USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > Evansville and its men of mark > Part 21
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" You must n't talk so, my child. You can't tell whether there is such a place as hell at all. You mean that the closet is quite dark, don't you ?"
" Yes. "
" Then you ought to say so. But I think Ben would not like to be shut up in the dark for nearly an hour."
" No; but then we don't like to be kept from bathing, just for him."
Then one little fellow, with some hesitation, put in his word : " Please, Mr. Owen, wouldn't it do to leave him in the playground ? "
" If I could be sure that he would stay there; but he might get out and go bathing, and remain in half an hour per- haps."
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At this point, Ben, no longer able to restrain himself,-he had been getting more and more restless, turning first to one speaker, then to another, as we coolly discussed his case,-burst forth : "Mr. Owen, if you'll leave me in the playground when they go to bathe next time, I'll never stir from it. I won't. You'll see I won't."
" Well, Ben," said I, " I've never known you to tell a falsehood, and I'll take your word for it this time. But re- member ! If you lie to me once, I shall never be able to trust you again. We conldn't believe known liars if we were to try."
So the next time we went bathing, I left Ben in the play- ground. When we returned he met me, with eager face, at the gate. "I've never left even for a minute ; ask them if I have" -pointing to some boys at play.
" Your word is enough. I believe you."
Thereafter Ben came out of the water promptly as soon as time was called ; and when any of his comrades lingered, he was the first to chide them for disobeying orders.
Once or twice afterward I had to take a somewhat similar stand-never against Ben-persisting each time until I was obeyed. Then bethinking me of my Hofwyl experience, I called in the aid of military drill, which the boys took to very kindly ; and when three weeks had passed, I found that my pupils prided themselves in being-what, indeed, they were,- the best disciplined and most orderly and law-abiding class in the school.
So I carried my point against a degrading relic of barbar- ism, then countenanced in England, alike in army, navy, and some of the most accredited seminaries. I had witnessed an example the year before, in London, during a visit to the central school of Dr. Bell, the rival of Lancaster, patronized by the Anglican Church. A class were standing up for arithmetic. "Seven times eight are fifty-six," said one boy. " Is, not are," sternly cried the teacher, dealing the offender such a buffet on the ear that he staggered and finally dropped to the ground : then adding, " Get up ! Now perhaps you'll remember that, another time." But whether it was the blow or the bit of doubt- ful grammar he was bidden to remember seemed not very clear.
BOGART MECOMAS- RUSSELL CIN O.
County Court House.
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I still recollect how my nature revolted against this out- rage-for such it appeared to me ." Father," I said, " I'm very sorry you gave any money to this school." He smiled, and apologized for the teacher, saying, " The man had probably been treated in the same manner when he was a child, and so knew no better." My father had, some time before, subscribed two thousand five hundred dollars in aid of the Bell system, offering to double that sum if Dr. Bell would open his schools to the children of dissenters. But this the ex-chaplain or his committee had refused to do.
On the whole, my life in Harmony, for many months, was happy and satisfying. To this the free and simple relation there existing between youth and maidens much contributed. We called each other by our Christian names only, spoke and acted as brothers and sisters might ; often strolled out by moon- light in groups, sometimes in single pairs, yet withal, no scandal or other harm came of it, either then or later, unless we are to reckon as such a few improvident or unsuited matches, that turned out poorly, as hasty love-matches will. What might have happened to myself amid such familiar surroundings, if my heart had not been preoccupied, I cannot tell. I met almost daily handsome, interesting, warmhearted girls, bright, merry and unsophisticated ; charming partners at ball or picnic, one especially, who afterwards married a son of Oliver Evans, the celebrated inventor and machinist, to whom, I believe, we owe the high-pressure engine. But this girl, many years since dead, and others both estimable and attractive, were to me, engrossed by recollections of Jessie, but as favorite sisters.
