The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1906-12-13
HISTORY TO REPEAT
Zion to Follow the Old Wisconsin
PhaIanx Which Went to Pieces
at Ripon Many Years Ago
BAD PLACE FOR SOCIALISM

Voliva, the s'overseer" of the
Dowieites, is arranging for the carry
ing out of his program, announced
last Sunday of moving with the
worthy members" of the chur CHI out
of Zion City and leaving that citadel
to the creditors from whom Dowie bor-
rowed money which the new manage
ment of Zion finds itself una BILE to pay.
Thus comes to an end another expert
ment IN communistic or socialistic
ownership.
Zion City is in Lake county, Illinois,
on the western bank of Lake Michi-
gan, IS miles from Chicago. It was
not altogether. communistic, as the
members we're allowed to enjoy indi-
vidual ownership of their homes
though the business of the community
was almost wholly carried on in the
name and under the management of
the church. It is coincidence that
the next considera bic place north of
Zion City, Kenosha, situated in Wis
consin and only twelve miles away
was the rallying point Of one of the
most interesting communistic coop
perative colonies ever organized in
the west.
The doctrines Of Fourierism, as all
students of American economic history
will remember, gained a wide hearing
in the United States in the fifth de-
cade of the Nineteenth century. Many
were content to talk and dream of its
supposed advantages without trying
to put them to the test, but at South
port, (now Kenosha), in Wisconsin,
twelve miles north of where Zion City
now stands, the Wisconsin Phalanx
was formed to exploit the new social
relations and the principal Of equit-
able distribution, according to Four
Ter. It was stock company, whose
shares we're sold at the modest price
of SIS each. It's members, a process
sion of 15Omen, women and children,
left kenosha in the spring of 1874,
travelling in ox-carts carrying most of
their humble possessions, and driving
before them their cattle, which they
rightly deemed likely to be useful to
them IN building up what was meant to
be an ideal place of habitation. They
called their new home Cereseo. 1t
was near the present site Of Ripon. A
building 400 feet in length was er.
rected to serve as a phalanstery, or
common home. It contained a hall
and two rows of tenements, all under
one roof. While all ate together,
each family lived in its own compart-
ment. Labor In the kitchen, and the
shop and on the farm was voluntary,
and at the end of each year division
of the net profits occurred, each
member being rewarded according to
record of his labor actually performed. |
There we're nightly meetings for |
social diversion and study. The |
Phalanx Jared well materially, but in |
time discords arose. In 1851 the farm /
was sold and the proceeds we're di-
vided among the members, who had
reached a pitch of dissension where
the only thing upon which they could
agree was to separate.
This has been the ultimate fate of
all socialistic experiments in the
United States. There have been
many. J. H. Noyes, writing on the
subject some thirty years ago, pub
1ished list of forty-seven such en-
terprises which had gone to pieces.
Individua1istic ambition has always /
been strong among the people of the
United States, and sooner or later it
will initiate against the continuance
Of Vo1iva's band, even as it has
caused Dowie's Zion City to end in
failure, and as it brought about the
disbandmeht Of the phalanstery at
more than half century ago.