The log cabin Democrat., 1916-03-11

county, Iowa, an old man who was born in Germany seventy-one years ago told why 1,600 persons, men, wom- en and children, live community life on 26,000 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 $S,000,000 in lands and Improvements. Not one member has a cent of proper ty in his own name. Everything earned ill the Amana colony, which contains seven prosperous little towns and is more than sixty years old, goes to the 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 com munity had been punished by being banned from church for eight weeks l 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 were only made to stay away from our church for two Sundays. not eight That would be too much"
 Up where live most boys wouldn't look at that as a punishment"
 The old man smiled It was a gen tie. tolerant smile. the smile with which everybody in Amana greets wis itors
 Tt is different here" he said. Church to us is everything. 1t was so with our fathers. It 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 "Worldiy."
 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 a communism founded on religion and subordinate to relig- ion. He told me why the school girls III 3AiLiuHd lit HUI pti lLItlCu tO "CGi 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 precedes- sors, the waltz and the two-step, were not danced; why there is no card play ing, why baseball and football and all hoy
 It was, he said, because these things are worldly"
 When l rose to go 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 l have your picture?"
 No" he said, still smiling. Now you ask me to do something which is worldly. It is not wrong to you, but to me it is. It is not the spirit of Amana. We have no newspapers here
 thanked him with the feeling that he was 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 cheery "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 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 26.000 acres of the most fertile land in the middle West. Amana is the largest village. It has about 450 residents and at Amana are To- cated 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 awmill
 The buildings in all the Amana com munities are on the same plan, quaint two-story gabled buildings of old Ger man architecture. Some of the build ings. as the stores and hotels, all con ducted 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 fami- lies live The houses and other build ings. as everything in the colony, are owned by the society and families are assirncd to their homes by the 'eld- CTS" 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 and grapevines.
 Community Kitchen.
 In each village are community