Communism and Nazism were given complete laboratory tests
in the United States from 1914 to 1938.

More than 5,000 men, women and children participated, paid
their own expenses, and unintentionally conducted an elaborate
and conclusive experiment.

It was in May, 1914, that Job Harriman, nationally known
Socialist speaker, started the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony
in the Antelope Valley, part of the Mojave Desert, 90 miles
from Los Angeles. Neither he nor those associated with him ex-
pected to make it an economic and political test tube to show
how Americans react when they are dunked into a high-proof solu-
tion of Communism, or when another ingredient turns this into
totalitarianism. Their purpose was to show a skeptical world
the advantages of the Socialist way of life. That their demo-
cratic Socialism evolved into national Socialism, or something
very like it, was wholly unanticipated.

For a quarter of a century a constantly changing population
kept the Llano laboratory of social experiment going. It tested
governments ranging from a simple but uproarously direct demo-
cratic town meeting to a dictatorship which might make Herr
Hitler envious. Robert Owen's temperamental experiment with
Communism a century previous lasted only a brief two years, but
Job Harriman's thorough-going laboratory, though transplanted
to the highlands of Western Louisiana in its third year, con-
tinued for nearly two and a half decades. Most of that time it
was a dictatorship.

2

Harriman, who missed becoming Socialist mayor of Los
Angeles when the dynamiting McNamara brothers confessed their
iniquity, was convinced that the theory of Socialism, which he
had ardently advocated for a score of years, must be made a
matter of practical demonstration and proof.

For this purpose he gave up a lucrative law practice,
sacrificed his home life and comforts, and lived as the other
colonists lived. He risked his reputation as well as all of
his personal possessions, and eventually lost both. His judg-
ment in attempting what many regarded as hare-brained and
impossible might be questioned, but not his fidelity and devo-
tion to the colony.

Though lacking capital, Harriman procured an option on
cultivated lands on the north slope of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Palmdale, nearest railroad station, was 20 miles away over a
sandy road. Transportation was a serious and expensive problem.

Despite precarious title to the land, trustful cooperators
were invited to pool their resources, taking stock to represent
their interests, with 2000 shares the maximum that an individual
might own. The investment constituting a membership was set at
$1000, but few ever reached this dizzy financial altitude. The
average was about $700.

The half dozen families that formed the nucleus of the
Llano Colony in May, 1914, showed not only a childlike faith in
Socialism, but also a commendable if misguided fortitude. In
the Antelope Valley the sands of the desert can grow pretty cold
in the winter at a 3000-foot elevation, almost unbearably hot

3

in the summer, and irritatingly uncomfortable, too, when whirlwinds pick up clouds of disintegrated granite dust and sift it impartially and thoroughly into and over everything. Many a tent-sheltered family found it unendurable and left because of the physical discomforts.

But the population increased rapidly as the delights of cooperative living and freedom from the oppression of capitalism were glamorously described in the Socialist press, though perhaps with some slight sacrifice of strict accuracy. People in the East who wanted to come to California made the colony their landing field. Adventurous individuals were easily recruited. Propagandists of the Socialist movement enlisted in the crusade for members, sometimes on a commission basis. An inescapable fringe of visionaries and fanatics followed this beckoning of the red flag. There was an incurable handful of addicts who had been in other colonies, but hoped for better luck in this wind-swept mesa venture in Communism. The majority were, of course, just average wage-earning citizens with an emotional faith in Socialist theory and the courage--and cash--of their convictions.

The basic industry was to be fruit growing. Service industries were soon established, all owned by the colony corporation, which was in turn owned by its members, who were the employes. There was no private business. Attempts to initiate even small personal private enterprises were ruthlessly liquidated. Private business meant potential private profit, and

4

private profit would be the snake in this projected Socialistic
Garden of Eden.

Within a year a hotel, blacksmith shop, wood-working shop,
dairy, laundry, power plant, commissary and other industries
were in operation. Land was cleared of sage, Joshua trees,
greasewood and juniper. Fruit trees were planted and lands
seeded to alfalfa. Rock-lined ditches brought irrigation water
to the crops and orchards, and also for domestic use. Extensive
gardens were planted, which produced an abundance of tomatoes
and water melons, but considerably less bounteous crops of other
vegetables.

