Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-07-04
THREATEN COLONY
SETTLEMENT AT AMANA is FAC
ING DISSOLUTION AT THE
II HANDS OF THE LAW.
Has Lived Together as One Large
Family For Over Fifty Years
Unique Religious Beliefs of Members
Founded Two Centuries Ago.

The Amana Communist Colony, arter
! living as one large family for fifty
years in Iowa county, is threatened
with dissolution at the hands of the
law as the result of an action brought
by Mrs. Martha Wilson. She has filed
a petition asking the district court to
instruct the county attorney to pro-
coed against the society for exceeding
their corporate rights.
Mrs. Wilson alleges that the pecu-
liar religious dogmas of the society
have been used to free from the bur-
dens of citizenship; that their COM
munism is a guise behind which to &C
quire large property holdings without
being required to pay taxes. And if
the petition is sustained the members
Of the society will be compelled to
abandon their communistic scheme
and pay some hundreds of dollars in
back taxes.
For this society of 2,400 members,
owns the equivalent of one Of the
smaller counties Of Iowa, and their
prosperity has been remarkable.
While the articles of incorporation
Of the society say it was organized
for the promotion of the temporal and
spiritual welfare and happiness of it's
members, Mrs Wilson alleges the So
ciety to have acquired 10000 acres of
land, seven towns, buildings worth ST.
100000, merchandise stores doing a
large business, cotton, wooden and 9TH
er manufacturing plants; and that all
this is without the scope Of the corpor-
alton as one not organized for pecun-
larry profit.
The petition presents to the Iowa
courts for the first time the question
of whether communism is a specula-
tive venture.
Organization of Society.
As long ago as the opening of the
eighteenth century occurred the birth
of the Amana society. 1t sprang from
the religious branch known as the
Quietists, formed by Miguel de Mol
mos in Spain in 1675,de Molinos plead
ing for the religion of the heart in
preference to that of the ritual. In
TIA ]. F. Rock and E. L. Gruber of
Hessia, Germany, organized a religious
sect, whose belief was that God in
spires men to speak and act for him.
Followers f1ocked to the new society,
ooC oOou pei oSCuIlOll WIS aroused anu
the members were publicly whipped,
and their meetings forbidden. Never
theless, the society grew until in 1872
after love feast, Christian Metz, Geo.
Weber, William Noe and Gottlieb Ack-
erman started to America to find a
home for the Inspirationists.
(. First Settlement,
Upon the advice of German inn
keeper, they opened negotiations with
the Seneca Indians and purchased TO-
600 acres not far from Buffalo, N. Y,
Tor $1,000 an acre. There they build
ed a town called Ebenezer-Eben,
stone, and ezer, help. Just as in the
days of Samuel, who set up a stone in
commemoration of divine assistance,
these pilgrims, made of this town a
sign of their successful struggle for
the right to worship as they wished.
The others followed till in 1874 about
300 had come from Germany-carpen-
tiers, masons, blacksmiths, merchants
and in fact all the tradesmen.
Though, under their able leaders,
they had every promise of prosperity,
they were so annoyed by the Indians,