pied. And yet its stockholders were satisfied that they had
done a good business, ā that the increase in the patronage
and value of the establishment amounted to a fair interest on
their investment, and might well be accepted in lieu of a
dividend. In the good time coming, with cheaj)er paper and less
exorbitant charges for " cable despatches " from the Old "World,
they will doubtless reap where they have now faithfully
sown. Yet they realize and accept the fact, that a journal
radically hostile to the gainful arts whereby the cunning and
powerful few live sumptuously without useful labor, and often
amass wealth, by pandering to lawless sensuahty and popular
vice, can never hope to enrich its pubhshers so rapidly nor so
vastly as though it had a soft side for the Liquor Traffic, and
for all kindred allurements to carnal appetite and sensual
indulgence.
Fame is a vapor ; popularity an accident ; riches take wings ;
the only eartlily certainty is obhvion; no man can foresee
what a day may bring forth ; while those who cheer to-day
will often curse to-morrow : and yet I cherish the hope that
the journal I projected and estabhshed will live and flourish
long after I shall have mouldered into forcrotten dust, beins
guided by a larger wisdom, a more unerring sagacity to dis-
cern the right, though not by a more unfaltering readiness to
embrace and defend it at whatever personal cost ; and that
the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the
still intelligible inscription, " Founder of The New York
Tribmie."
XIX.
SOCIALISM.
THE Winter of 1837-38, though happily mild and open
till far into January, was one of pervading destitution
and suffering in our city, from paralysis of business and con-
sequent dearth of employment. The liberality of those who
could and would give was heavily taxed to save from famish-
ing the tens of thousands who, being needy and unable to
find employment, first ran into debt so far as they could, and
thenceforth must be helped or starve. For, in addition to all
who may be said to belong here, legions of laborers, servants,
etc., are annually dismissed in Autumn from the farms, coun-
try-seats, and watering-places of the suburban districts, and
drift down to the city, whence they were mainly hired ;
vao-uely hoping to find work here, which a small part of them
do : the rest live on the good-nature of relatives, if such they
have here, or on credit from boarding-houses, landlords, or
grocers, so long as they can; and then make their choice
between rogueiy and beggary, or change from this to that, or
take them mixed, as chance may dictate. Since the general
diffusion of railroads and the considerable extension of our
manulacturing industry, business is far more equable than it
was, even in prosperous times, thirty years ago ; but Winter is
still a season of privation and suffering to many thousands
who live in tolerable comfort through the warmer seasons.
To say that ten thousand young persons here annually take
their first lessons in debauchery and crime would be to keep
qiiite within the truth ; and, while passion, ignorance, and
miseducation ruin their thousands, I judge that destitution
SOCIALISM. 145
flowing from involuntary idleness sends more men and women
to perdition, in tliis city, than any other cause, ā intemperance
possibly excepted.
I lived that Winter in the Sixth Ward, ā then, as now,
eminent for filth, squalor, rags, dissipation, want, and misery.
A public meeting of its citizens was duly held early in De-
cember, and an organization formed thereat, by which com-
mittees were appointed to canvass the Ward from house to
house, collect funds from those who could and would spare
anything, ascertain the nature and extent of the existing des-
titution, and devise ways and means for its systematic relief.