Naturally enough, under such circumstances, I was not haunted by doubts as to the success of the social experiment in which we were engaged. The inhabitants seemed to me friend- ly and well disposed. There was much originality of character, and there were some curious eccentricities, but nothing to match the Page of Nature, who had so startled Captain McDonald and myself at New York.
One example occurs to me, -an old man mamed Green- wood, father of Miles Greenwood, well known afterwards to the citizens of Cincinnati as chief of their Fire Department, and
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still later, as owner of the largest foundry and inachine-shops then in the West. We had, during the summer of 1826, sev- eral terrific thunder storms, such as I had never before witness- ed. The steeple of our church was shattered and one of our boarding houses struck. It was during one of these storms, when the whole heavens seemed illuminated and the rain was falling in torrents, that I saw old Greenwood, thoroughly drenched, and carrying, upright as a soldier does his musket, a slender iron rod, ten or twelve feet long. He was walking in the middle of the street, passed with slow step the house in which I was, and, as I afterwards learned, paraded every street in the village in the same deliberate manner. Next day I met him and asked an explanation. " Ah well, my young friend," said he, "I'm very old, I'm not well, I suffer much, and I thought it might be a good chance to slip off and be laid quietly in the corner of the peach orchard.
" You hoped to be struck by the lightning ?"
" You see, I don't like to kill myself-seems like taking matters out of God's hands. But I thought he might perhaps send me a spare bolt when I put myself in the way. If He had only seen fit to do it, I'd then have been at rest this very min- ute; all my pains gone, no more trouble to any one, no more burden to myself."
" You don't know how useful you may be yet, Mr. Green- wood."
" Under the green grass would have been better, but it wasn't to be, just yet,"
In the educational department we had considerable talent, mixed with a good deal of eccentricity. We had a Frenchman patronized by Mr. Maclure, a M. Phiquepal d'Arusmont, who became afterwards the husband of Frances Wright; a man well informed on many points, full of original ideas, some of practi- cal value, but, withal, a wrong headed genius, whose extrava- gance and wilfulness and inordinate self-conceit destroyed his usefulness. He had a small school, but it was a failure; he gained neither the good will nor the respect of his pupils.
Another, of a very different stamp, was Professor Joseph Neef, from Pestalozzi's in Switzerland. Simple, straightforward, and cordial, a proficient in modern languages, a good musician,
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he had brought with him from Pestalozzi's institution at Iver. dun an excellent mode of teaching. To his earlier life, as an officer under Napoleon, was due a blunt, off-hand manner and an abrupt style of speech, enforced now and then with an oath, -an awkward habit for a teacher, which I think he tried inef- fectually to get rid of. One day, when I was within hearing, a boy in his class used profane language.
" Youngster," said Neef to him, "you musn't swear. It's silly, and it's vulgar, and it means nothing. Do not let me hear you do so again."
" But Mr. Neef," said the boy, hesitating and looking half frightened, " if it's vulgar and wrong to swear, why -- "
" Well, out with it ! Never stop when you want to say anything, that is another bad habit, You wished to know why-"
" Why you swear yourself, Mr. Neef ?"
" Because I'm a d-d fool. Don't you be one, too.
With all his roughness, the good old man was a general fa- vorite alike with children and adults. Those whose recollec- tions of Harmony extend back thirty years preserve a genial remembrance of him walking about in the sun of July or Aug- ust, in linen trousers and shirt, always bareheaded, sometimes barefooted, with a grandchild in his arms, and humming to his infant charge some martial air, in a wonderful bass voice, which it was said, enabled him, in his younger days, when giving com- mand to a body of troops, to be distinctly heard by ten thousand men.
We had, at this time, in the educational department, a good many persons of literary and scientific ability. But dissensions crept in among them, and several, including Dr. Troost, finally left the place. Mr. Lesueur, however, remained many years, and Thomas Say settled in Harmony, where he spent his time in preparing his beautifully illustrated work on American En- tomology, dying there in 1834.
