Men Against the State

CHAPTER II

Spring Hill, Tuscarawas and the New Harmony Interlude

The attempt to start a mutualist community in New York in 1830 died while still being contemplated. Robert Dale Owen was delayed in returning from England by the death of a relative, and activity failed to occur in his absence, since the movement had been predicated on aid from him. “All hope from that quarter vanished,” Warren commented cryptically.1 Why Owen did not support this unusual and exciting social adventure at a later time continues to be obscure. He never explained his loss of interest, and Warren’s silence as to the particulars was typical of his refusal to conduct extended post-mortems upon experiencing rebuffs and failures, which grew in number from this time onward.2 It is true that he was somewhat disappointed in his Cincinnati friends, who interpreted the sudden halt as the result of the realization of the in-advisability of the village as a mechanism for making “profits.” The lack of faith was a source of irritation, but the loss of support was deemed preferable to the risk of inaccurate printing of his communications by the newspapers. Distrust of the public press became one of Warren’s lifetime obsessions, but he continued to explain his economic views in the Free Enquirer. He now said, for the first time, that production should be regulated by demand in the equitable villages; that wear and tear of tools and machinery should be figured in the prices of the finished articles as so much labor consumed in their production, and that the freedom of access to craftsmen’s techniques would result in a type of society in which the harshness of the competitive processes would be immeasurably softened.3

Warren insisted that public opinion of the group of coöperators would establish a price for each article of commerce on the basis of the average number of hours expended in its production, with the attempt constantly being made to reduce this estimate as proficiency in production increased. Thus, he argued, if the labor price of a pair of shoes was estimated by his hypothetical community at ten hours, and one shoemaker succeeded in making a pair in six hours which compared with the average in quality, he would thus receive ten hours of labor on his behalf for his six. In like manner, the less skillful shoemaker who was able to produce a pair in no less than twelve hours would thus be forced to exchange twelve hours for ten. Since this was obviously uneconomic in his particular case, it was essential that complete freedom to experiment in other occupations be provided, until the person in question succeeded in developing skill in a trade or occupation which permitted him to maintain his position on an equitable basis within the group. This simple economic doctrine formed the basis of Warren’s attack upon the apprentice system, which he claimed produced monopolies of skills and encouraged a vicious, unnatural kind of competition. These, and other particulars of his equal exchange of labor teachings, appeared in various New York newspapers during this period of inaction.4

Restless and disillusioned by the lack of substantial aid from Owen, Warren left New York in August, 1830, and made his way back to Ohio. Here he renewed his former associations and friendships in social action. An interesting interlude now transpired, during which the practical aspects of coöperative labor exchange received their first test under community conditions. In May of this same year, while on his way to New York, he had become acquainted with a curious little group located at Spring Hill, just beyond Massillon, Ohio. In January, 1829, a group of five men under the leadership of Samuel Underhill5 had begun a small manual training school there which included a community of property arrangement for the twenty-five children under their care. The men were veterans of three Owenite colonies and recently had separated from that at Kendal,6 a few miles to the east on the outskirts of Canton. A year and a half before, the death of a Quaker lady named Charity Rotch had placed at their disposal the interest from a sum of $22,000 previously set aside for this purpose by her, for the benefit of an undesignated number of “poor children.” The bequest provided that the income of the communal school was to be augmented by the proceeds derived from the sale of the products of these children, who were, strangely enough, besides being required to attend school from three to four hours daily, made subject to a possible work day of an additional eight hours.7

Warren found this small group of men busily engaged with the boys and girls, all between the ages of ten and sixteen. The school was in the fifth month of its second year at the time of his visit. The situation of the orphan children in their new environment delighted and surprised him; to him it was proof of Owen’s theories in the most decisive manner. A subsequent dispatch printed in the Free Enquirer contained the following observations:8

I saw children who a little more than a year before were destitute orphans and who . . . might have been . . . shut up in a house of correction . . . a house of Refuge or some other monument of human ignorance, now living as happy as they could well be . . . I saw young females who, had they been in the cities, would have been compelled to waste away . . . in unremitting toil at their needles for 12½ cents a day or . . . to drag out a monotonous life of enervating servitude in the kitchens of the rich . . . I saw them here comparatively independent and daily acquiring an education . . . which would enable them to supply their own wants and conduct their own affairs. . . . The boys had acquired a practical knowledge of agriculture . . ., and the girls of housewifery and domestic economy.

Despite the functioning of the communal school, and the existing commitment to continue the venture under this arrangement for two more years,9 Underhill and his associates listened sympathetically to Warren’s proposal to change the basis of the economic activities to one of individualism, featuring the coöperation and cost price elements which he had developed in his Cincinnati store.10 It was to this little group of acquaintances that Warren returned, remaining for the better part of a year.11 During this period, several elements of the labor exchange plan were worked out. Along with the introduction of labor notes in a variety of activities, Warren reported satisfactory results in the new attack on apprenticeships. Twelve persons were reported to have learned to make shoes successfully in less than a month. Warren himself learned to make wagon wheels in five days. He also conducted a music school for twenty children upon the labor exchange idea, the pupils paying their share of the two hour lessons with their own labor notes for six minutes of their own time. At the same time investigations were carried on in learning the intricacies of iron working, spinning machinery, printing, type casting and house construction, in attempts to learn how soon the mastery of the skills involved could be done. This investigation continued into other activities which were considered vital to the beginning of an individualist colony without outside aid, Warren insisting that “the movement must be carried on by those who have nothing but their hands, their time, and their necessities.”12

At this same time, Warren began his experiments with vocational training for children, seeking among other things to convert young people into productive members of the community in as short a time as possible while avoiding injurious and artificial influences. He was convinced that the apprentice system and unequal pay for children either resulted in exploiting young people or in confining them to a parasitical existence in the interest of eliminating pressure for jobs. He sought the remedy in placing boys of eleven or twelve years of age upon their own resources, assuring them of full return for their efforts, and giving them full responsibility over their own activities and decisions. He insisted that admission of the young to adult circles, in economic matters at least, could begin much earlier than usually supposed, without any element of the exploitive paternalism generally associated with child labor within the family group.

