Speaking of this, the editor of The Social Gospel says: "Adopting this constitution, entering the brotherhood body, and acknowledging the law of love to be right and wise and binding as regards every act and thought of life does not make individuals perfect, but it puts them into right relations. It does not necessarily regenerate the heart, but it gives freedom to those who are rightly inclined and it places constraint upon those who are self-centered or imperfect. Commonwealth is a most blessed place for those who have the brotherhood spirit, but it is the most unhappy place possible for those who will not receive it. It is not a heavenly or angelic society, but an earthly society on the heavenly plan. It is not a perfected brotherhood, but a school of love and right relations. It is not withdrawn from the world and selfish as a community. It feels itself inseparably related to all human need, and through its open doors the unloved world crowds in upon it. It considers itself an economic Christian missionary society."

Writing in September, 1899, the same writer declares that "the world is well-nigh faithless regarding the possibility of meeting the demands of this spiritual brotherhood, and that it is watching Commonwealth curiously and with increasing interest. Will it not be brought to bankruptcy and to starvation or dispersion if it allows the poor to attach themselves freely to it? If it keeps open doors and in consequence attracts all sorts of imperfect people can it assimilate elements of growth and reject elements of discord and death? Can it overcome evil with good?" The answer then given was: "The Christian Commonwealth lives and grows and is increasing in spiritual power and material equipment. Loaded down with the poor and with almost nothing in hand, by most self-denying economy and the hard labor of its people, the Commonwealth colony has made slow but steady economic growth. It has built a sawmill and a shingle machine, manufactured lumber, and erected enough rough houses to comfortably shelter its 95 people. It has built a cotton mill and begun to weave towels and other cotton goods. It is erecting a steam laundry and has the necessary machinery to put in it. It has erected a building 32 by 72 feet, with porch additions 24 by 32 feet and 10 by 38 feet, for a general kitchen, dining room, waiting and reading room, and library. It has built a two-room schoolhouse and has one of the best schools to be found. Music, drawing, the languages, and other college branches are taught. It has planted a 35-acre orchard of peaches, pears, plums, prunes, apricots, cherries, and figs. It has 1,500 trees in nursery, budded last year into the choicest variety of peaches. It has set out 1,500 budded Japanese plum trees and has 3,000 more in its nursery. It has transferred 150 pecans from its nursery to its orchard and avenues this season. It has a young nursery of 50,000 stock and a small vineyard. In addition to this," says the editor, "the

colony built a printing house 24 by 48 feet, where The Social Gospel was first printed, with second-hand type on a discarded job press. Now we have a $2,225 cylinder press and better type, and are beginning to publish books and other brotherhood literature."

Yet one year later the whole property was in the hands of a receiver and the colony disbanded. The creditors, however, were paid, we are informed, in full, which indicates that the colonists must have made something more than a living, and that lack of business management or want of harmony must have been a factor in the breaking up. We get a glimpse of one, and perhaps of both, in the following from The Social Gospel of May, 1899: "The 17th of April," says the writer,

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was a day of exodus." After mentioning a number of persons specifically, the writer continues: "There have been several other departures during the month. One announced that he should make his living lecturing on phrenology, another that he was sorely tried by our excessive levity, and another discovered before he had been here twelve hours that there was absolutely no harmony in the colony. Only those who have loved and labored in the realm and on the borders of crankdom can understand these things, and they did not and could not foresee them. Those who attempt an application of the law of love to economic problems will find themselves surrounded by every untutored crankism that is adrift, and they will be, as we are, criticised and censured very freely by all such. Neither the needy poor' nor the 'bloated plutocrat' will tax love so severely as the egotistical narrowminded crank. Well, he needs love most, and must be loved all the same."

We learn from The Social Gospel for June that this magazine had ceased to be a source of income to the community and had become a burden; that though for some time it had furnished the greater part of the income enjoyed, subscriptions had fallen off and the community was unable to meet the bills. Those engaged in its publication determined to take it elsewhere, believing that they could make it a greater power for good than it had been in the colony. The carrying out of this resolution caused a considerable part of the exodus already mentioned. With the departure of these there came to the creditors a fear that this was the beginning of the end, and they determined to take steps to protect themselves before mismanagement should dissipate existing values. So the colony passed into the hands of a receiver, because, as one says in The Social Gospel for August, "Productiveness of industries and pressure of debt are governed by laws that do not always come under those of brotherhood.”

It is pleasant to note, however, that the spirit of brotherhood did not share the fate of the colony so far as the prime movers are concerned. It is still alive, hopeful, and vigorous.

Two of the leaders in the Christian Commonwealth are publishing

The Social Gospel, at South Jamesport, N. Y., and others Social Ideals, at Elgin, Ill. Both publications are conducted on the cooperative plan, with the idea of making them bases and centers of a larger cooperative life. It is to be hoped that they will be conducted in a way to avoid the serious consequences which grew out of the published statements issued by the Commonwealth. The wide-open doors and the beautiful picture of brotherhood life which the Commonwealth publications presented drew hundreds of people (the president of the Commonwealth said over 500) from distant portions of the country to such a life of privation and destitution as seldom falls even to the lot of the pioneer. There was no attempt to deceive or defraud. There was no selfish scheme by which the movers hoped to profit at the expense of others. The movement was led by men sincerely desirous of serving their kind and willing to make any sacrifice of personal ease and comfort to that end. But they lacked business sense, and had no knowledge, apparently, of the necessary cost involved in such an undertaking, and so their philanthropic, humanitarian purposes became productive of more misery to hundreds of their brothers and sisters than had been the selfishness and greed of their "plutocratic oppressors.” The feeling was that open doors would be likely to draw the generous and large-hearted, the men and women who count it more blessed to give than to receive. But the actual experience was that more than 10 per cent of those who came came only to receive, and had to be expelled. It was impossible to provide adequately even for the workLack of ordinary comforts, and even of necessaries, bred increas ing dissatisfaction, and before the Commonwealth was old enough to begin to get returns on the outlays for buildings and orchards it was thrown into the hands of a receiver.

ers.

