Chapter VI

THE GENERAL SYSTEM—PROGRESS THE FIRST YEAR—LAND TITLES—LABOR ORDERS.

The city of Co-opolis was established, after the surrounding region was duly explored, upon the site of our first camp in Deer Valley. The Hacket ranch and water rights were acquired by our company at a small expense, the farmers went to work upon it immediately and in a comparatively short time we had many acres of land broken and planted. We sowed very little wheat the first year, but made a specialty of corn, calculating that we could feed it to our cattle and hogs, and believing that we could realize more from our live stock than from the raising and sale of wheat. We also planted vegetables of all kinds in quantities which we believed would not only suffice for our company for the following winter, but would enable us to dispose of a surplus in the mining camps in the mountains.

The ex-surveyor, meanwhile, proceeded to lay out a town. This was a very simple task, as our plan was to construct a public hall and office building in the center of a large square, surround the latter by a wide street, and erect our store, hotel and residences on this street. If the city grew it was considered that we had ample space at our command. Meanwhile the sawmill had arrived and had been conveyed to a place on the banks of the stream and placed in charge of the sawmill men. One of these having great experience in the forests of Wisconsin, took a number of picked commoners and went to the headwaters of the stream in the mountains and was soon able to send a large quantity of pine logs down the current, where they were caught and sawed into lumber of various dimensions. In three weeks after we started our camp our carpenters had built a temporary frame store building, a rather crude hotel and had supplied these with furniture which was rather crude and unfinished but sufficient for our purposes. It was not considered prudent to erect any permanent structures until our lumber should become better seasoned, but carpenters, masons and stonecutters proceeded to excavate for the fifty cottages which we designed to construct for our members and their families. In the latter part of June, such was our industry, we had a very respectable appearing village, with carpenter and blacksmith shops and general store. The last was the feature of the village, containing a stock of hardware, dry goods and groceries and a stock of drugs of various kinds. The hotel furnished board and lodging to all our company.

Shortly after our arrival at Co-opolis, at a series of meetings held for that purpose, we had formed our permanent organization, taken as our name “The Co-opolitan Association” and adopted a constitution and by-laws to regulate our colony.

The constitution dealt only with the system of government and invested the lawmaking body, which it created, with unlimited powers as to all other matters.

The President was to hold office for seven years and was ineligible to re-election.

The Vice-President was elected for the same period.

The first President and Vice-President were elected by all active members, and any member was eligible, but after seven years these officers must be elected from among heads of departments only.

Heads of departments were to be denominated chiefs and were to be chosen by popular vote from among foremen and the latter by the Legislative Council.

The lawmaking power was to consist of the heads of departments and President and Vice-President, the former presiding at all legislative meetings and the latter, by virtue of his office, being a member of the Legislative Council with the right to speak and vote on all propositions.

Whenever twenty per cent of the men and women of the Association should petition the Legislative Council to declare any office vacant it was bound to submit the question as to whether such vacancy should be so declared to popular vote, and if a majority decided in the affirmative then the Council must declare it. The incumbent whose office or position was thus vacated was not eligible again for the remainder of his unexpired term and the full term following.

Officers found guilty by the Council of misfeasance or malfeasance in office were also subject to impeachment by the Council, who were required to pass on the particular charges submitted to them.

The legislative and judicial functions were both conferred upon the Legislative Council, and this body could initiate and complete legislation, but on petition of twenty per cent of all voters proposing a new law the Legislative Council was required to submit such law to popular vote and the decision of a majority of such voters operated as either an enactment or repeal. This action was effectual to permanently dispose of such law for five years. The constitution was also subject to revision, correction, amendment or repeal by the same method.

The constitution further provided that every person under twenty years of age should be in charge of the department of education, that no man or woman should in any event be required to work more than twenty-five years, but that after having contributed twenty-five years’ labor should become entitled to his full share of the profits distributed annually among members.