He insisted also that the usual position of relationships be reversed in teaching trades, and that the pupil pay his instructor according to the time of the latter which was actually spent teaching the trade in question. “When we admit the rights of children,” Warren declared, “and acknowledge that there is no equitable ground of demands upon them, only as equivalents for what they receive of us, . . . and set an example which it would be safe and legitimate for them to follow out toward us . . . this, then, is education.”13

Acquaintance with the realities of life at an early age would provide an understanding of the law of self-preservation. Assurance that all exertion would be followed by a commensurate benefit or gratification would supply incentive or motivation for the assumption of independence in economic matters. All other approaches to child control, including demands for the practice of self-denial and arbitrary compliance to parental command, Warren deplored as double-standard selfishness and the wielding of “false power” over one’s child delegated by “ignorant law-makers.” The stories of a number of boys placed on the new equitable relations at Spring Hill were related by Warren, including that of the son of the director, who succeeded in making a pair of shoes for himself in less than two days, and continued in this capacity until the need of the community for other shoes had been fully supplied.14

Within a period of less than three years, then, a number of the elements of a non-exploitive economic self-sufficiency had been tried out: (1) the cost basis of price; (2) the coöperative nature of production with provision for individual responsibility in the matter of both quantity and quality; (3) the problem of artificial restraints on production represented by the apprenticeship system and the educational structure. When one includes Warren’s stand on money and land with these matters, it can be seen that the logical extension of these economic doctrines led to a rejection of the state, but such considerations were not of particular concern at this time. Later exponents of anti-statism recognized this repeatedly, when the state’s function in protecting the economic and social structure of society came under direct fire and when the term “anarchism” had begun to be used to designate opposition to institutional government.15

The decision to delay the formation of a full-fledged mutualist colony until the termination of the Spring Hill contract, which was not scheduled until 1833, brought about Warren’s discussion of the political character of equity and its collision with the existing order of things. Having become convinced that the silence of the newspapers at the time of his 1827 time store had been due to deference to the pressure of their merchant advertisers, he carried the fight into a new area. He succeeded in developing a cheap modified proof press which, when used in conjunction with an ingenious stereotyping invention, not only drew repeated attention in New York16 but enabled him to become a publisher and delineator of his own brand of radicalism. “Printing is a power that governs the destinies of mankind,” declared Warren in 1830; “those who can control the Printing Press can control their fellow creatures.”17 The step from inventor to that of pioneer anarchist pamphleteer was no longer difficult to make.

Warren’s time for the next two years was taken up by a variety of activities. He returned to Cincinnati, attempted to market his new press, and formed a small group for the purpose of discussing and studying the social questions which he now challenged. His former associate, John Pickering, became a prominent supporter at this time. Spirited arguments took place relative to the merits of “equitable commerce,” a number of which were admitted to be highly critical, although the nature of the criticism was never made known by Warren in his printed works.18 Of his activities in the Cincinnati cholera epidemic of 1832, little is known beyond the fragmentary reminiscences of his son, over sixty years later.19

In January, 1833, the first issue of The Peaceful Revolutionist ap-peared.20 Warren had previously confined his attentions to economic matters, concentrating on principles which tended to promote the survival of a coöperative group within the state but ignoring its processes. Now he engaged in vigorous criticisms of political and philosophical content. Buttressing his rebel’s approach by a serious study of Alexander Bryan Johnson’s pioneer work on semantics, A Treatise on Language,21 he made use of the current national crisis, especially the proposed Georgia general convention of the states and the nullification controversy to serve as illustrations in championing his brand of individualism as the correct foundation of social organization, at the same time delivering a blast at government and law as agencies utilizing coercive authority derived solely from majority sanction.

Government and law, argued Warren, were merely forms of language, not material things, and as such were by their nature subject to an innumerable variety of different definitions, constructions, and applications. It was unrealistic for the Georgia legislature to become disturbed by “conflicting interests” which had recently gained national prominence. They were but a natural consequence of assumed powers resulting from confused concepts of law and government.22 Continuing along the line of abstract semantic analysis and ignoring the impact of ideological acceptance which made discussion of such nature real to the general public, Warren made light of nullification as he brusquely interpreted the whole matter as a quarrel between “dignity and liberty,—one a shadow and the other a ghost”:23

Dignity insists upon it that the laws shall be obeyed: and that the union must be preserved: but these two words must and shall rouse the ghost of murdered liberty to resistance. Dignity abandons the real subject of dispute, and resolves the whole matter into a mystical reverence for the two words union and laws. I say for two words: because if we look for their meaning, we find, as in all other words of a general and indefinite character, there are very few, if any, who will agree in their manner of applying them. If the word law has ever meant one thing more than another, that thing has been the will of those in power.

Having made this stark observation, he went on to say that union in the sense of a similarity of interests, feelings, objectives, mutual assistance and “coöperating action” had never existed except in time of grave peril. The nearest thing to such a state of affairs had been present only at the time of the Revolution, a matter of reality and not a mere verbalism. Since the union then had been a creature of circumstances, the fight for separation from England, it should have ceased at the termination of the struggle. The subsequent “compact of union,” however, he considered an “incomprehensible something” into which our ancestors had been “betrayed.” It required all to register similarity in thought and action without reason to demand or power to compel. If a universally-held sentiment of any kind prevailed at all, Warren persisted, it was the desire to be free to differ from others, for which the existing framework of government made no provision. Without respect for the right to disassociate, non-coercive preservation of the union was an impossibility.24

Warren’s unqualified attachment to the exchange of equivalents at or near labor cost put him on the side of the South at least in the matter of economics.25 A tariff was a most invasive act, little better than thievery on a genteel, while collar level. Opposition to collection of a portion of a neighbor’s property to pay for services neither received nor desired became a traditional anarchist policy in later years. Its earliest statement by Warren was brought out by the circumstances attending the resistance by South Carolina to imposition and collection of duties by the federal government. Warren ignored the political and personal issues involved, and blamed the business system for the origin and spread of the tariff as idea and as policy. He indicted “foreign and domestic capitalists” for having precipitated the controversy, including the waste of money involved and the possible provocation of a civil war, the thought of which he abhorred. Warren’s position was more than a criticism of the protection-of-infant-industry tariff argument. His solution consisted in the adoption of the non-profit labor exchange. Had it prevailed from early times, the coöperating interests essential to national good will would have been produced, and “it would have swept away the whole foundation of the tariff, and all the enormous expenses of time and money, and the difficulties and disaster of which the subject has been or may be the cause.”26

The prophetic flavor of this latter remark gives evidence of some acquaintance with the nature of the national unrest which had been quietly brewing since the time of the Missouri Compromise, even though Warren never showed understanding or sympathy for representative government along constitutional lines. Despite an attempt at simplification of a complex problem by the substitution of a decentralized economy, he was aware of the weight of the forces of opposition to any adjustment of society on such radical lines as he suggested. These forces he saw buried within the structure of the state, sheltered by the bulwark of statute law. Henceforth the concept of the state and state-made law came in for increasing criticism.