There was nothing unusual or abnormal in the relation of the sexes. Though the leaders were deeply religious and profoundly in earnest, they were thoroughly unsectarian in spirit, and placed their emphasis almost wholly on the ethical side. But the strain which came upon the people through the poverty and privations they were called upon to endure in their effort to establish the cooperative life was more than most of them could endure.

BROTHERHOODS.

Our age is marked by a special development of the brotherhood sentiment. There is also a widespread, though as yet ineffectual, effort to give this sentiment suitable embodiment and practical expression. In many of the attempts made to organize men and women for the work of social betterment the movers have found, or have seemed to find, in the word "brotherhood" the promise of all needed cohesive and propulsive power.

Hence we have "The Industrial Brotherhood," "The Cooperative

Brotherhood," "The Brotherhood Company," "The Brotherhood of the New Age," and "The Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth." Each of these aims at substantially the same result. Nor do they differ at all widely in their general plans or methods of procedure. They are all socialistic, and seek the ultimate establishment of a socialistic order a cooperative commonwealth. Only two of the number, however, have succeeded so far in establishing a single colony, and each of these colonies is having the usual experience of such organizationsa hard struggle to resist the discouraging influences of an unfriendly environment and the disintegrating tendencies of a selfish individualistic spirit. In both cases the parent bodies have practically ceased to be.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.

The Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth was organized in the fall of 1895, with headquarters in Maine. Its avowed objects were: 1. To educate people in the principles of socialism. 2. To unite all socialists in one fraternal association. 3. To establish cooperative colonies and industries, and, so far as possible, concentrate these colonies and industries in one State until said State is socialized.

By referendum vote the admission fee to any colony was fixed at $160. Money pouring in rapidly, an agent was sent in 1897 to find a suitable site for a colony in the State of Washington. Some 620 acres were finally secured in Skagit County, and colony No. 1, "Equality," was organized in November of the same year. In June, 1898, “Equality" became autonomous, and since that time the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth has had only a nominal existence. It is therefore needless to give even an outline of the constitution and by laws under which it proposed to organize and socialize the State. So far as can be learned there is no prospect of any further effort being made by the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth to organize other colonies.

A letter from the secretary of Equality Colony dated July 11, 1900, and treating of the Brotherhood movement, says:

I find it difficult to properly express the status of the B. C. C. during 1899. However, there seems but little to say except that the movement was conspicuous for its lack of activity. It conducted no active organization or propaganda except the publication of the weekly Industrial Freedom. Only two active local unions remained at the close of the year. The decline of the B. C. C. was steady and rapid, due, I should say, to

1. The crystallization of the movement into Equality Colony, and the granting of autonomy to same, June, 1898.

2. The resumption of commercial activity throughout the country, thus cooling the ardor of many who had been suffering under the hard times. On the other hand, Equality, the first, and, I feel safe in

saying, the last and only colony of the B. C. C., has made considerable material advancement and some progress in systematic workings; this despite our surfeit of democracy and manifest inability to keep ourselves supplied with specialists. Our lack of capital on the one hand and our need of extensive improvements on the other have prevented those who stayed with it from securing more than a pauper's living for their efforts, the outside world having practically withdrawn all support by the close of 1899. A large percentage of those who joined withdrew after about a year's stay, evidently having outlived the need of further experience in this line.

A later letter, dated July 14, 1900, in answer to specific questions, says the number of members is 120, Americans predominating. The number of married women is 21, and there are no single women over 19 years of age. Members are reported as having an "average" education, with a tendency to be "more reflective and argumentative than practical." The colony is preparing individual cottages as rapidly as possible, but at present 42 per cent of the people live in two "apartment houses.

Touching the disposition of members to shirk and lean, the testimony is that "there is not much of it." The chief regulative force is public opinion, and this "often becomes distorted and generates slander or gossip." Business management is said to be lax. Colonists do not take kindly to direction. The common notion of democracy resents the idea of being governed by others, but does not beget the self-government which renders government by others needless. Lack of competent, thoroughly qualified leadership tends to increase the friction. It is thought that too close association in "apartment houses" is a cause of dissension, and that the tendency of experience in Equality Colony is to less rather than more of communistic living.

THE COOPERATIVE BROTHERHOOD.

Though national and even international in its aims, this organization has thus far succeeded in organizing but a single colony. This is at Burley, Kitsap County, Wash., 14 miles northwest of Tacoma. While its principal object is one with that of the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth, the arrangement by which it hopes to draw a working fund from a nonresident membership, in return for a promised home in the colony after the payment of ten years' dues, is a distinguishing feature, and has already put over $16,000 into the treasury of the colony at Burley. This colony being the only one yet formed, all dues from nonresident members have been used in its development. When asked how the funds would be divided when other colonies were formed, the secretary replied, "All members of the organization join the C. B. direct. The colony is only a means to an end, and it is quite probable that industries established in some of our great cities for the purpose of furnishing employment to members will be a development