An ambitious major project was building a mountain road to
the government timber which lay in sight of the desert but which
was inaccessible. Heroic indeed were the colonists who toiled
at this task, where the work was incredibly hard and the food
scanty and unpalatable. Yet the road they built in spite of many
handicaps was so well laid out that the modern highway to the
same place--now the Los Angeles playground--follows almost the
same course. However, little timber ever came down the road.

Socialism before the First World War was an expression of
hope, a Marx-indoctrinated political rebellion against Capitalism,
spelled with capital letters. Socialists in those days did not
believe in violence or coercion. It was with a passionate be-
lief in Marxian philosophy, but with surprisingly small under-
standing of the problems which were to beset them, that the
Llano colonists embarked blithely on their enterprise.

5

The Marx idea of public ownership had inculcated in Socialists a child-like faith and deep-rooted conviction in the efficiency of government. The colonists held that it was safe, however, only when nurtured on undiluted democracy. No people ever so completely gorged themselves on it as did the Llano devotees.

Their efforts to practice democracy and to resist upper bracket authority resulted in the general assembly. This was considered the sure guardian of democracy and an unsurpassed instrument for the righting of all wrongs. In the Llano general assembly all residents over 18 years of age had the right of voice and vote.

The spirit of disputatious criticism of administration is present in any normal American community. In the colony it was intensified, with no holds barred. As there was no local outlet for long-nourished dislike of private industry, suspicions were directed toward their leaders.

Having a direct hand in the making of laws was new to the colonists, as indeed it would be to most people. They soon began subjecting all problems to popular, though uninformed, vote. Possibly this was unconsciously a means of escaping individual responsibility for decisions more than it was a virgin regard for popular control. Perhaps the general assembly was their expression of an unrecognized desire to be a part of government rather than the utter and abandoned devotion to democracy that it appeared to be. Underlying the collective distrust of those placed in authority may have been individual desire to possess power.

6

It was some time before more discerning members in the
colony discovered that democracy is not merely mass opinion;
that it requires something besides a general vote on all
subjects that can be brought before it.

But at this time mob democracy was in full swing. At
times gardening, irrigating, building, and the unexciting
routines of cooking, laundering and similar tasks were subordin-
ated to legislating with its pleasurable thrills. Occasionally
virtually all industry closed down for a day or so for an un-
restrained orgy of arguing and voting. If the land had been as
prolific of crops as the general assembly was of resolutions,
success would have been assured.

The obvious great disadvantage of this quixotic and fre-
quently fanatical democracy lay in the obstacles it placed in
the path of those who must assume responsibility. The least
important colonist with an embittered disposition or frustated
ambition might-- and usually did-- attack them in open meeting.
As foremen had no advantages over others in hours or pay,
changes were frequent, and deposed ones left the colony, disil-
lusioned if not wiser. The general assembly did not discharge
them; it merely harrassed and discouraged them.

The functioning of this intense cauldron of democracy was a
weekly event. Some attended in much the same spirit that the
French women attended the guillotine in the French revolution.

7

Those likely to be criticised came because being present was a sort of insurance against attacks by those too cowardly to face defendants. Many entertained an extravagant and unfounded notion that they were feeding the fires of democracy, even though they too frequently saw them stoked with their friends. An inexperienced few came with the hopeful idea that they might present constructive ideas before the mass mind, the combined wisdom to evolve a sound policy or arrive at a wise decision.

The chairman of this fantastic clearing house of ideas, plans, notions, prejudices, suspicions, ambitions and general airing of personal opinions, was a one-eyed, usually disheveled former longshoreman, with uncombed, tousled hair and a moustache perpetually stained with tobacco juice. He was unquestionably of the proletariat. But he was so skilful, so fair and so impartial that each faction or individual accused him of being favorable to some other.