He concluded that individuals rather than law were the vital agency in governing under any legal system, due to the importance of interpretation by administrators. “Every election illustrates this,” Warren expostulated; “we are told that our destinies depend on the election of this or that man to office! Why? This shows that it is men and not laws or principles that govern society.”27 The making of laws one year and their repeal the next, the reversals of judges and juries upon identical cases, all this was evidence enough to show, he thought, that there was no security in law and that it must be sought elsewhere. The wild fluctuation of legislation and the political intrigue associated with the public land controversy convinced him that laws and governments were public means for use as private ends. Warren challenged the right of the state to grant land titles. Such action was little more than official interference directly resulting in the creation of special privilege:28

The greatest crime which can be committed against society and which causes poverty and lays the foundation of almost all other crimes is the monopoly of the soil: this has not only been permitted but protected or perpetrated by every government of modern times up to the last accounts from the congress of the United States.

Punishment of crimes against property in such situations was grave injustice. Yet it was in this manner that the people’s money continued to be spent, in the enforcement of legislation by delegated authority. The legislators themselves, he argued, should be subject to severe penalties as well for having acted in the above capacity, if consistency was to be preserved in this matter.29

An expression of anti-state sentiments on still another current issue appeared in the pages of Warren’s pioneer publication. This was the matter of projected government aid to the establishment of public schools. His philosophy of education, based on the results of the Spring Hill experiences and his experiments in his own family,30 inclined him strongly toward individualism and decentralized power in matters of education. Such a background made him unusually sensitive toward political influence in the educational structure. “The power of educating the rising generation is of too much importance to be trusted in a manageable shape in the hands of any small body of men, as society is now constituted”;31 having botched the land and tariff questions, there was little hope that lawmakers would prevent education from becoming another stronghold of irregularities. Stressing the need of placing young people on their own responsibilities at as early an age as possible, his object was to make them productive members of the community and reduce potential parasitism to a minimum.

It was not strange to hear such a philosophy in a frontier environment not yet complicated by the problem of widespread use of labor-saving machinery and the ever-widening pools of unemployed which featured the swings of the business cycles of the following century. It held that children should be paid on the same level as adults for production of comparable quantity and quality. This would encourage independence and seriously weaken the base upon which exploitation of child labor rested, he felt sure. The proverbial resistance of children to formal education would become a memory, if placed upon their own resources and forced by experience to learn the consequences of inaction or inertia; self-dependence would actually increase the desire for instruction. Schools in his social scheme existed to make children expertly acquainted with the techniques of making a living, as well as providing them with the rudiments of a cultural background.

Warren criticized as deplorable and unnecessary the use of arbitrarily inflicted punishments and the customary repressions of the school system; “The natural rewards and punishments of their conduct . . . I consider the only species of government that does not produce more evil than good.”32 Such was the simple solution to the problem of inducting the young within the loose structure of the mutualist community sketched by its first prominent exponent in America. The opportunity to observe these fundamentals in practice on the community level had finally arrived, moreover. The contract of the Quaker manual training school had expired the month Warren’s publishing venture began,33 thus releasing the members for a new experiment in community life.

Warren understood the necessity of starting the adventure in individualist voluntarism in fresh circumstances, which made the acquisition of land in a relatively isolated area imperative.34 A tract of four hundred acres was selected and purchased in Tuscarawas county, which became the site of the first anarchist community in America, years before anything similar was attempted in Europe.35 Warren himself was there intermittently at the start, the original group on the grounds consisting of only six families.36 The first few dwellings erected by the cooperators made use of the labor for labor principle. A few weeks later a steam saw mill was erected and operated on a mutual basis, another unprecedented innovation. This was an imperfectly worked-out trial, a partial answer to Warren’s approach to capital in the form of one of the means of production, and in some degree indicates the reason for the limited appeal of his views on such matters to those who heard them propounded.37

It had been decided at a meeting at Spring Hill in February, 1831 that all capital to be invested in the mill was to be obtained through voluntary contribution, and such persons were to understand that there was to be no return in the form of interest. Warren insisted that the persons comprising the investors, apparently the majority of the members of the community, were to be free at all times to withdraw their capital, but admitted that such action would seriously embarrass the operations projected. Despite such weakness of structure, it is evident that it served its principal purpose, the supplying of lumber for the constructing of houses at an unusually cheap price as compared to prevailing rates in the surrounding countryside. No explanation was made as to how the approximate labor cost of a product resulting from the applied efforts of several persons was tabulated. Modern critics of the Warren approach profess inability to reconcile it with the complexities furnished by present-day assembly line production with its blending of productive tasks in an overall social function, for example. With reference to Tuscarawas, this account of the labor exchange in practice is lost. In other particulars, the village realized the aspirations of community life with a maximum of individual freedom and lacking an elected officialdom, but it was not destined to succeed.

Unlike the majority of the communities of the time, Tuscarawas declined for other than economic reasons. Faulty judgment had resulted in locating the settlement on land in a low-lying area, which subjected the residents to a variety of illnesses. The principal one, judging from a description of its symptoms, was malaria, endemic in the river valleys of the old Northwest at this time and extending as far north as Detroit. By the end of the first summer, half of the adults were incapacitated, and most of the activities of the group had come to a standstill. Despite the grave concern now over the location, the company agreed to try a second year, which proved disastrous. Prostrations from disease increased, culminating in an epidemic of influenza during the winter of 1834 which spread death among some thirty families.38

The result was the abandonment of the first equity village early in 1835, in the face of difficulties produced by natural forces beyond the control of the settlers. It was a painful decision to make in view of the otherwise successful operations. Warren left the site before the remainder of the company, some of whom lingered in the vicinity for another two years. The fact that the colony represented their entire wealth, invested in land and buildings, made it especially difficult for some to leave. Complete removal, made ultimately at a staggering loss, was not done until 1837.39