This constitution did not limit the right of the people to shorten the term of service if they so desired. It was deemed expedient to provide for two classes of industrials, wage workers and members. The former were such as were employed and paid reasonable wages. These were rarely employed except in cases of emergency. The latter were such as had paid an entrance fee and had been accepted as equal partners in the enterprise. The wage workers were such as enlisted in the Industrial Army for pay and they could not participate in the affairs of the society or settlement. But any one of these who was in good health and of sound mind could become a member on payment of the fee required and on enlisting in the Industrial Army subject to the laws of the society.

No person was admitted who was over fifty-five years of age except such person was able to contribute to the Association’s accumulated wealth an amount of property equal to the full annual dividend of the average member at the time of his application, multiplied by the number of years’ service required by members. In later years, as is well known, the constitution does not admit an applicant who is over forty except on the same terms.

The constitution was by no means a perfect one at the outset, but it was sufficiently elastic and stable in its provisions to admit of such amendments, without danger to its substantial features, as might, from time to time, be suggested by experience.

The most conservative force in society has been found to be, not the wise nor the foolish, but the majority which are neither the one or the other. These are not generally favorable to experimental legislation, and long before the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth Switzerland proved, by the operation of the Initiative and Referendum provisions of their constitution, that the people were disposed to accept changes in their social system with a caution that made progress slow, but retrogression impossible.

The first year of the Co-operative Commonwealth was a very successful one. We had May 1st, 1898, over one thousand persons, including men, women and children, in our city of Co-opolis, two hundred and fifty substantial cottages, an excellent public hall, a good hotel, a large and sightly three-story building containing our department store, postoffice and offices for our President, Vice-President and heads of departments; an excellent schoolhouse with graded school and a corps of eight teachers, consisting of our ex-clergyman, who became first principal, and teachers who were selected from among the wives of members. All the furniture used in our homes and buildings at this time was manufactured of such lumber as we had and was somewhat crude, but sufficient in all respects. In our department store were sold vegetables produced by us, consisting of potatoes, onions, beets, parsnips and all of the hardy variety grown on the old time “breaking” on Hacket’s ranch. We had home-made preserves and a quantity of dried fruit. The meat department was well supplied from our own herds of cattle or from the surrounding country, and from our flocks of sheep, which had largely increased, partly through natural causes and partly because much of the money received for membership fees had been invested in that direction.

Shortly after we had definitely settled upon a site for Co-opolis we proceeded to acquire land. This whole valley was what in the United States land office was denominated “desert land,” not because it was barren but because it was unproductive unless reclaimed by irrigation. Under the law it was permitted that each man enter three hundred and twenty acres upon declaring his intention to reclaim the same, and we had in this manner entered, up to June 1st, some sixteen thousand acres.

We had also, for the purpose of complying with the law and completing our titles, proceeded to a point about ten miles up the stream, and had there constructed a dam, collecting the waters of the stream by that means, and were engaged, whenever the weather permitted, in excavating ditches, or building flumes so as to conduct a large quantity of water nearly the whole length of the valley, but high up on the slopes of the “tables” on the south. The work was by no means finished, but it was easily estimated that when our plant was completed over eighty thousand acres of land would be available for agricultural purposes. That was on one side of the river. Our plans also included the irrigation of the north side of the river in the same manner. The law was such that, being the owners of Hacket’s water right, and having tapped the stream at a time that no other settlers could be disturbed or interfered with, we were entitled to the exclusive control of the stream. We found that the law required us to file our claims to this water right for record in the office of the Register of Deeds for the county, and did so accordingly. It was not difficult for any one of our number to see that we were in a position to shut out all settlers in this valley who were not members. The water right was taken in the names of Thompson, myself, Henderson, Ortz and three others, who constituted our first Legislative Council, as trustees for the Association. If any member who entered the land thought to segregate his tract ultimately from the great body of land he had only to consider that it was entirely worthless without irrigation, and that this was exclusively controlled by the Association.

