Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1915-12-22
IoWA's AMANA SOCIETY At
TRACTS ATTENTION or NOM
RESIDENT JOURNALIST.
CUSTOMS IN SUCCESSFUL
COLONIZATION DISTRICT
Society Owns Lands and Improve
merits Valued at More Than $780,
0oochureh Everything to Members
Boy. Punished BY Being Kept From
Church Two Sundays.

lLoulS IL CoillnS, IN the Mlnn6-
apolis Journal
Down in Iowa county, Iowa, not so
far from Minneapolis, an old man who
was born in Germany seventy lone
years ago sat out of doors under tree
and told why 1900 persons-men,
women and children-live community
life on 10000 acres of Iowas most
fertile land and are happy.
The old man, who munched an apple
society. The society is worth at least
sS,O00,000 in lands and Improvements.
Not one member has cent Of prop
erty in his own name. Everything
earned in the Amana colony. which
contains seven prosperous little towns
and is more than sixty years old, goes
to the common treasury.
had asked the old man, George
Heinemann, if it were true that four
Amana school boys who had played
baseball on Sunday in the little COM
munity had been punished by being
banned from church for eight weeks.
had heard this about Amana and it
had resulted in my trip to the colony
Yes. it is true" said the old man.
'They were punished, but that is an
exaggeration"-he pronounced ''exag-
geration' with the "g' hard-"They
We're only made to stay away from our
church for two Sundays, not eight;
that would be too much"
Up where live" said, most boys
wouldn't look at that as punishment"
The old man smiled. 1t was a gentle.
tolerant smile, the smile with which
everybody in Amana greets visitors.
Church Is Everything.
1T is different here he said.
Church to us is everything. 1t. is so
with our sons and daughters and it is
SO with out grandsons and grand
daughters. To bar the children from
church. that is the worst punishment.
Then the old man told me something
Of the Anana society, of the commun-
ity life in the seven villages, a COM
munism not founded on socialistic OK
economic belief, but a communism
founded on religion and subordinate to
religion. He told me why the school
girls in Amana are not permitted to
wear hair ribbons, why the men of
Amana wear no mustaches, why the
women wear sunbonnets and not hats,
why the tango has never been danced
in Amana. just as the tango's prede-
scessors. the waltz and the twostep were
not danced; why there is no card
playing, why baseball and football and
all competitive sports are banned.
It was, he said, because these things
are worldly
When / rose to go I asked the. old
man for his picture. You are the
head of an unusual organization l
said, probably the most successful
community project in America. May I
have your picture?"
No" he said. still smiling. Now
you ask me to do something which is
We have no newspapers here"
Like old-Worid seene.
I thanked him with the feeling that
He smiled and said nothing. but as I
opened the wooden gate which led to
the road the old man on the porch.
still smiling. shouted out CHEEKY
.'Willkommen.' It sounded like You
are welcome" Come again. and
Good luck" all combined, and it
sounded as If the old man on the porch
really meant l
The seven villages Of the AInana So
ciety, grouped within a radius Of eight
miles between the bluffs in the river
valley, look like pictures from the old
world. They are in the valley Of the
Iowa river, on thousands of acres of
the most fertile land in the midwest.
Amana Is the largest village. 1t has
about $50 residents. and at Amana are
located the wool mills and calico print
factory of the society Amana WOODEN
goods and Amana calico are known to
merchants as far east as New York
and as far west as San Francisco.
Each village has Its church. school.
store, bakery. dairy postoffice saw
mill and town pump.