Very poor myself, I could give no money, or but a mite ; so I
gave time instead, and served, through several days, on one
of the visiting committees. I thus saw extreme destitution
more closely than I had ever before observed it, and was
enabled to scan its repulsiA'e features intelligently. I saw
two families, including six or eight children, burrowing in one
cellar under a stable, ā a prey to famine on the one hand, and
to vermin and cutaneous maladies on the other, Avith sickness
adding its horrors to those of a polluted atmosphere and a
wintry temperature. I saw men who each, somehow, sup-
ported his family on an income of S 5 per week or less, yet
who cheerfully gave sometliing to mitigate the sufferings of
those who were really poor. I saw three widoA^'S, with as
many children, living in an attic on the profits of an apple-
stand which yielded less than $ 3 per week, and the landlord
came in for a full third of that. But worst to bear of all was
the pitiful plea of stout, resolute, single young men and young
women : " We do not want alms ; we are not beggars ; we hate
to sit here day by day idle and useless ; help us to work, ā we
want no other help : Avhy is it that we can have nothing to do ? "
I pondered these scenes at intervals throughout the next
two or three years, and was impelled thereby to ^^Tite for The
New- Yorker ā I think, in the Winter of 1839-40 ā a series
of articles entitled, " What shall be done for the Laborer ? "
I believe these attracted the attention of Mr. Albert Brisbane,
a young man of liberal education and varied culture, a native
10
146 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
of Batavia, N. Y., which he still regarded as his home, but
who liad travelled widely and observed thoughtfully ; making
the acquaintance in Paris of the school of Socialists called
(after their founder) St. Simonians, and that also of Charles
Fourier, the founder of a different school, which had been
distinguished by his name. Eobert Owen, by his experiments
at New Lanark and his " New Views of Society," was the first
in tliis century to win public attention to Socialism, though
(I believe) Fourier had not only speculated, but written, before
either of his co-laborers. But Owen was an extensive and
successful manufacturer ; St. Simon was a soldier, and the heir
of a noble family ; while Fourier was a poor clerk, reserved
and taciturn, whose hard, dogmatic, algebraic style seemed
expressly calculated to discourage readers and repel adherents ;
so that his disciples were few indeed, down to the date of his
death in 1837. Mr. Brisbane, returning not long afterward
from Europe, prepared and published his fijst work ā which
was an exposition and commendation of Fourier's industrial
system ā in 1840. My acquaintance with the author and his
work commenced soon afterward.
I sum up these tliree competing projects of Social Eeform
as follows : ā
'Owen. ā Place liuman beings in proper relations, under fa-
voring circumstances (among which I include Education and
Intelligence), and they will do right rather than ^vrong.
Hitherto, the heritage of the great majority has been filth,
squalor, famine, ignorance, superstition ; and these have im-
pelled many to indolence and vice, if not to crime. Make
their external conditions what they should be, and these will
give place to industry, sobriety, and virtue.
St. Simon. ā " Love is the fulfilling of the law." Secure to
every one opportunity ; let each do whatever he can do best ;
and the highest good of the whole will be achieved and per-
petuated.
Fourier. ā Society, as we find it, is organized rapacity. Half
of its force is spent in repressing or resisting the jealousies
and rogueries of its members. We need to orfjanize Universal
SOCIALISM. 147
Justice based on Science. The true Eden lies before, not
behind us. We may so provide that Labor, now repulsive,
shall be attractive ; while its efficiency in production shall
be increased by the improvement of machinery and the ex-
tended use of natural forces, so as to secure abundance, edu-
cation, and elegant luxur}^, to all. Wliat is needed is to
provide all with homes, employment, instruction, good living,
the most effective implements, machinery, &c., securing to
each the fair and full recompense of his achievement ; and
this can best be attained through the association of some four
to five hundred families in a common household, and in the
ownership and cultivation of a common domain, say of 2,000
acres, or about one acre to each person living thereon.
I accept, unreservedly, the views of no man, dead or living.
"The master has said it," was never conclusive with me.
Even though I have found him right nine times, I do not
take his tenth proposition on trust ; unless that also be proved
sound and rational, I reject it. But I am con^dnced, after
much study and reflection, that the Social Eeformers are right
on many points, even when clearly wrong on others ; and I
deem Fourier ā though in many respects erratic, mistaken,
visionary ā the most suggestive and practical among them.
I accept nothing on his authority ; for I find many of his
speculations fantastic, erroneous, and (in my view) pernicious ;
but on many points he commands my unreserved concur-
rence. Yet I prefer to set forth my own Social creed rather
than his, even wherein mine was borrowed from his teachings ;
and mine is, briefly, as follows : ā
I. I believe that there need be, and should be, no paupers
who are not infantile, idiotic, or disabled ; and that civilized
society pays more for the support of able-bodied pauperism
than the necessary cost of its extirpation.
II. I believe that they babble idly and libel Providence
who talk of siirplus Labor, or the inadequacy of Capital to
supply employment to aU who need it. Labor is often most
148 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
required and best paid where Capital is scarcest (as was shown
in California in 1849-50); and there is always ā even in
China ā far more work than hands, provided the ability to
devise and direct be not wanting. Where Labor stands idle,
save in the presence of some great public calamity, there is a
demonstrated deficiency, not of Capital, but of brains.
