time a California
rancher will come as news to his read
ers, except handful of ranch folk in
! southern California they, on sober
second thought, are very likely not to
be included among his readers.
Sienkiewicz, the novelist of unpro-
nounceable name, was California
rancher-or, to be exact attempted to
be California rancher-some two and
twenty years ago, under particularly
interesting conditions.
He was one Of the famous Polish
colony which came to quick grief in CO.
operative ranching down near Anaheim.
The practical. wide-awake, successful
old ranchers down that way still
chuckle in reminiscent glee over the
disasters that attended genius tilling
the soil, or rather, the disasters that
attended the experiment while genius
sat in the shade WOOing the various
muses. and letting the soil and the
stock and the practice of agriculture
go to the demnitiOn bOW-wOws.
There never was a community of peo-
pie quite like that of the Polish colony.
Its story is one of the quaint chapters
and for new corners and the annual
influx of tourists the dOingS and history
of the Polish colOnists and their opera
bOuffe farming have a perennial charm.
The famous Brook farm experiment in
New England, in which Hawthorne,
Emerson and Greeley were implicated,
is not comparable with that of the
Poles in southern California in the
three years following 1876. The Polish
colony was composed of fOrty-One of
the most brilliant litterateurs, actors,
n n sir lion
had no problem of life to demonstrate
as other cOlOnistS in California have
had; no truth struggling with them for
proof by their daily lives; no wrongs
to right, nor lessons to teach. They
were simply and solely a. company of
happy impractical, ambitious young
men and women, with Bohemian tastes
and desire to so live that the art and
culture in them might have it's freest
expression.
Madame Helena Chaplowski, since
the famous Madame Modjeska of the
stage, and her husband, Count BoZenta,
were leaders in the colony. Henry Sien-
kieWicz was one Of the younger men
in the colony. He was a single man,
then about twenty one years of age.
Already he was fired With literary zeal
and spent his time in writing.
Michael Kroschiki, the foremost
Polish painter of this century, was in
the colony, as was also Carl VladskOtf
who Tolstoi and Ibsen say is the finest
lyric poet of this generation. Never on
American soil, excepting possibly in the
case of the Brook farmers, was there
such an aggregation Of splendid genius
as in the Polish colony at Anaheim.
Madame Modjeska tells how the
Polish colony came to be formed and
about it's purposes. She gives the youth
full Polish point of view.
The plain, practical, unsympathetic
old ranchmen of Anaheim valley tell
how the colony scheme withered and
the visionary colOnists were literally
Of a FThGV give the TanCherS'
point of view.
In the fall and winter of 1874" says
Modjesxa, some one in our quasi
Bohemian club at Cracow, Poland, came
across a translation of some ones
travels in California that was our first
real knowledge Of this region. Then we
got hold of an Illustrated edition of
collection Of articles regarding the ease
of life and the wonderful fertility OF soil
in the semi-tropics of California We
had been talking for several years or
what a glorious scheme it would be for
all of us striving, each in his or her
own path toward the best in art, to llVe
in a big cooperative colony, where the
soil would yield our livelihood and we
roight aid one another toward our re-
spective artistic ideals. So, When the
literature about southern Calltorhld'
and especially the Union Pacific boom
pamphlets, fell into our hands, we eX-
claimed in a chorus that there at last
was an earthly elysium in Whlcn we
could live our ideal colony life. IL WouId
take a great volume to narrate all the
dreams we Poles, shivering amid snow
and Ice, had of idylIic contentment and
freedom from such sordid concerns OF
life as earning ones living When IN
clination IS absent and of wondering
how bills would be paid, when lovely
art was tingling at ones very finger
tips. Harry Sienkiewicz was among
the most enthusiastic ones regarding
the scheme to establish the co-opera-
tive farming colony in southern Cali
fornia. He had got his fine education
by hard work and economy. He had
worked to get a few dollars saved up,
and pined for the land Of roses and
fruits as ne other young man in our
club did. He earned a few hundred
dollars a year even then by writing for
the Cracow press"
In the latter part of the summer of
1876, while the Centennial exposition at
Philadelphia was at its height, forty
nine Polish actors, htterateurs
musicians and editors landed
in New York and went first
to see the Centennial exposi-
ton. They grew even more enthusiasts
tic as they looked upon the displays
from the farming regions of the west,