Despite the abortive character of Tuscarawas, the band of Warrenites taking part in its founding made discoveries which had lasting influence. A brand of community life based on voluntary assent and lacking the formalities of majority rule40 was entertained without calamity or social chaos. The extreme reverence for individuality in all aspects of social life, an impossibility in the highly centralized urban life of the country two generations later, was modified in accordance with the Warrenite conception of the labor cost theory. It is true that the equitists realized the deleterious effect which monopoly operation of machinery was capable of having on the labor cost exchanges, but under practical conditions, neither the finding of the labor cost price of products of social effort nor separation of capital interests took place. Yet this did not result in any irreconcilable situation.41

Tuscarawas became an inspiration rather than a source of dismay to Josiah Warren and his associates. The intention of trying once more had been voiced repeatedly before dispersal took place. The time and place were to be determined when a sufficient amount of capital had once more been accumulated. The anarchist character of Warren’s objective continued to be negative; no intent to overthrow any existing order ever became part of his strategy. Compared to the propaganda on the grand scale of the European school, his objectives were excessively modest. He built simply upon the assertion of the possibility of economic survival of the small self-sufficient community within the structure of the state, complemented by determination to ignore all institutions of the latter in a passive manner, when they were not founded so as to respect individual sovereignty and voluntary coöperation.

Enthusiasm and conviction notwithstanding, community activity along individualist lines ceased for over ten years after the final dissolution of Tuscarawas. The intervention of two unexpected developments helped postpone this matter, contributing to the shifting of Warren’s attention elsewhere temporarily. One of these was the business and financial panic of 1837, the other the meteoric rise and spread of the joint-stock associationism of Charles Fourier, which dominated the persons with a bent for community-joining for the next decade. Both factors tended to inhibit individualist community attempts, although they stimulated individualist literature of notable quality.42 Warren regarded the Fourierite association as little more than a resurgency of the Owenite community of property. Nevertheless, he expressed great admiration for the energetic propagation of its basic ideas. In fact, he ascribed part of his inability to further his own ideas as due to the devotion of the Fourierite propagandists, observing with ill-concealed satisfaction at a later time that the rapid abandonment of the great majority of the phalanxes contributed to a revived interest in “equitable commerce.”43

Conflicting accounts are responsible for the lack of accurate information concerning Warren from the time of his removal from the scene at Tuscarawas.44 The next twelve years comprise a feverish record of constant moving, inventions, spasmodic publishing and further minor social and economic experimentation. Leaving Cincinnati once more,45 he returned to New Harmony, the scene of his introduction to the heady brew of societary reconstruction. The first few years found him concerned with the problems of making a living in an economy demoralized by the reigning panic and depression. The family had hardly settled down in New Harmony, when the urge to continue work on a printing press of unorthodox construction found him returning to Cincinnati in the spring of 1839.46 In about eight months he perfected and constructed a new “high speed” press, printing from continuous rolls of paper at a rate of three to four thousand impressions an hour, an achievement previously unheard of in the Northwest country, and unmatched except by the most advanced innovations in printing which were coming into use in the urban East.47 Although not a true web press,48 the speed of the new machine caused consternation among the printers of Evansville, where it was taken after completion to be used in the publication of the Southwestern Sentinel.49 Warren, thinking along cost lines, figured he had produced an instrument of benefaction, but for the first time collided with the phenomenon of sabotage, a growing weapon of labor in fighting monopolistic control and manipulation of labor-saving machinery.50 Returning once more to New Harmony, he found himself called repeatedly to Evansville to repair calculated breakdowns. This continued for about two years, following which he dismantled the machine and brought it to New Harmony, where he used part of it himself in his own printing operations.51

Warren found New Harmony apathetic to his labor exchange program. Ten years had brought about numerous changes in attitudes among several segments of the town’s population, including a merchant-landowning circle of individuals who by this time had become conservative. These persons were especially opposed to any tampering with prevailing attitudes, and their first efforts inhibited most of the proposals intended to demonstrate the principles of equity. His attempt to conduct a manual training academy, or as he styled it, a “labor for labor seminary,” was effectively scuttled52 after operating for a few months early in 1840. Public lectures on the subject, delivered in the Rappite Community House No. 1 during March of the same year brought concerted opposition from the local merchants when it became known that a revival of the time store had been freely and favorably discussed.53

Discouraged by the show of opposition which closed the town to his ideas, and by the lack of aid in any substantial form, he again journeyed into Ohio, lecturing in Cincinnati and vicinity.54 While here, utilizing his skill in printing and his new press, he brought out another shortlived anarchist periodical, the Herald of Equity, in February, 1841.55 Once more, he doggedly attacked the conventional methods of exchange, and expounded the labor cost principle in a form which appeared practically unaltered in all subsequent native anarchist economic writing.

Warren insisted that society no longer could entertain the identification of cost with value; the two terms had no common denominator. “Value to the receiver is an unjust, a false standard of price,” he said.56 The idea that the price of an object was what it would bring on the market he called “the pitfall of the working classes.” When coupled to the accepted relation of supply and demand, this merely created a state of “civilized cannibalism.” The most successful speculator conscious of maximum want was enabled to practice a type of scientific extortion upon the community. Using gross extremes for examples, he was completely at a loss to find justification for this device. For instance, what was the price of a loaf of bread to a starving man, when taken from the standpoint of need? Attempting to inject humanitarianism into economics, Warren could find nothing suggesting justice in such or similar situations, unless it be based on his ubiquitous exchange of equivalent amount of labor time spent in production.57

By this time the element of repugnance as a factor in determining labor time had entered the picture. This, along with the relative intensity of the industry involved, perennial vexations to labor cost theorists, had been encountered at Tuscarawas, and became items of concern as time went on.58

When it came to the matter of the utilization of labor currency as the circulating medium, Warren, with a sense of grim satisfaction, saw it as a principle leading eventually in the elimination of two pet grievances, banks and bankers. “All money and bank notes as now known and used, act as drafts or demands upon labor and they are all issued by those who do not labor,” he angrily declaimed. Convinced that bankers performed no functions serving the wants of group living, no possible manner in which they or any other “non-productive” elements of “society” might share in the products of labor presented itself to him.59 In this starkly materialistic conception, the doctrine of equitable labor exchange confined control of its exchange medium to the participating members exclusively. Although it remained for later associates to more fully expand the indictment of banking as a consciously created and protected monopoly of the state, the Warren condemnation contained the core of anarchist sentiment. When viewed against the backdrop of distress occasioned by the panic and controversy over the re-chartering of the United States Bank, the notorious corruption associated with the wild cat banks, and the intensified shortage of credit existing, it is probable that Warren was speaking for more than people of his own particular convictions.

