The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-09
EARLY SOCTALIST COMMUNITIES
short ~, ri ENpersments In This and Other
stairs.

The man WIN makes q point Of prying into
all the "isms" was reading OF Upton Sin
! Chairs lOngings tO start n community.
Sounds inviting" he paid, but ! suppose
all the forty-nve others sounded inviting.
Yea, sir, there have bpen forty-ive Socialist
communities in this country and only four
existed five years or more. One Of them
was right down in our little neighboring
State ~ New lie rsey. That was the North
American Phalanx and IL existed twelve
years. Hopedale in Massachusetts, lasted
the longest, seventeen years; Wisconsin
Phalanx came next, with ak years Of life.
The most famous Of them ali, Brook Farm
endured five years.
I'VE had nine communities in New York
State. Rochester suburbs got two Of them,
one he Sodus Bay community and the other
tue ClaIkson Industrial Association. Those
twu lasted only a few months. but between
them they bad 40 members.
General Depravity was the villain that
brought most Of the communities low, al
though n student OF sue things wTUte once
that il was q fundness for land that brought
about the f~oilures, and too little attention
to the manufacturing arts the establish
ment OF II ra~Tnill being the only kind OF
manufacturing enterprise in which the
majority Of them INDUCED. The reasons
which SOM of the members OF these com
munities gave fur their failures are inter-
esting aud enlightening.
"One wrote: We wanted honesty and we
got dishonesty; we wanted temperance and
we got intsmperance; We wanted cleanliness
and We found dirt Another wrote: Self
love Is a spirit which will not be exercised
Another reasoned that the failure Of his par
ticular community was due to the fact that
the sole occupation OF the men and women
was To- parade and talk Another cause
was set forth a.: The young wasted the
good things at the commencement Of the
experiment and an ungaliant student Of
the subject has written that one downfall
was caused by the jealousies among the
women At the A~iphadelphia Phalsnx,
located In Michigan, the failure was set
| forth "a follows: The disagreement with
Mr.. Tubbs about a mil. race at the COM
menCement Of the eSC eriment threw a
damper on il from which IL never recovered.
All lived In clover. SO long as a ton OF sugar
or any other such Ia xury lasted 'Scold
and work, work and scold. was the terse
reason given for the failure Of another
community.
Massachusetts, Is quite generally re-
Rarded as A crank State, but the old Bay
State had only three communities and
those three lasted q respectable time, while
the nine in this State were very aeetinR.
Besides the two out near Rochester, one
was located seven miles back from Cox
sackie on the Hudson and was called the
Coxsackie Community. IL lasted between
one and two years. There wa a Franklin
Community. Of which there seems IN be
almost no trace, and then there was the
JEFF erson County Industrial Association,
which was situated two or three miles
from Wstertown and lasted only a few
months.
The Moorehouse Union, situated in
Hamilton, seems to have been the biggest
graft mill Of all the New York communities.
It began with a grant OF land given by
community remarked that Mr.. Moorehouse
probably gave the land because il was
located in the wilderness OF New York
and was Of little use for anything else.
At any rate it endured a very short time,
and one member on leaving wrote: I had
given nine months time, was half starved,
got no pay. had worn out my clothes and
had my best coat borrowed without leave
by. a man who went to New York some time
before
Another New York community Of short
duration was called the Ontario Phalanx
and was situated at Hopewell. Ontario
county. Skaneateles was still another,
located forty miles west OF the Oneida
religious community, which must be dis
tinguished from the Socialist communities.
Writing Of the failure Of the S~kaneateIes
experiment a student says: The question
OF dirt was one about which the community
was greatly exercised, n there seems
to have been an inner circle among whom
the dietetic Juror worked with special
violence
Bloomfield Association was another New
York community and was located one mile
east OF Honeoye Falls in the counties OF
Monroe, Livingston and Ontario and
lasted = brief time"