I think my father must have been as well pleased with the condition of things at New Harmeny, on his arrival there, as I myself was. At all events, some three weeks afterwards, he disclosed to me his intention to propose to the Harmonites that they should at once form themselves into a Community of
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Equality, based on the principle of common property. This took me by surprise, knowing as I did, that when the prelimi- nary society had been established, nine months before, he had recommended that this novitiat should continue two or three years, before adventuriug the next and final step.
It was an experiment attended with great hazard. Until now the executive committee had estimated the value of each person's services, and given all persons employed respectively credit for the amount, to be drawn out by them in produce or store goods.
But under the new constitution, all members, according to their ages, not according to the actual value of their services, were to be " furnished, as near as could be, with similar food, clothing, and education ; and, as soon as practicable, to live in similar houses, and in all respects to be accommodated alike." Also the real estate of the association was to be " held in per- petual trust forever for the use of the Community "; persons leaving the society to forfeit all interest in the original land, but to have claim for " a just proportion of the value of any real estate required during their membership." The power of making laws was vested in the Assembly, which consisted of all the resident adult members of the Community. There was an Executive Council, having superintendence and empowered to " carry into effect all general regulations "; but the Council was " subject at all times to any directions expressed by a majority of the Assembly and communicated by the clerk of the Assem- bly to the secretary of the Council." After the first formation of the Community, the assent of a majority of the Assembly was necessary to admit a member.
Liberty, equality, and fraternity, in downright earnest ! It found favor with that heterogeneous collection of radicals, enthusiastic devotees to principle, honest latitudinarians, and lazy theorists, with a sprinkling of unprincipled sharpers thrown in. A committee of seven-my brother William and myself included-elected at a town-meeting held January 26, 1826, were authorized to frame and report a constitution. They re- ported on February 1; and, after a few days debate, the con- stitution, somewhat amended, was adopted on February 5. Every member of the preliminary society who signed the con-
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stitution within three days, was, with his family, admitted into the Community. All but a few, who soon after left the place, subscribed; and then the books were closed.
I made no opposition to all this. I had too much of my father's all-believing disposition to anticipate results which any shrewd, cool-headed business man might have predicted.
How rapidly they came upon us ! Any one who still owns a file of the weekly paper, then published in New Harmony, may readily trace them.
Two weeks after the formation of the Community we find : " On the 19th instant (February) a resolution was adopted by the Assembly directing the Executive Council to request the aid of Mr. Owen for one year in conducting the concerns of the Community, in conformity with the principles of the constitu- tion." Three weeks later in an editorial we read : " General satisfaction and individual contentment have taken the place of suspense and uncertainty. Under the sole direction of Mr. Owen, the most gratifying anticipations of the future may be safely indulged."
It was four years after the declaration, in Paris, in 1848, of a Republic, before France settled down under the leadership of one man ; but, at Harmony, five weeks sufficed to bring about a similar result. The difference was, however, that Louis Na- poleon, false to his oath, and resorting to a coup 'd etat, upset the Republic, while my father conscientiously adhered to the instructions given by the Assembly to conform to the principles of the constitution. This very adherence, beyond doubt caused his failure.
For a time, however, things improved under his manage- ment. Under date March 22, an editorial tells us: " While we have been discussing abstract ideas, we have neglected practi- cal means. Our energies have been wasted in useless efforts . . But by the indefatigable attention of Mr. Owen, order and sys- tem have been introduced into every branch of business. Our streets no longer exhibit groups of idle talkers, each is busily engaged in the occupation he has chosen. Our public meetings instead of being the arena for contending orators, are now places of business," etc.
32
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This is a useful lifting of the curtain, disclosing what the immediate effects of a premature step had been. Two months later appear symptoms of doubt. My father, reviewing the proceedings of the Community, May 10, says: "The great ex- periment in New Harmony is still going on, to ascertain whether a large, heterogeneous mass of persons, collected by chance, can be amalgamated into one community. Up to that time, it would seem, he had delayed making any conveyance of the land.