No subject was barred, no speaker denied the right of saying whatever he desired. A hopeful, probably hungry, colonist moved that the farm department be instructed to grow wheat. The motion carried. Next day it was discovered that though they could vote wheat on that sandy mesa, they couldn't grow it there. At another time a somewhat recent emigrant from the middle of Europe, whose name sizzled with z's threw ordinary delicacy of expression to the desert winds when he launched into an impassioned and intimate discussion of the shortcomings of the sanitary system.

8

Vagrant vowels and detached consonants impaired his oratory somewhat, but his opinions were clearly recognizable, and they were not favorable to pioneer sanitary methods.

This insatiable appetite for democracy in the raw left something to be desired as to efficiency. Out of necessity a new government grew up. It was made up of heads of departments. These formen met each evening to report, requisition or exchange tools, men, teams or equipment, and to coordinate and plan the work immediately ahead. Of course the red, red fanatics of the general assembly resented this usurping of authority. They liked the rough and tumble general assembly with its thrill and drama. They were suspicious that this new authority might be a subtle scheme of the "management" to thwart the will of the people. Their distrust was emphasized by the fact that it had been a growth rather than an authorization. It hadn't been argued and voted on.

However, the habit of work was strong on most of the colonists. Substantial progress was made in the various activities, despite the obstacle of too much and too many governments.

But worse things than government were just ahead.

Two years after the founding of the colony, when its population had reached the high-water mark of 750, water suits were decided against Llano. Water would now be diverted to lands owned by others, and colony lands would become useless. Moreover, it was discovered that the projected impounding dam would store much less water than preliminary surveys had indicated.

9

Water problems had defeated an attempt to colonize on this same deceiving site 30 years before. Those earlier pioneers had dug a tunnel more than a mile long as a conduit for irrigation water, a tunnel still in good repair. It was physical and financial problems rather than court decisions which baffled this first colony.

It was now no longer practical to plan expansion, or even to continue, on the Llano townsite. A member from the south told of the great tracts of cut-over lands in Western Louisiana. It was glibly explained that these had been left unmarketed because of the timber, emigration having been detoured around them.

A committee of three was selected by popular choice and entrusted with the mission of investigating a 20,000-acre tract near Leesville, Louisiana. The highly optimistic report turned in was enthusiastically accepted and the decision to move was almost unanimous. Afterwards many wondered why the committee failed to discover that the land is much less productive than the lush growth of native grass indicates.

Packing the colony's goods was a big job. Hauling them over the 20 miles of soft and rutted road to the railroad station was another. Housing the residents anew was a third. Finances were inadequate for this trio of hurdles and many colonists had to be left behind. These were perhaps the really fortunate ones.

The new location was an abandoned sawmill town. Lumber for immediate use could be salvaged. Shacks of the lumber workers, a small hotel, a store, office buildings, sheds and other structures were available for housing colonists, storing supplies, and

10

sheltering industries. After the shadeless desert with most
of the population housed under canvas, these ready-to-use build-
ings promised to give integral cooperation a new start. The
fever for governing had abated somewhat. There was now a corps
of experienced cooperators.

Left behind in this move was the general assembly. Only
occasionally did it flare into action. Its disappearance was
partly due to lack of a convenient meeting place. Gone also
was the industrial government with its increasing efficiency,
which might in time have administered colony affairs in a more
practical manner and have evolved a technique for cooperative
living. The board of directors now became roughly represent-
ative of industries and functioned directly in management of
colony affairs.

The move to Louisiana was made late in 1917. Dozens of
Texas farmers, who had finished their year's work--most of them
were tenant farmers--became members through the influence of
southern Socialists. Many of these newcomers had little ed-
ucation; some could not even read or write. Any knowledge they
had of cooperation was purely theoretical. Misunderstandings
arose between them and the more seasoned Californians, growing
out of differences of experience and environment. The popula-
tion at this time, despite the new arrivals, was little over
300 cooperators.

It was learned that one of the southern agents was selling
memberships on the assertion that a huge oil pool lay beneath

11

the property. His appeal was not the principle of applied
Socialism, but an opportunity to share in great natural wealth.
This was abhorrent to the majority, who were honestly intent
on proving a principle and had made many sacrifices in their
attempt to do so.