The Industrial Army at this time numbered five hundred, one hundred and fifty being women and three hundred and fifty men. The women were engaged largely in the Domestic department, but a number were employed in the departments of Commerce and Education. One of the merchants had charge of the department store, but most of the clerical help was selected from among the women. The bookkeepers were, at that time, all women. The chief of the Domestic department was a woman and as such participated in all our legislative councils. The entire army was divided into companies of twenty, and at the head of each company was a foreman. Each company was again divided into two squads of ten and each squad had a second or assistant foreman. In forming companies or squads our chiefs endeavored to have the members composed, as nearly as possible, of men having the same or kindred trades. We now had three physicians, one of whom was regarded as an especially skillful surgeon. We also had an incipient brass band which assisted largely in rendering the hours of recreation pleasant.

At this time we had a rapidly increasing trade at our store and were supplying many of the camps with such goods as they needed. Two of our own wagons were constantly employed in conveying groceries, hardware and other ware to our customers in the mountains, and it was not an uncommon thing for five or six wagons to come down in the course of a day for goods. The enterprise was successful and the prices which we obtained for what we sold were very profitable. We were obliged, however, to constantly replenish our stock of groceries, dry goods, hardware and drugs from the east. We also sold large quantities of beef in the mountains and, not caring to draw too heavily on our own herds for this demand, we kept a number of men constantly employed hunting and purchasing animals suitable for the purpose. We also devoted a building to the sick and our hospital was already quite famous throughout the entire region. Men in the camps who were injured or who had become sick preferred to endure the journey to Co-opolis to avail themselves of our physicians and nurses rather than risk the rough and sometimes reckless treatment to which they were elsewhere exposed. Our hotel, store and hospital were sources of profit which aided us largely the first and second years of our career.

One of the most difficult problems which we had to solve the first year was that of providing a medium of exchange for the use of our own members and also such persons as we might employ. We recognized that, although the money of society was at variance and inconsistent with all our plans, until we had fully established the Co-operative Commonwealth and acquired the state and all it contained, it would be impossible to establish a labor-check system. We decided that money was to be treated as a mere commodity and purchased as such, just as potatoes, wheat or beef were purchased. In dealing with the world outside of our society we must have money until we should become independent of it. It was on that theory that we endeavored to keep our fund of United States currency increasing.

How to deal among ourselves was the question. We were satisfied that members should, as nearly as possible, receive equal shares of what was produced in our colony, provided they were industrious and worked honestly, but we deemed that in the formative period of the commonwealth it was inexpedient to adopt the check system of Bellamy’s social plan exclusively. We did, however, decide that checks should be given to those who desired them, but that, owing to the fact that many of our workers were to be, at the outset, mere hired men, it would be better to issue orders for each one’s share as measured by dollars. The laws of the United States practically denied us the right to issue money or circulating notes, and our purpose was to build our state in entire harmony with the constitution. We proposed to avoid a conflict with the Federal government.

It was therefore decided that each member should receive wages, to be established upon the basis of a distribution of sixty per cent of all the society produced, equally divided among all persons above the age of twenty-one, whether male or female.

The forty per cent undistributed was to be used to purchase money for the use of the department store; in other words, sold for cash. These wages were to be paid in orders on the treasurer, signed by the president. They were required to read as follows: “To the Treasurer of the Co-opolitan Association: Deliver to John Jenkins, Foreman of Company Number One of the Industrial Army, one (or any denomination) dollar’s worth of any product, convenience, privilege or license at your disposal. Signed, John Thompson, President.”

These orders were to be delivered to the foreman only and it was the foreman’s duty to endorse or stamp his name on the back so that, when once so endorsed or stamped, they became current as a medium of exchange, but not as a measure of value. The foreman’s duty was to pay his men with these orders and he was held to the strictest account for the disposition made of each order. Whenever an order was received in any department it was stamped canceled and never again issued. Most of our members for the first three years preferred the check. As time passed, however, the credit labor check became more and more popular and in time crowded out the circulating orders entirely.