Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1916-05-17


county, Iowa, an old man who was
born in Germany seventy-one years
ago told why 1,6O0 persons, men, wom-
en- and children, live community lire
on $4,000 acres of Iowa's most fertile
land and are happy.
The old man, who munched an apple
as he talked, is the head of the Amana
society. The society is worth at least
SS,000,00O in lands and improvements.
Not one member has cent Of proper
ty 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 tue
common treasury.
The old man, George Heinemann,
was asked if it were true that four
Amana schoolboys who had played
baseball on Sunday in the little ccm-
munity had been punished by being
banned from church for eight weeks.
had heard this about Amana and 1t
had resulted in my trip to the colony.
"Yes, it is true" said the old man.
"They were punished, bnt that is an
exaggeration pronounced "exag-
geration" with the "g" hard-"they
were only made to stay away from
our church for two Sundays, not eight.
That would be too much
Cup where live most boys wouldn't
look at that as punishment"
The old man smiled. 1t was a gen.
tie, tolerant smile, the smile with
which everybody in Amana greets WIS.,
itors.
'It is different here" he said.
Church to US is everything. 1t was
so with our fathers. 1t is so with our
sons and daughters and it is so with
our grandsons and our granddaugh-
ters. To bar the children from church,
that is the worst punishment"
Things That Are "Worldly."
Then the old man told something OF
the Amana society, Of the community
life in the seven villages, commun-
ism not founded on socialistic or econ
omic belief, but communism founded
on religion and subordinate to rellg-
ion. 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 tangos precedes-
sors, the waltz and the two-step, were
not danced; why there is no card play
ing, 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"
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
worldly. 1t Is not wrong to you, but
to me it is. 1t is not the spirit OF
Amana. We have no newspapers
here"
I thanked him with the feeling that
he was a kind of benevolent patriarch.
He smiled and said nothing, but as
opened the wooden gate which led to
the road the old man on the porch
still smiling, shouted out a CHEEKY
"Willkommen." 1t 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 it.
The seven villages of the Amana so
ciety, grouped within 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 10000 acres of the most
fertile land in the middle West. Amana
is the largest village. 1t has about
$50 residents and at Amana are To-
Gated the wool mills and calico print
factory Of the society. Amana wool
len goods and Amana calico are known
to merchants as far east as New York
and as far west as San francisco.
East village has its church, school,
store, bakery, dairy, post Office and
sawmill.
The buildings in all the Amana com.
munities are on the same plan, quaint
two.story gabled buildings of old Ger
nan architecture. Some Of the build
ings, as the stores and hotels, all con-
Quoted by the society, are of red brick
and covered with vines. Others are
small frame buildings, covered with
vines, but unpainted-paint in Amana
is a sign of vanity and prohibited. 1t
is in these small houses that the faml-
lies live. The houses and other build
ings, as everything in the colony, are
owned by the society and families are
assigned to their homes by the "eld-
ers," the governing body in each town.
= In front of the buildings and at the
side of the buildings and back of the
buildings are flower beds, fruit trees