Mid-November, 1841 found Warren back in New Harmony.60 The seven years since Tuscarawas had not erased his enthusiasm for new experiments in coöperative economy. The relative improvement of his fortunes by this time, reinforced by the unsubstantiated belief that the attraction toward Fourierism had declined among those of the general public who still had hopes for economic reform, combined to encourage once more a “plunge into the arena,” as he dramatically described the decision to operate another time store.

The resistance of the merchants to the establishment of a store selling at near cost price again made its appearance, but only partial success attended their efforts this time. Lectures in the surrounding countryside had their effect, and encouraged by support from several sources within the town, Warren spent the winter of 1841-1842 preparing to open the store.61 Stocked with the usual staples at the start, obtained primarily from Cincinnati wholesale dealers, the New Harmony time store opened for business on March 22, 1842. Unable to obtain access to property in the town proper, the venture was located approximately half a mile south, on the Mount Vernon Road. Again the customers took part in the voluntary labor for labor exchange, making use of the familiar labor note currency.62 The drastic cut in prices attracted a widely scattered patronage, some of the participants coming from points as far as one hundred miles from New Harmony.63 In view of the discussion provoked by the functioning of the labor exchange at Tuscarawas, there now entered into the issue of labor currency the matter of intensity of work and also the further qualifying circumstance of previous training, which for the first time was considered a legitimate portion of the cost of labor. As in Cincinnati, each individual decided the value of his own labor note, the expectation being that the general opinion of the people involved in the labor exchange would eventually set an average for the various products and services in terms of labor price.

The matter of depreciation and possible non-redemptions, the former the result of over-issue, were more theoretical than actual weaknesses, even if there were instances of both.64 Warren said that counterfeit currency and bank failures cause far more losses than unredeemed and over-issued labor notes. In several cases, the labor notes assumed a degree of validity to him which surpassed his faith in the nation’s currency. While in New York, sixteen years later, he admitted having New Harmony labor notes, accepted in 1842 for several types of services, which he firmly believed would be honored even then, had he cared to present them for redemption.65 Despite the fact that such notes might present no danger of depreciation, the promise to furnish a specified amount of time in some occupation over sustained periods of time was predicated upon the physical ability and willingness to perform when the note was presented. Labor currency, like other types involving the element of faith, was not able to completely escape the psychological difficulty created by the operation of ideological and moral issues upon otherwise mechanical factors.

Josiah Warren’s second time store created a memorable impression upon the town of New Harmony. The impact of the new rock-bottom pricing on the credit structure erected by the local merchants was disastrous,66 but even more ominous in the eyes of the orthodox were the bi-monthly discussions of the affairs of the labor exchange participants in the once-forbidden Rappite Community House No. I,67 an affair which promised to undermine the local retail situation even more. It was no more the intention to disrupt the economic order of New Harmony68 than it had been in Cincinnati a decade and a half before, but for the second time Warren had to bow before the expedient use of his methods by a group which understood the immediate results of such a system but preferred to ignore the original impulse responsible for it in the first place. Warren once more admitted failure after having demonstrated on the simplest practical level in the hopes of setting up in the nearby area another equitable colony. No newspapers in the area risked the wrath of advertisers to print his few communications, and the entire affair was shunned by the prominent residents of the town. A pair of small periodicals, The Gazette of Equitable Commerce, which he put out, and The Problem Solved, an effort of an associate, Thomas Varney, both failed. Warren recalled that the former acquired only four subscribers in the two years of operation.69 As a result, he found that the “community people” of New Harmony were not interested in his activities other than taking advantage of their effectiveness against the incipient local monopolies of their own merchants. Favorable reports70 on the soundness of the store notwithstanding, its doors closed in March, 1844, and the attempt to found a mutualist community in the environs of New Harmony was slowly strangled by apathy. If the Owenite communities of property disintegrated as a result of indecision after a brief period of great promise, a parallel can be seen in the dissipation of Warrenism in hesitancy and inaction.

The time store idea persevered, however. A small number of farmers and local workers of scanty means felt its loss severely at this time, and agitated for the beginning of another.71 The mid-forties were still opportune times for the re-birth of the old community ideas and the intellectual radicalism usually attending their discussion. Robert Owen had returned to the old haunts in October, 1844,72 just at the height of the feverish political campaign which saw his son Robert Dale waging a successful fight for re-election to the United States House of Representatives. The cause of the respectable liberals in New Harmony and vicinity found expression in the pages of Alexander Burns, Jr.’s Indiana Statesman, which devoted most of its pages to castigations of Henry Clay and the Whigs of Posey County, while carefully side-stepping Warren’s perturbing doctrines. The uncomfortable slavery and land reform issues fared no better, however, even though dispatches from sundry reform papers sometimes obtained brief recognition in the exchanges.

Despite the unceasing propaganda for his own reform interests, the champion of mutualism sided wholeheartedly with the local affiliates of George Henry Evans and their campaign for free homesteads and limitation on the ownership of land. Although his principal objective in starting the time store had been the destruction of the credit system, which he decried as “that monstrous second feudalism,”73 the loss of lands as the result of tax delinquency was a cause of much apprehension on his part as well as distress in the county.74 Although he never joined the Free Land Association, having rejected political action,75 his efforts as a printer were at their disposal as a means of reaching the public.76

It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Warren’s last bid for sup-port among New Harmony’s radicals, in the early months of 1847, was hardly noticed. Impressed by the enthusiasm of Evans and Lewis Masquerier and the bright promises reflected in the pages of Young America, the erstwhile sympathizers of coöperative colonization had by now placed their hopes in the quest of free land through political pressure.77 With the aid of a handful of supporters, Warren resolutely went about acquiring land around his previous time store. A third time store began retailing goods there on February 16, 1847.78 The labor note system went into use at the same time, accompanied by ambitious plans for the sale of lots to potential settlers who in the aggregate were to comprise what he whimsically referred to as “That Village.”79 Plans were completed for a twentieth anniversary convention on the grounds on May 18 to celebrate the opening of the first store in Cincinnati. But doubt as to the possible survival value of this last effort began to assail him before the winter was over, and he decided to sell his interests in the ill-fated trial before it was hardly more than two months old.80 On this wavering note the period of social experimentation in New Harmony ended, almost two decades after the dissolution of the parent inspiration of the entire impulse.

