The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-01
OF A SALVATION ARMY
 EXPERIMENT.
Moneyless Men Settled on Farms Have Become Prosperous.-Amity
 Colony in Colorado Shows an Excellent Record.


 gently from a tour of inspection among the colonies and it was the things he saw during this trip which encouraged him to make this offer. The business men of Fort Amity colony in Colorado have formed commercial club which dined the com mander on his visit. This little associa- tion of business men, nineteen or twenty of them. turned over $2000O0 in the last year and paid out $5OO0O in freight. One of them has just completed e S.oOO store.
 This is extremely significant to those who understand what went before. This volume of business has been built up by men who. four years ago, were without capital. The first colonists arrived in Amity in April, 1899. Here and there one who had been a farm laborer had a team | of his own. Most of them had their own household furniture. Aside from that, they were propertyless men, not hoboes, or even out of work, but simply working l men from the large cities, mainly New York, who under existing conditions had | been unable to accumulate any property. Well Provided For.
 Their goods were shipped to Amity for them. Their railroad fare and that of their families were paid. They were set tied In plots of from ten to twenty acres apiece, received a house to live in, the nec- | essary tools and implements, one or two | horses each, one or two cows, pigs and poultry.
 Every penny of the cost was a debt charged against the colonist by the Army. It Is the way in which this debt is being discharged that encouraged the command | CT to make the offer he did. On April | 27, 1902, the first colonist discharged his en- tire indebtedness to the Army. He had | come to Amity in March, 1899, his sole ac- cumulation of capital being a team and his household furniture He has now | twenty acres free from incumbrance. On this land is a neat stone cottage, built by himself. His entire debt to the Army amounted to $SOO. He paid it in three years besides supporting a wife and three children and building his house.
 | The colonists are not put into good houses and money to live upon is not fur nished them until their first crops are har- vested The first were set to work mak- ing indispensable Improvements, con- structing fences, irrigating ditches, and so on. The Army allowed them the rate of wages current in the section. $2 a day. Half of that was set down to their credit on their debt. The other dollar day suf- | feed for them to live on until their first return began to come in. They lived in mere shacks until they were able to build better houses of their own.
 Now that these necessary preliminary improvements are all made the men are accepted as probationers first. If they prove industrious and persevering, they assume the full status of colonists. Dur ing the probationary period the Army takes a certain per cent of their produce if the land on which they are settled is under cultivation. If 1t is unbroken the probationer takes 1t and makes what he can from it, the Improvements he puts on 1t being worth from $5 to $1O an acre to | the Army.
 Only three colonists have ever lefe Amity and those for sufficient reasons. Not one has ever shirked his payments or refused to work. The fact that the Army has at times had as high as nearly 5000 of excess payments on hand indicates 1 their eagernsss to discharge their obliga- | tions.
 Yet there is hardly one of them who l could not have been sold out at some time during the last four years or who under ordina ay business methods would not have been sold out. The difference came in the fact that while the Army was under strict necessity to get it's money back. it's object was not to make money out of the colon- ists. but only to see them financially in- dependent. It has tided them over hard times. It knew the circumstances and character of each and whether he could pay or not If money was tight with them IL tOOh lnCAl nay OI liltlT CdlNtS or IHelE hogs, and when 1t had car load. shipped at an advantage which the individual col- onists could not command.
 Better Than Money.
 The Army has given the colonists no money. but it gave them the power and influence of a big corporation It bought | the land in a big area at a cheaper rate 1 than the colonists could have got it. It borrowed capital or issued bonds, as the colonists could not do. The Army has ap- piled the business methods of a big cor poration to the assistance of the colonists instead of to their defeat
 "Amba ssador Joseph H. Choate" said Commander Booth-Tucker, "once said that he started in life with no capital but letter of introduction from his uncle Ru- fus Now I think 1t Is the duty of society | to play the part of Mir. Choate's Uncle Rufus to the average man, to supply him with a letter of recommendation, for that letter may mean the first start in life, and the first start means so much. There is no one so helpless as the poor man with a little money in his pocket Everyone is trying to get 1t away from him. Every one is trying to cheat him out of it. They cheat him at the cheap lodging houses. | They short change him in the saloons | "A poor man known to have a dollar in his pocket is in more danger of robbery in tnis city than the millionaire. In some places his life Is hardly safe if he is known to have that dollar. It Is just the same in ! the business world. If he is sick and des- ttute. charity will step in and take care of him. But if he is on his feet everybody lis trying to push IIm down. The man who begs for money is treated better than the man who asks for work.
 Moreover, Ambassador Choate hardly