III. I believe that the efficiency of human effort is enor-
mously, ruinously diminished by what I term Social Anarchy.
That is to say : " We spend half our energies in building fences
and providing safeguards against each other's roguery, while
our labor is rendered inefficient and inadequately productive
by bad management, imperfect implements, a deficiency of
power (animal or steam), and the inability of our producers
to command and wield the most effective machinery. It is
quite within the truth to estimate the annual product of our
National Industry at less than one half what it might be if
better applied and directed.
IV. Inefficiency in production is paralleled by waste in
consumption. Insects and vermin devour at least one fourth
of the farmer's harvests, which inadequate fertilizing and un-
skilful cultivation have already reduced far below the proper
aggregate. A thousand cooks are required, and a thousand
fires maintained, to prepare badly the food of a township ;
when a dozen fires and a hundred cooks might do it far better,
and with a vast saving in quantity as well as improvement in
quality. [I judge that the cooks of Paris would subsist One
Million persons on the food consumed or wasted by Six Hun-
dred Thousand in this city ; feeding them better than they are
now fed, and prolonging their lives by an average of five years.]
V. Youth should be a season of instruction in Industry
and the Useful Arts, as well as in Letters and the Sciences
mastered by their aid. Each child should be trained to skill
and efficiency in productive Labor. The hours of children
should be alternately devoted to Labor, Study, and Eecreation,
ā say, two hours to each before, and a like allotment after,
dinner each secular day. Thus each child would grow up an
adept, not merely in letters, but in arts, ā a skilful worker as
SOCIALISM. 149
"well as a proficient in the lessons of the school-room, ā able to
do well, not one thing only, but many things, ā familiar with
mechanical as well as agricultural processes, and acquainted
with the use of steam and the direction of machinery. Xot
till one has achieved the fullest command, the most varied
use, of all his faculties and powers, can he be properly said to
be educated.
VI. Isolation is at war with efficiency and with progress.
As "iron sharpeneth iron," so are man's intellectual and in-
ventive faculties stimulated by contact with his fellow-men.
A nation of herdsmen, dwelling in movable tents, invents
little or nothing, and makes no progress, or next to none.
Serfdom was the general condition of the laboring class in
Europe, until aggregation in cities and manufactories, dif-
fusing intelligence, and nourishing aspu-ation, ^\Tought its
downfall.
VII. The poor work at perpetual disadvantage in isolation,
because of the inadequacy of their means. Let us suppose
that four or five hundred heads of famihes propose to embark
in Agriculture. Each buys his little farm, his furniture, his
implements, animals, seeds, fertilizers, &c., &c., and ā though
he has purchased nothing that he does not urgently need ā
he finds his means utterly exhausted, and his farm and future
exertions heavily burdened by debt. He hopes and labors to
clear off the mortgage ; but flood and drouth, frost and fire,
work against him ; his poverty compels hun to do without
many implements, and to plough or team with inadequate force ;
he runs up an account at the store, and pays twenty per cent,
extra for his goods, because others, who buy on credit, fail to
pay at all ; and so he struggles on, till his strength fails, and
he dies oppressed with debt. Such is the common lot.
VIII. Association would have these imite to purchase, in-
habit, and cultivate a common domain, ā say, of two thousand
acres, ā whereby these advantages over the isolated system
would be realized : ā
1. One fourth (at most) of the land required under the old
system would be found abundant.
150 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
2. It could be far better allotted and appropriated to Grain,
Grass, Fruits, Forest, Garden, &c.
3. The draught animals that were far too few, when dispersed
among five hundred owners, on so many different farms, would
be amply sufficient for a common domain.
4. Steam or water power could now be economically em-
ployed for a hundred purposes ā cutting and sawing timber,
threshing and grinding grain, ploughing the soil, and for
many household uses ā where the small farmer could not
think of employing it.