The expectation of outside aid, especially from the Owens, was no longer in consideration. The patriarch of New Lanark saw little hope in colonization schemes except as they might be based on religious grounds; the Shaker settlement at New Lebanon, Pennsylvania seemed to point the way to him in the late fall of 1845.81 On the other hand, his son, erstwhile associate of Frances Wright and friend of a dozen reform movements, immersed now in Indiana and national politics, continued on cordial terms with Warren, but his interest in the latter’s social experimentation no longer prevailed. A more practical phase of Warren’s activity now furnished the attraction to Owen, his never-ceasing researches in the fundamentals of printing.

Turning from presses to type faces, he brought out two small volumes in 1844 which made use of a revived interest in an early eighteenth century stereotyping process.82 This involved the substitution of a composition of unusual hardness in the place of metal, which reduced printing costs markedly and furthered the contest with publishers in general.83 These pioneer booklets, which sought to revolutionize the system of musical notation and thereby enable aspiring musicians to reduce the expense and duration of training, met no better fate than any of his other earlier accomplishments, other than to further the development of what he later designated as “Universal Typography.”84

Warren compromised his principles in respect to previous unyielding theoretical opposition to patents. At the urging of Owen’s sons and his old friend, the midwestern scientific agricultural pioneer Solon Robinson, the process was patented in the spring of 1845.85 Robinson not only brought the documents to the Patent Office at this time, but acted as agent for Warren. While travelling through the Midwest, he publicized its merits, which were recognized by editors with whom he came in contact all along the Ohio.86 The inventor himself illustrated his ability as an engraver with numerous examples of his artistry, several of which embellished the heretofore stark pages of New Harmony’s weekly journal.87

Regardless of patent protection and the attendant publicity, no attempt was made to plumb the commercial possibilities of the composition cast method of stereotyping. To Warren it meant more as an opportunity to expand his own printing activities, especially in broadcasting the message of equitable commerce. Since he had contemplated for some time publishing a comprehensive summary of his philosophy and explorations in social matters, it now was possible to fulfill these aspirations with a minimum of expense. Despite the interruptions caused by the handicaps of working without help in an endeavor where the benefits of division of labor were obvious, the work persevered. The difficulties were not all mechanical; Warren was not a literary man, and wrote painfully, in a simple but often stilted style, which was further burdened by a somewhat archaic vocabulary, even in the estimate of his contemporaries.88 The final product of two years of collation and revision of a mass of notes taken sporadically for almost twenty years, all its imperfections considered, was a document of undeniable simplicity. Published in April, 1847,89 Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce became the first important publication of anarchist doctrine in America, and with minor deletions, additions and revisions, went into more editions within the next thirty years than any other product of native anarchist thought to this time.90

Equitable Commerce as an expression of social discontent catches much of the flavor of the world-wide revolt sentiment of the mid-nineteenth century. In an apocalyptic discourse reminiscent of, but anticipating Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Warren also looked out upon a civilization approaching a revolutionary crisis, but with the battle lines being drawn on a broad parasite-producer rather than the more limited capitalist-industrial worker line:91

Society has been in a state of violence, of revolution and suffering, ever since its first formation; and at this moment, the greatest number are about to array themselves against the smaller, who have, by some subtle and hidden means lived luxuriously upon their labor without rendering an equivalent. Governments have lost their power of governing by their own operations. Laws have become powerless from their inherent defectiveness and their iniquitous perversion. The grinding power of capital is everywhere felt to be irresistible by the ordinary means—the right of the strongest begins to be openly admitted to a frightful extent, and many of the best minds look forward to an age of confusion and violence, with the confidence of despair. The cry of misery and the call for remedy are heard from all quarters.

The Warrenite program, however, discarded familiar reform interpretations and solutions, all varieties of collectivism, paternalism, violent revolutionary and political action. Elaborating on some of the ideas already expressed in other writings and further confirmed by experience and convictions produced thereby, he launched a delineation of the individualist stand on the proper reward of labor, security of personal property and freedom of the individual.92 Summed up in the two slogans “Sovereignty of the Individual” and “Cost the Limit of Price,” Equitable Commerce concentrated on preparing a case for this kind of individualism. The belief in the absolute inviolability of the individual personality expressed in its pages placed him in a camp opposite from the advocates of reform through legislation or violence.

In Warren’s estimation, liberty and security were complementary, not opposites; liberty was the foundation upon which security of both person and property rested, and as long as there was one insecure person, there was potential insecurity for all others.93 This called for location in proper relation of power, which for each individual extended over his own person and property, and not beyond.94 This was expected to result in the undermining of the structure of all authority obtained from any other source than that of voluntary grant. To admit boundless individuality in nature and then to create institutions requiring agreement contrary to one’s will appeared the height of contradiction. Personal differences were an inseparable part of the individual personality, which he refused to see by-passed in the “pursuit of policy and expediency.”95 On this basis he rejected institutional activity which ultimately depended upon compliance on the part of the members unable to see it conducive to their best interests to do so, or which compromised them by demanding conformity as the price for favors allegedly furnished.96

In the vein of his earlier writings on law, Warren continued to castigate legislation as one aspect of this denial of individual freedom. He objected particularly to the demand of unconditional fealty from all, enthusiastic or hesitant, to the wishes of the larger number.97 Warren saw no virtue in majorities; to him right was not a quantitative matter to be determined by sheer numbers.98 Should a thing be an evil when espoused by a few, the support of a larger number at a later time did not automatically change its nature, making what had been reprehensible now respectable and desirable. He refused to consider the manipulation of verbal symbols “laws” in the same sense:99

Words are the tenure by which everything is held by law, and words are subject to different interpretations, according to the views, wills, or interests of the judges, juries, and other functionaries appointed to execute these laws. In this uncertainty of interpretation lies the great fundamental element of insecurity. . . . No language is fit for any such purposes that admits of more than one individual interpretation, and none can be made to possess this necessary individuality; therefore no language is fit for the basis of human institutions. To possess the interpretating power of verbal institutions is to possess unlimited power.

Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area.100 Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens.101 What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power.102 Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent.103 On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars,104 compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.