When three months more had passed, my father, address- ing the Assembly, said, in reply to a question as to having all things, land included, in common, "I shall be ready to form such a community whenever yon are prepared for it. .... But progress must be made in community education before all par- ties can be prepared for a community of common property." He then proposed, and the Assembly adopted, a resolution that they meet three evenings in the week for community education.
These meetings continued, with gradually lessening num- bers for a month or two. Then comes an editorial admission that "a general system of trading speculation prevails," to- gether with "a want of confidence in the good intentions of each other."
Finally, a little more than a year after the Community ex- periment commenced, came official acknowledgement of its fail- ure. The editorial containing it, though without signature, was written by my brother William and myself, as editors, on our own responsibility ; but it was submitted by us, for revision as to the facts, to my father, We said: " Our opinion is, that Robert Owen ascribed too little influence to the early anti-so- cial circumstances that had surrounded many of the quickly collected inhabitants of New Harmony before their arrival there ; and too much to those circumstances which his experi- ence might enable them to create around themselves in future. . . . We are too inexperienced to hazard a judgment on the prudence and management of those who directed its execution ; and the only opinion we can express with confidence is of the perseverance with which Robert Owen pursued it at great pecu- niary loss to himself. One form of government was at first adopted, and when that appeared unsuitable another was tried ; until it appeared that the members were too various in their
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feelings and too dissimilar in their habits to govern themselves harmoniously as one community. ... New Harmony, therefore, is not now a community."
Thenceforth, of course, the inhabitants had either to sup- port themselves or to leave the town. But my father offered land on the Harmony estate to those who desired to try smaller community experiments, on an agricultural basis. Several were formed, some by honest, industrious workers, to whom land was leased at very low rates ; while other leases were obtained by unprincipled speculators who cared not a whit for co-operative principles, but sought private gain by the operation. All finally failed as social experiments. To the workers who had acted in good faith my father ultimately sold, at a low price, the "lands they occupied. By the speculators he lost in the end a large amount of personal property, of which, under false pretences, they had obtained control.
My present opinion is that, in stating the causes which led to the failure of my father's plans of social reform at New Har- mony, my brother and I omitted the chief error. I do not be- lieve that any industrial experiment can succeed which proposes equal remuneration to all men, the diligent and the dilatory, the skilled artisan and the common laborer, the genius and the drudge. I speak of the present age ; what may happen in the distant future it is impossible to foresee and imprudent to pre- dict. What may be safely predicted is, that a plan which re- munerates all alike will, in the present condition of society, ultimately eliminate from a co-operative association the skilled, efficient, and industrious members, leaving an ineffective and sluggish residue, in whose hands the experiment will fail, both socially and pecuniarily.
The English associations which are now succeeding were organized under a special act of Parliament, as joint stock com- panies-limited ; all heads of families and single adults within each being at once the stockholders who furnish the necessary capital, and if it be a store, the customers, or, if it be a manu- facturing or agricultural establishment, the workers who give that capital its value. A small executive board, its members being themselves experienced workers, and having moderate fixed salaries, is elected by the association, and superintends all
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operations. These superintendents are required to visit, at stated hours throughout the day, each department of industry, and to register, on books kept for that purpose, the exact hour and duration of these visits. Each artisan or other laborer is paid wages at the rate which his services would command in the outside world; and is entitled, at the end of each year, when the profits are declared, to a dividend on his stock, in addition.
There are other important details,for example, arrangements in the nature of benefit societies in case of sickness; but they would be out of place here. This slight sketch may suffice to show, in a general way, how the workman, if he can once lay up in a savings' bank or elsewhere a small capital, may obtain the entire value of his labor, may secure permanent employ- ment, which only misconduct can forfeit ; and besides, have fair wages regularly paid, and his just proportion of profits, deduct- ing only the necessary expense of a judicious and economical . management.
Robert Owen distinguished the great principle, but, like so many other devisers, missed the working details of his scheme. If these, when stated, seem to lie so near the surface that com- mon sagacity ought to have detected them, let us bear in mind how wise men stumbled over Columbus's simple puzzle ; failing to balance an egg on one end, till a touch of the great naviga- tor's solved the petty mystery.