5. Industry would find new and powerful incentives in the
observation and praise or censure of the entire community ;
uniforms, banners, and music, with the rivalry of bands of
competing workers, would provoke emulation and lighten
labor ; while such - recreations as dramas, concerts, readings,
&c., ā now utterly beyond the reach of rural workers, ā would
give a new zest to hfe. At present, our youth escape from
rural industry when they can, ā not that they really hate
work, but that they find their leisure hours even duller and
less endurable than those they give to rugged toil.
I must devote another chapter to a narration of my experi-
ences as an advocate of the views above set forth, and a brief
account of the efforts made within my knowledge to give them
practical exemplification. That these efforts resulted in fail-
ures the world abeady loiows : I will endeavor to set forth
the facts dispassionately, so as to afford fau' grounds for judg-
ment as to how far these failures are due to cu'cumstances,
and how far they may be fairly charged to the system itself.
I shall endeavor to lay little of the blame on well-abused
Hmnan Nature ; since, if any system be ill adapted to Man
as we find him, it may be excellently calculated for use on
some other planet, but not on this one.
XX.
SOCIALISTIC EFFORTS.
THE propagation in this country of Fourier's ideas of
Industrial Association was wholly pioneered by Mr. A.
Brisbane, who presented them in a series of articles in The
Tribune, beginning in 1841, and running through two or three
years. The Future ā a weekly entirely devoted to the sub-
ject ā was issued for a few weeks, but received no considerable
support, and was therefore discontinued. The Harbinger, a
smaller weekly, was afterward issued from the Brook Farm
Association, and sustained ā not without loss ā for two or
three years. Meantime, several treatises, explaining and
commending the system, were published, ā the best of them
being "Democracy, Pacific and Constructive," by Mr. Parke
Godwin, now of The Evening Post. The problem was further
discussed in a series of controversial letters between Mr. Henry
J. Pv-aymond and myself. Thus, by persevering effort, the
subject was thrust, as it were, on public attention ; a few
zealous converts made to the new ideas, and probably more
vehement adversaries aroused ; while the far greater number
could not be induced to read or consider, but regarded all
Socialist theories with stubborn indifference. Those who
were in good circumstances, or hoped yet to be, wished no
such change as was contemplated by the new theories ; the
ignorant, stolid many, who endure lives of destitution and
squalid misery, were utterly devoid of faith or hope, receiving
with profound incredulity and distrust any proposal to im-
prove their condition. My observation justifies the belief,
that the most conservative of mankind, when not under the
152 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
influence of some great, convulsive uprising like the French
Eevolution, are those who have nothing to lose.
Of the practical attempts to realize our social Utopia, I
believe that known as " Brook Farm," in Eoxbury, Mass., ten
miles from Boston, was first in the order of time, and notable
in many other respects. Its projectors were cultivated,
scholarly persons, who were profoundly dissatisfied with the
aims, as weU as the routine, of ordinary life, and who wel-
comed in theoretic Socialism a fairer and nobler ideal. So
they bought a cold, grassy farm of two hundred acres, added
two or three new buildings to those which had served the
last preceding owner, and bravely took possession. New
members joined from time to time, as others left ; the land
was improved, and, I believe, some was added ; boarders were
taken occasionally ; a school was started and maintained ; and
so the concern fared on tlirough some five or six years. But,
deficient in capital, in agricultural skill, and in many needful
things besides, it was never a pecuniary success, and was
finally given up about 1847 or '48, ā paying its debts, I un-
derstood, to the last dime, but returning nothing to its stock-
holders. I believe this was the only attempt made in New
England.
From this city, two bands of Socialist pioneers went forth,
ā one to a rugged, lofty region in Pike County, Pa., five
miles from tlie Erie Railroad at the mouth of the Lackawaxen,
which they called " Sylvania," after the State. The domain
here purchased was ample, ā some 2,300 acres ; the location
was healthy, and there was abundance of wood and water.
But the soil was stony and poor ; the altitude was such that
there was a hea\y frost on the 4th of July, 1844; the mem-
bers were generally very poor, and in good part inefficient
also ; and the crops harvested were slender enough. I think
"Sylvania" was founded early in 1843, and gave up the
ghost ā having little else to give up ā some time in 1845.
Its domain returned to the seller or his assigns, in satisfaction
of his mortgage, and its movables nearly or quite paid its
debts, leaving its stock a total loss.