Warren proposed a solution which dispensed with government other than that of each person over himself; “. . . never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time and property, each living and acting at his own cost; . . . The only ground upon which man can know liberty is that of disconnection, disunion, individuality.”105 American radical writing has few expressions which match the determination found in this piece of anti-statist literature, even though the complexity of human relationships in modern urban industrial society make its message of separation of interests sound of little use or pertinence. Other than this course, Warren predicted, would only increase conflicts and consequently would require more direction from the “outside,” more mediation, more intervention, which he termed “government.”106

The next part of the exposition of the ideal equitable society described the process whereby the aims of the individual and the needs of society were to be blended. The dog-eat-dog kind of “individualism” Warren saw all about him caused him considerable concern. His aim was to avoid the initiative-destroying propensities of the community of property, with which he was all too familiar.107 Keeping in mind physical and intellectual variables present among persons, he built up his version of an economy geared to a system of exchanges which used the labor cost of production as its sole guide.108 He proposed an economic structure consisting of producing members, acting either alone or in groups organized entirely on the principle of voluntary cooperation to make the most from the known advantages of division of labor. In all cases there was to be full individual responsibility, a condition to be arrived at by agreement where more than one person was involved. Only under such circumstances would it be possible for a group to live socially without the committal of powers of decision into the hands of an arbiter, judge, politician or other representative of outside agency claiming to operate in the interests of the group, in which he included the churches.109 No halfway process would be of any avail, because it was impossible to surrender a definite quantity of one’s liberty. Once erected, a government always tended to encroach upon what it did not control, due to its control over the interpretation of the language which delegated the powers it first obtained.110

The way of life which Warren sought to inaugurate according to Equitable Commerce incorporated a number of considerations which were bound to make the entire project unpalatable to most of the affluent and comfortable members of society among his readers, and to all those with ambitions of carving out for themselves a higher position in the existing order. The ultimate re-organization of society on the basis of decentralized local communities in which the needs and capabilities of all might be readily learned,111 was expected to lead to the circumvention of political boundaries and the placing of all inter-community relations on a voluntary level as well.112 It was assumed that community services would be supplied in a superior manner by individuals who contracted to furnish them when called for by those who wanted and paid for such conveniences.113 Warren mentioned nothing concerning the problem of inter-community transportation and communication. Furthermore, this system was predicated on the theory that there was an optimum community size, following the attainment of which it was expected that additional communities would develop nearby to the parent. In developing this matter, Warren appeared to be thinking in terms of the experiences of the last year at New Harmony during its Owenite phase, although Owen himself had stated before New Harmony the necessity of limiting the size of the community.114

One of the primary requirements of the self-sufficient society was his insistence on the decentralization of manufactures, to be confined to the production for satisfaction of local needs exclusively. Among other things, this was considered beneficial in order to fix responsibility for the utility and quality of the products, which were variables over which consumers in a profit economy far removed from the site of production had practically no control.115

With respect to machinery, the position taken in some ways anticipated Henry George. Warren did not look upon it as a separate factor of production, but merely a combination of the two he recognized, land, or raw materials, and the labor which went into its production. The combined labor of producing the materials incorporated in the machine, in addition to that needed to construct the machine itself equalled what he called the “cost” of the machine, and belonged to the laborers and inventors who conceived and built it. Machinery was a social benefaction only so long as it made products available priced to consumers in terms of cost of production. The displacement of labor resulting from the introduction of machinery might seek employment in other activities not yet fully mechanized, having benefited from the cheapened product now resulting from the technological innovation.116 Warren looked forward to a future work day of two or three hours through the abolition of craft monopolies and the social sharing of the benefits of machine production.117 He did not believe that needs were indefinitely expansible, and thought that if technical production was geared to needs, there would be none of the pernicious effects of speculative manufacture with its disastrous accompaniments of “over-production” and subsequent destruction for the purpose of preserving price levels.

Warren’s opposition to the private ownership of machinery on the basis of a patent monopoly or any other contingency except actual construction was no more resolute than his opposition to the acquisition of land for speculative purposes.118 While fifteen years before he had questioned land titles themselves, he now was willing to accept the prevailing division, providing all land sales subsequent to the original purchase involved no addition to what he called the “prime cost” beyond expenses resulting from surveying, drawing up of contracts, and even taxes,119 to which there was no expression of resistance, a remarkable concession.

Equitable Commerce contained the now-familiar exposition of the labor note currency, with variations resulting from discrepancies which previous trial now exposed. Warren sought to solve the problem caused by the refusal of some members in his previous labor exchange to participate in accepting similar amounts of any member’s time. This came as a result of his declaration that work of greatest repugnance was worthy of the highest remuneration, since distastefulness must be considered one of the elements of “cost” if anyone was to perform the unpleasant tasks in a non-coercive society.120 It was felt that the undermining of this principle destroyed the whole basis of the labor exchange plan. Another novelty in the statement of the labor notes bore on the issue created by persons with different evaluations of labor time. Although Warren had repudiated gold and silver and all other commodity-backed moneys as inferior to the direct matching of labor for labor, in Equitable Commerce he decided that there should be an alternative to the acceptance of the actual labor of the person presenting any given note. This resulted in the concession to back the labor currency with “Indian” corn, which was judged to be superior to metals with respect to ease of determining its cost of production in man hours.121 All subsequent labor notes bore guarantees of payment in a number of pounds of corn.

The latter portion of Equitable Commerce is devoted to a description of the steps to be taken in forming an equitist village, which Warren believed the most important part. Yet his work is best remembered as the earliest document of importance in the definition of individualist anarchism along theoretical and intellectual lines. The limited edition of this work no doubt set the boundaries of its contemporary influence, a matter which is still quite difficult to determine. Whereas the devotion to the ideal of complete individual autonomy may have struck responsive notes in a number of circles, it is doubtful if in the United States of the late 1840’s, with territorial expansion, war and the slavery controversy occupying most of the stage, that there was an area of receptiveness for the supra-nationalism, the bitter institutional criticism and the economic propositions contained in this slim volume.

Warren had no intention of creating a sensational incident and a focus for violent language by placing his ideas and the results of his investigations and experiences within the perusing reach of those with polemical predispositions. The concluding pages had a note of abdication on his part in the event of such incidence, which in many ways was the index of Warren’s personality and a source of criticism at a later time:122

I decline all noisy, wordy, confused and personal controversies. This subject is presented for calm study, and honest inquiry; and after having placed it fairly before the public, I shall leave it to be estimated by each individual according to the particular measure of his understanding, and shall offer no violence to his individuality, by any attempt to restrain, or to urge him beyond it.

Far from having leisure to engage in recrimination, at the time the book was completed he was already involved in fresh activity preparatory to resuming community life experimentation. The resumption of relations with old acquaintances and sympathizers in the Cincinnati area gave promise of some support, for the first time, from enough persons to make the organization and operation of a labor exchange village more hopeful of success than ever before.