When the Board of directors decided to dispense with the
services of the agent and to cancel his contract as a member,
the now dissatisfied Texans demanded a return of their money.
In a compromise those leaving were returned goods to the value
of their investment.

This wholesale desertion, which was but one of many, some
previous to this, some subsequent, shrunk the colony's resident
membership to less than 150, and greatly reduced its capital.
High wages during the war boom, contrasting sharply with Spar-
tan living conditions in the colony, lured others away.

Despite these handicaps, the loyalists and new members--
one of whom at this critical period put $7,000 into this very
unsafe venture--continued their activities. This was in 1918,
when war prosperity was at its height and interest in economic
Edens and applied cooperation at a low ebb. With no commodities
to market and with no general depression to drive people into the
colony in search of security, there was little new capital avail-
able and the plight of New Llano, as the colony town was now
called, was desperate. Production, which never reached a very
high level, had not yet started. Some funds were raised by sell-
a carload of tomatoes which had been canned in California. Money
was borrowed wherever possible.

12

There was still the California property, but it was a lia-
bility, for it was debt-laden. Besides, Mr. Harriaman was called
to Los Angeles to defend it in law suits. A former colony off-
icial, who in the fervor of his earlier interest had loaned the
venture money, now sought to recover it by rather extreme methods.
Trials were long, tedious and expensive. They required the entire
time of the founder, and he was never again able to devote very
much time directly to the enterprise which he had started and
which was his major interest. Ill-health finally took him away
entirely, resulting in his death in 1922. 1926

The turning point in colony history came at this time.
As in other laboratories or nations, no outstanding specific
event foreshadowed it. The drift was toward a democratic re-
public with autonomous collectively-owned industries. The colony
had attracted a number of skilled workmen who were willing to
make extraordinary sacrifices for the cause they had espoused.
The bakery was now expanded to serve the surrounding country-
side. The shoeshop in the hands of a tireless Swede sent out
a car which brought in shoes to be repaired. Other small com-
mercial enterprises were getting under way. For the first time
the colony, its population now under 100, was beginning to live
on its own earnings.

Industries had been developing without express authority,
had violated colony precedent by being allowed virtually aut-
onomous powers. It was this independence of decision which gave
them incentive to expand, which kept their workers busy sometimes

13

for fourteen hours a day without additional compensation. Their increased income was being reinvested in equipment; none of it went to individuals.

As the time for the colony election of directors drew near an ambitious group renewed distrust of the administration and its extension of semi-independence to the growing enterprises. Dogmatic Marxians, responsive to subtle suggestions, jealous and suspicious of this unauthorized prosperity, insisted that this power be curtailed. They attacked the heads of the developing businesses.

As the campaign against the "management" and the autonomous industries became successful, recently recruited members were induced to withhold their membership funds until the offending industrial heads were discouraged into leaving the colony, and the administration was changed. Fear that failure to procure the promised revenues would bankrupt the colony, coupled with promises of additional capital to be raised, united to yield full authority to the clique which seized this opportunity.

In a somewhat similar manner Herr Hitler availed himself of capital backing for his campaign of promises and hatred. Drastically communistic Russia became despotically communistic Russia when centralized power was seized by an ambitious, cunning and unscrupulous leader. In an economic crisis there is always danger.

In the Llano colony the pattern now subtly changed. Though the form of democracy was maintained, this political and economic

14

laboratory speedily evolved into a complete dictatorship. While the general assembly right of challenge of procedure and persons had not functioned as a regular institution, it had been re-
tained in principle. Now it was revived in form as a weekly "psychology" meeting, but never allowed the old freedom of crit-
icism.

The totalitarian procedure followed through in many es-
sential details. This was not a copy of any European dictator-
ship, not even of the Russian so much admired by many colonists.
It was merely what usually follows when the rights of a major-
ity are usurped by a small group.

The colony was now increasingly ruled by fear. To incur
the displeasure of the controlling clique was likely to mean
banishment. Colonists from whom money had been borrowed were
made timorous through danger of losing what they had loaned, or
else woven into the fringe of the small governing body which
possessed power. Fears of the assertedly terrible conditions
outside the colony in the hated capitalistic world were used to
change the minds of members who showed a desire to relinquish
the joys of this nationalized Utopia.