I have little doubt that the English co-operators are grad ually furnishing a practical solution of the most important o industrial mysteries,-the great problem how increased powers to produce shall not only procure increased comforts to the pro- ducer, but, at the same time, elevate him, day by day in the moral scale, until he becomes, as the years go on, a self-respect- ing, upright, intelligent man.
That these civilizing influences should result from the prin - ciple of association for mutual benefit is according to the due order of human progress. Animals are self-dependant, and individually isolated, and so are liable to grave injury from slight cause, and are daily in peril from stronger and fiercer
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brutes .; Savage man is but a step in advance of this; and scarcely more secure than he is the laborer of modern days, when segregated from his class, and fighting the life battle, single-handed, against capital and competition. Divided, he falls lower and lower in the social scale, United only-but it must be judiciously united, ¿- can he succeed in attaining secu- rity and comfort. Nor need he surrender wholesome liberty in associating for common good. The English co-operative work- man is far more free, as well as more safe, than his isolated neighbors.
Such considerations my palliate, in may father's case, the charge of rash confidence, and what may seem reckless self sacrifice in carrying out his favorite plans. He expended in the purchase of the Harmony property, real and personal, in paying the debts of the Community during the year of its ex- istence, and in meeting his ultimate losses the next year by swindlers, upwards of two hundred thousand dollars.
Had his plans succeeded, he would, beyond question, have conveyed the whole of his Indiana property in trust forever, without value received, or any compensation other than the satisfaction of success, to support co-operative associations there. Thus, as his property did not then reach quarter of a million, he was willing to give up more than four fifths of what he was worth to this great experiment.
The remainder, not exceeding forty thousand dollars, might have sufficed for a competence had he been content to live qui- etly upon it. But it soon melted away in a hundred expendi- tures for experiments, publications, and the like, connected with social and industrial reform. He seems to have felt it to be a point of honor, so long as he had means left, to avert re- proach from the cause of co-operation by paying debts left
¡The effect upon animals of what has been called " natural selection," says Wallace, depends mainly on their self-dependance and individual isolation, A slight injury, a temporary illness, leaves the individual powerless against its enemies,-Work on Natu- ral Selection already quoted, p. 311.
What is the effect upon a laboring father of a family, with two dollars and a half a week to support them of "slight injury or temporary illness ?" Is he not at the mercy of his enemies-abject penury, starvation ?
¿Trades Unions are often but disguised Tyrannies ; examples of an excellent princi- ple, miserably perverted.
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standing at the close of unsuccessful experiments when these had been conducted in good faith.t
One result of all this seems to me now so little like what usually happens in this world, that, if it provoke incredulity, I think the skeptics may be readily excused. It relates to my brother Willian and myself, exemplifying the effect of early habits and impressions. Soon after our return from Hofwyl, my father made us partners in the New Lanark mills, conveying to each of us one share of fifty thousand dollars. We bought whatever we wanted, and, as it happened, our profits amply sufficed for our wants. Yet I cannot call to mind that I ever examined my partnership account, or posted myself as to the balance.
When my father proposed to devote four-fifths of the prop- erty that would naturally have come to us as his heirs, to the cause of reform, neither William nor I, to the best of my recol- lection, expressed or even felt regret that it was about to pass away from us. Several years after the purchase of Harmony, when we learned from my father that his funds were running low, we both volunteered to transfer to him, unconditionally, our New Lanark shares. He accepted the offer as frankly as it was made; but he conveyed to us jointly land on the Harmony estate worth about thirty thousand dollars. Engrossed with the sanguine hopes of youth and the vague dreams of enthusi- asm, I believe that I scarcely bestowed a second thought on the pecuniary independence for life which I was thus relinquishing. If ony one had lauded my disinterestedness, it would have been unmerited praise; it was simply indifference, not self- sacrifice. Nor do I remember ever pining after the luxuries of Braxfield, or wishing myself back again in the Old World.
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