The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
It was inevitable that some of the small farms should be more valuable
than others; and there was naturally a difference, too, in the village
lots. To make the division fairly, all the places were viewed, and a
schedule was made of them, on which each was assessed at a certain
price, varying from six hundred to fourteen hundred dollars, according
to its situation, the excellence of its fruit, etc. They were then
distributed by a kind of lottery, with the condition that if the farm
drawn was valued in the schedule over twelve hundred dollars, he who
drew it should pay into the general treasury the surplus; if it was
valued at less, he who drew it received from the common fund a sum which
h, added to the value of his farm, equaled twelve hundred dollars. Thus
A, who drew a fourteen-hundred-dollar lot, paid two hundred dollars; B,
who drew a six-hundred-dollar lot, received six hundred dollars
additional in cash.
The property was by this time in such a state of improvement that money
could readily be borrowed on the security of these small farms.
Moreover, when the drawing was completed, there was a sale of the
effects of the company--horses, tools, etc.; and on closing all the
accounts and balancing the books, it was found that there remained a sum
of money in the general treasury sufficient to give each of the fifty
shareholders a hundred dollars in cash as a final dividend.
When this was done, the co-operative feature of the enterprise
disappeared. The members, each in his own good time, settled on their
farms. Lumber was bought at wholesale, and they began to build their
houses. Fifty families make a little town in any of our Western States,
sufficiently important to attract traders. The village lots at once
acquired a value, and some were sold to shopkeepers. A school was
quickly established; mechanics of different kinds came down to Anaheim
to work for wages; and the colonists in fact gathered about them at once
many conveniences which, if they had settled singly, they could not have
commanded for some years.
They were still poor, however. But few of them were able even to build
the slight house needed in that climate without running into debt. For
borrowed money they had to pay from two to three per cent, per month
interest. Moreover, none of them were farmers; and they had to learn to
cultivate, prune, and take care of their vines, to make wine, and to
make a vegetable garden. They had from the first to raise and sell
enough for their own support, and to pay at least the heavy interest on
their debts. It resulted that for some years longer they had a struggle
with a burden of debt, and had to live with great economy. But the
people told me that they had always enough to eat, a good school for
their children, and the immense satisfaction of being their own
employers. "We had music and dancing in those days; and, though we were
very poor, I look back to those times as the happiest in all our lives,"
said one man to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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