There even grew up some of the special vocabulary which
dictators use. Resembling the "new order" of today's dictators
was the "Llano Way", vociferously extolled as a superior scheme
of life.

Another device employed in this changed laboratory was the

15

expansionist dream of increased territory. Distant enterprises were established or purchased. They were not profitable, perhaps because of poor management, though their remoteness from the mother colony was a sufficient reason why they could not be.

From 1920, only six years after it was founded, until it finally succumbed to futility and the pressure of outside forces in 1938, Llano Colony was a dictatorship almost as tight and rigid as those better known in the world today. The revolution which finally returned power to the colonists after nearly a score of years came too late.

Possibly a people which has lost the art of self-government through disuse cannot rise to an emergency. Accustomed to relying on those who had seized power, the revolutionists themselves became uncertain and divided. Debts closed in and the last remainder of the quarter-century old experiment in economics and government was finished.

Not even its most ardent adherents could call Llano Colony a material success. Yet it brought happiness to those who could adapt themselves to communal life and be content with its lower standard of living. Better managed, its standards could have been much improved.

Out of necessity it promoted its own amusements. The same longshoreman who guided the general assembly in California, was director of the theater. He possessed an unsuspected ability to draw out talent and to know how a scene should be presented.

Painters, farmers, printers, nurses, stenographers, cooks, laborers became fair actors and actresses under the uncouth and ungrammatical

16

but genuinely able direction of this former stevedore. All
scenery was made in the colony shops by colony artists and art-
isans, frequently by the performers themselves.

It is as a laboratory, however, that Llano Colony stands
out from similar experiments in applied socialism and deserves
a place in history. The continuous parade of incoming and out-
going members numbered between 5000 and 10,000. Owen's similar
experiment of a century before was endowed, but Harriman's prosel-
ytes paid their own way.

It was expected by the founder that members of Llano Colony,
having an investment in the institution, would zealously protect
this vested interest. Economic determinism, that Marxian phrase
used to explain human behavior, was expected to cause colonists
to work hard, think clearly, remain loyal and be frugal; to
manage with the best interests of their joint endeavor always
in mind; and by these means to win a collective success when the
same individuals working singly and alone or in competition,
could not.

Certain factors thwarted this hope. One of them was the
lack of managerial experience. Nearly all had been wage earners,
content to leave the problems of management to others. Even those
who possessed ability were not permitted to employ this knowledge,
experience and ability for the good of all. The savage suspicions
which had been so persistently inculcated in these socialists
caused them to doubt, then to suspect, finally to accuse and event-
ually to supplant those they placed in power. This was during the
democratic period. The totalitarian period came when poverty was

17

great and hope small. It suppressed abilities which might have
been used to good advantage, for such ability if given too much
power might overthrow the managing oligarchy.

The Marxian philosophy of "no work, no eat" was extended
to the women. Homemaking as a vocation was discouraged. Women
could send their soiled clothes to the laundry, and could eat
at the hotel. This disposed of most of the housework, at least
theoretically. There seemed no reason why the women could not
engage in colony work.

Many of the women agreed with this and asked, reasonably
enough, "What shall we do?". There was laundry and hotel work,
but not much else. So the colony anticipated the "made work"
which the nation as a whole was to embrace a decade later. A
sewing project was established. Though it cost more than to
buy the finished articles on the general market, and though the
shirts seemed patterned to fit no man who ever lived--or ever will--
yet somewhat the same necessity that kept U. S. in similar pro-
jects kept the colony at it.

Old men at one time manufactured sweet potato crates. The
design was good and a market was found for them. But the materials
were not well selected and shipments came back on the colony.
There seems frequently to be something about a "project" that in-
hibits or nullifies commonsense.

Even the children were early brought into a sort of C.C.C.
They were made interested in care of animals, farming, building,
and various crafts in a plot set aside for their exclusive use.
Though the administration of this children's colony might

18

not have been up to modern standards, the children liked it and unquestionably gained useful knowledge and self-reliance from it. They helped erect the buildings used by them, grew crops, had their own livestock and carried on a government of their own.