SOCIALISTIC EFFORTS. 153
The " North American Phalanx " had more vitahty and a
better location. The nucleus of its membership was formed
in Albany, though it drew associates from every quarter.
Several of them were capable mechanics, traders, and farmers.
It was located in Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, N. J., five
miles from the dock at Eed Bank, on a farm of 673 acres,
originally good land, but worn out by most imj)rovident,
thriftless cultivation, so that it was bought for less tlian $ 23
per acre, which was its fuD. vahie. But there was an ample
bed of marl on its eastern border, considerable timber along
its creeks, two or three very dilapidated farm buildings, and
a few large, old apple-trees, which were just better than none.
Here we few, but zealous, Associationists of New York and
its vicinity for a time concentrated our means and our
efforts ; each subscribing freely to the capital, and then aiding
the enterprise by loans to nearly an equal amount. I think
the capital ultimately invested here (loans included) was fully
% 100,000, or about one fom-th the amount there should have
been. By means thereof, a capacious wooden dwelling, one
or two barns, and a fruit-house were erected, thousands of
loads of marl dug and applied to the land, large orchards were
planted and reared to maturity, and a mile square of sterile,
exhausted land converted into a thrifty and producti^'e do-
main. The experiment was finally abandoned, on the heel
of a heaAy loss sustained in the burning of our fruit-house,
which, with some other set-backs, discouraged some of the
best associates, and caused them to favor a dissolution. There
was no pecuniary failure, in the ordinary acceptation of the
term. The property was sold out at auction, ā the domain
in tracts of ten to eighty acres, ā and, though it brought not
more than two thirds of its cash value, every debt was paid,
and each stockholder received back about 65 per cent, of his
investment with interest. I reckon that not many stock-
holders in gold-mines or oil-wells can show a better result.
(I can speak of gold-mines from personal experience ; oil-
wells ā being older when they came into vogue ā I have
carefully kept out of.) As I recollect, the " North American
154 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
Phalanx" was founded in 1843, and wound up about 1850,
"wlien I think no sister Association was left to deplore its fate.
Its means had been larger, its men and women, in the average,
more capable and devoted, than those of any rival ; if it could
not Hve, there was no hope for any of them.
A serious obstacle to the success of any Socialist experi-
ment must always be confronted. I allude to the kind of
persons who are naturally attracted to it. Along with many
noble and lofty souls, whose impulses are purely philanthropic,
and who are wdling to labor and suffer reproach for any cause
tliat promises to benefit mankind, there throng scores of
whom the world is quite worthy, ā the conceited, the crotchety,
the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated,
the played-out, the idle, and the good-for-nothing generally ;
who, finding themselves utterly out of place and at a discount
in the world as it is, rashly conclude that they are exactly
fitted for the world as it ought to be. These may have failed
again and again, and been protested at every bank to which
they have been presented ; yet they are sure to jump into any
new movement, as if they had been born expressly to super-
intend and du'ect it, though they are morally certain to ruin
whatever they lay their hands on. Destitute of means, of
practical ability, of prudence, tact, and common sense, they
have such a wealth of assurance and of self-confidence that they
clutch the responsible positions, which the capable and worthy
modestly shrink from : so responsibilities that would tax the
ablest are mistakenly devolved on the blindest and least fit.
Many an experiment is thus wrecked, when, engineered by
its best members, it might have succeeded. I judge not what
may be done and borne by a mature, thoroughly organized
Association ; but a pioneer, half-fledged experiment ā lacking
means, experience, edifices, ever}iihing ā can bear no extra
weight, but needs to be composed of, and directed by, most
efficient, devoted, self-sacrificing men and women.
That there have been ā nay, are ā decided successes in
practical Socialism, is undeniable ; but they all have that
Communistic basis which seems to me irrational, and calcu-
SOCIALISTIC EFFORTS. 155
lated to prove fatal. I cannot conceive it just, that an asso-
ciate who invests $ 100,000 should stand on an equal footing,
so far as property is concerned, with one who brings nothing
to the common fund ; nor can I see why an ingenious, efficient
mechanic, whose services are worth $ 5 per day, should receive
no more of the annual product than an ignorant ditcher, who