The colony recognized a social responsibility for all its residents, just as the nation is rather recently and less realistically doing. It was fundamental in the colony plan.

In many ways Llano mirrored events to come, anticipating them because it earlier experienced the intensive conditions which produce them.

From the first it had liquor prohibition. Socialists are not usually prohibitionists, but what injured the colony must be prevented. The colonists had no doubt that liquor would provoke trouble. Their common interests made them willing informers on infractions of this rigid rule.

Despite the turbulence of the democratic phase, there was never recourse to courts. Incidentally, the colony had neither church nor jail.

Daylight saving was given a trial when the rest of the nation was merely considering it. Living on what was virtually an oasis made this easy.

Pensions for the aged were both theory and practice long before Dr. Townsend plunged the country into debate with his novel proposition. In the colony it was not a scheme to stimulate employment, but a means of taking care of those who had outlived their usefulness. This was achieved by merely requiring less and less important tasks or none at all of pensioners, but not in

19

curtailing either privileges nor such benefits as the colony was
able to offer its residents. They continued to participate
equally with all others, neither gaining nor losing material
or other rights or standing in the community.

With the colony owning all land, houses, industries, live-
stock, tools, implements, and other means of life or production,
it was of course a community responsibility to house its resi-
dents, much as the United States has awakened to a somewhat
similar sense of responsibility. In the dry Antelope Valley,
tents were used chiefly, since lumber was too expensive. Later
adobe brick of standard size were laid up with mud mortar
into cottages which seemed comfortable in contrast with tents.

But in Louisiana only frame buildings were available. When
the lumber workers' vacated shacks were all filled, small new
houses were erected with lumber cut in the colony sawmill. The
right to occupy a house was procured through the housing depart-
ment; preferences were on a priority basis.

While there was no radical departure in the colony schools
from usual methods of teaching, except as individual instructors
might apply ideas of their own, there was one fundamental dif-
ference.

This was in the linking of schooling with industry. Pupils
were required to spend certain hours working in the gardens or
in the shops, a procedure which they enthusiastically endorsed.
School rooms were crude, teachers often did not possess proper cre-
dentials according to usual standards, and text books might be in-
sufficient in number or might not be uniform. But the men in

20

the shops were generally above the average in their social out-
look, and not below the average in skill, though their shops
were rarely equipped to even a fair standard. Many a boy learned
manual skill in these shops, however.

Parents accustomed to report cards, customary school methods
and final graduation exercises were often dismayed at the apparent
absence of scholastic standards of teachers, and aghast at the
idea of pupils working in the garden or a shop for several hours,
then in the school room for what to them seemed too short a period.

But the pupils learned rapidly and thoroughly. Perhaps the
very inadequacies of equipment put a premium on attainment. Poss-
ibly the shortened class-room period resulted in better use being
made of it. At any rate, these children gave good accounts of
themselves when they went to other schools which had the usual
standards. They learned to be resourceful and to take initiative.
While the colony as a whole under its collective system might seem
to stifle ambition and inhibit initiative, the school system
stimulated these valuable traits as the standard system does not.

Other schools are today employing the work-and-earn or work-
and-learn system that was pioneered independently and successfully
by Llano Colony. While none of the students who attended the
slightly haphazard schools of Llano Colony have made nationally
known names, yet most of them have succeeded as well as students
from more conventional educational institutions. Perhaps it is
because of the self-reliance they learned; the firsthand acquaint-
ance with toil during their formative years; a certain resourceful-
ness that is characteristic of farm boys because of their peculiar
opportunities, opportunities frequently denied to city boys

21

because learning is not made an inseparable part of life in most
schools.

So well was the colony adapted to education--it not only
had many night classes for adults, but also taught trades to adults--
that an embryo college was brought into the colony. Its plan was
to offer opportunity to non-residents who desired to work their
way, who wished especially to study economics along with general
subjects. That the teaching had a more strongly Socialistic flavor
than seems necessary in a community made up of practicing
Socialists, was perhaps chiefly a means of recruiting students,
though in part the result of dogma long instilled in the teachers.

Commonwealth College, as it was called, was not an integral
part of the Llano Colony. It was viewed by many colonists with
misgivings. They did not welcome intrusion by these "intellecks"
as they dubbed the intellectuals, and they feared this grafted
institution would prove an additional burden on them.

These doubts on the part of the colonists, with some lively
suspicions on the part of the college staff on its own account,
soon led to a schism. The two institutions parted company on
unfriendly terms. New York radicals were brought into the quarrel.
These metropolitan professional socialists had never been favorable
to the colony. They feared that it would fail and that this
failure would be used an an argument against the practicability
of socialism.

A number of colonists who believed that the college and a
colony could work together accompanied the college on its departure.

22

This unjustified hope was soon dispelled, and the colony moved
to a site of its own near Mena, Arkansas. Antagonism to its rad-
icalism in a state so little interested in communism, coupled
with certain weaknesses of its own, resulted in closing the school,
though it continued for about a decade.

A community devoted to the pursuit of radical ideas certainly
should have been free from the "red" ailments which afflict com-
munities with conservative ideas. But radicalism, the colony
learned, is not merely the idea itself, but is in part the me-
thod of expressing or applying the idea.

While the colony was radical by ordinary standards, and its
residents undoubtedly stood out in the neighborhoods from which
they came as scarlet blots on a gray background, they were not
usually agitators, but merely workers with a set of notions dif-
fering from those held by their associates. They did not embrace
violence in their scheme of thinking, nor did they look with en-
thusiasm on disturbance for disturbance's sake.

During the exuberant youth of the colony and the general as-
sembly, progress was hindered by a too-rich mixture of democracy
and a whole-hearted application to mass legislation, but there
was no violence. There were not even the fistfights which usually
punctuate partisan controversies when differences of opinion bring
up the blood pressure.

But even in unorthodox Llano, where unconventional property
principles attracted an element given to more latitude of express-
ion than is common, there were certain infra-redts whose deep
tinges made them unwelcome. The I.W.W.'s, demonstrative fore-
runners of modern Communists, were labeled "hundred per centers"

23

by the colony administration. Not because they were 100 per cent
loyal to an idea, but because they were completely likely to
fail to weave themselves into the fabric of colony life. They
were much more interested in fomenting revolution than in work.

One of them, formerly secretary of the Socialist party in a
midwestern state, probably kept the comrades properly stitred up
against capitalism and the "interests". But as a colonist he
merely substituted colony procedure and officials for the former
enemy. He was just one of many of the same hue who came, who saw,
and who were mustered out after a short time. These self-styled
super-reds were much more interested in getting spotlight positions
and in keeping up a hubbub than they were in the success of the
colony.

Probably the best cure that could be devised for those who
continually harrass society by an unhelpful and aggressive op-
position would be to place them in a Utopia of their own ideas
and let them work out the administration of the institution. They
might learn much about the problems of management and production.

Of the various nationalities which made up the constantly
changing population, Americans, British and Scandinavians were
the best cooperators. Germans ranked below them. Latians were not
much interested. Jews, able to conduct commercial cooperatives,
failed to adjust themselves to colony conditions; the too-fervent
enthusiasm with which they entered soon burned itself out.

As a laboratory Llano colony forecast many changes which have
come over the country. Should economic difficulties again descend
on the nation as they have in the past, federally endowed Llanos
may be in order. With more emphasis on individual initiative

24

and with a republican form of government such subsistence colonies
might become popular in much the same way that Civilian Conser-
vation Camps were.

Cooperative subsistence colonies on government reservations sufficiently capitalized to make living possible, might use a medium of exchange of their own to facilitate bartering of products, one separate from the usual commercial ones. Kept out of competition with ordinary business and production, such colonies could be a very practical means of lightening the tax load, and of restoring ambition and independence to individuals. Some of the boasted individualism and resourcefulness which characterized past generations might be realized.

Stripped of the dogma and mob democracy which frustrated
the efforts of the early leaders and made futile much of the
hard work of the members, a sane, democratic cooperative system
of subsistence colonies might stem the tide of totalitarianism
which sets in when millions become beneficiaries of public alms,
and as may happen again in this nation when the war boom has sub-
sided.

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