 

___________

123.  Practical Details, 43.

124.  Years later Warren asserted that philanthropy was an improper method of underwriting colonies of his kind and that he never expected substantial help from such sources; “Throughout the whole course of the practical developments of the subject, I have been thoroughly satisfied that it would never have the aid or co-operation of capitalists, until we could prove that we could do without them; . . . In justice to the very few Robert Owens and William McClures it is necessary to discriminate between them and mere capitalists—they were men as well as capitalists, . . .” Peaceful Revolutionist, II (May, 1848), 5.

125.  Free Enquirer, II (August 14, 1830), 332.

126.  See for example the extended favorable comment in the New York Daily Sentinel on Warren’s “Equitable Commerce,” reprinted in Free Enquirer, II (July 24, 1830), 308.

127.  The others were Hezekiah Camp of New York, William G. Macy of Nantucket, Mass., who later followed Warren to New Harmony and became a permanent settler there, James Bayliss of New York, and Edward Dunn of Philadelphia. Free Enquirer, III (February 26, 1831), 137. These men were among the charter members of the “Friendly Association for Mutual Interests at Kendal, Ohio,” which lasted from March 17, 1826 to January 6, 1829. See Wendall P. Fox, “The Kendal Community,” in Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XX (April-July, 1911), 178, 182.

128.  There is conflicting material relative to Spring Hill and Kendal. The town of Kendal probably was confused with the Owenite colony of the same name. This may account for the name appearing in various circumstances in the 1830’s. The people who founded the “Kendal Community” bought 2113 acres of land in the town of Kendal and vicinity and also the vicinity of Massillon for a price of $20,000. According to one source the decision to start such a colony came as the result of a visit in 1825 by Josiah Warren and Paul Brown, who encouraged this step. This may possibly be true, but Warren never mentioned being in Kendal at any time before the spring of 1830.

The colony visited by Frederick William Evans in this area in mid-1830 could not have been Kendal, nor Spring Hill, in view of- the few adults at the latter place. The account of the dissolution of Kendal given by John Humphrey Noyes also seems inaccurate. Samuel Underhill, William Macy, Bayliss and Dunn all severed their relationships with the Kendal Community October 5, 1828. Matthew Macy, the former Clerk of the Community, was an agent for the Free Enquirer at Kendal six years after the dissolution. See Fox, “The Kendal Community,” 176-177, 212-213; Evans, Autobiography of a Shaker, 15; Noyes, American Socialisms, 79-80; Free Enquirer, II, 3rd. series, (January 4, 1835), 8.

129.  Mention of the Rotch benefaction is contained in the minutes of the Kendal Community for June 16, 1827. Nothing was done about actually beginning a school until the following April and May, and since the men delegated to do this job left the community five months later, it is improbable that any educative innovations were begun under the auspices of the Kendal people. See the minutes of the Journal for April 26, May 3, May 24, 1828, re-produced in Fox, “The Kendal Community,” 198, 209, 211. For a discussion of Quaker schools of the period compare with the account of Carl Russell Fish, The Rise of the Common Man, 1830-1850 (Arthur M. Schlesinger and Dixon R. Fox, A History of American Life, vol. VI) (New York, 1927), 205-206.

130.  Free Enquirer, III (February 26, 1831), 137-138.

131.  Practical Details, 56.

132.  Underhill remained associated with Warren until about the time that the Tuscarawas community began in 1833. He had long been in the free thought movement, and returned to it after leaving community life; he published the Cleveland Liberalist from 1836 to 1838. Warren obtained second hand types for him while in New York. Albert Post, Popular Freethought in America, 1825-1850, p. 63; Free Enquirer, II (July 17, 1830), 302.

133.  Free Enquirer, III (May 28, 1831), 252.

134.  Practical Details, 46-48, 55-56.

135.  Practical Details, 66.

136.  Equitable Commerce, 82-83.

137.  The writings of Ezra Heywood and Benjamin Tucker illustrate this matter in great detail after 1875, in particular. It is interesting to observe that Warren himself used the word “anarchy” as a synonym for chaos. There is no indication from an examination of his published works or manuscripts that he ever recognized the usage it acquired after the time of Proudhon as the name for a particular kind of social organization. See example of this former use by Warren in Peaceful Revolutionist, II (May, 1848), 2.

138.  Free Enquirer, II (March 13, 1830), 157. It is a coincidence that the first power press in America was introduced by the Hoe Company in this same year. John C. Oswald, A History of Printing (New York, 1928), 343-344. Warren asserted that the Hoe proof presses supplied to New York offices in 1832 employed his design with a few variations, following a public exhibition of his press there in that year. Periodical Letter, I, 2nd. series, (September, 1856), 13; Free Enquirer, IV (March 3, 1832), 152. The Warren press was accompanied by a stereotype process which substituted actual types instead of punches, over which warm lead was poured, obviating the stamping of copper matrices. This resulted in a less clear but much cheaper printing face. See descriptions in Free Enquirer, II (March 13, 1830), 157; George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 1-2.

139.  Free Enquirer, II (March 13, 1830), above.

140.  Practical Details, 44, 48, 59.

141.  Warren never alluded to his part in this catastrophe in any of his writings which have thus far been discovered and preserved. See also George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 2.

142.  This was a four page, two-column paper similar in style and format to the New Harmony Gazette, occasionally reprinting articles which had appeared in this latter publication. The subscription price of Warren’s paper was 37¢ for six months; labor notes of members of the Spring Hill group were accepted in lieu of currency, if presented.

143.  It is probable that Warren became acquainted with this work while in New York; a favorable review of the 1828 edition, written by Frances Wright, appeared in the Free Enquirer, I (March 18, 1829), 166. For a recent renewal of interest in this work see David Rynin, ed., A Treatise on Language (Berkeley, Calif., 1947). Another of Johnson’s pioneer works in semantics is The Meaning of Words (New York, 1862). For biographical items on Johnson see Appleton’s Cyclopaedia, III, 436, and the biographical sketch in the Dictionary of American Biography, X, 78-79, by James D. Magee.

144.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 8.

145.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 5. In connection with the discussion of word meanings Warren remarked that “by the word ‘union,’ some refer to certain words on paper which serve as an excuse for a great deal of speech making and disunion every year at the rate of eight dollars per day.”

146.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), above. Warren insisted that if the union which was being considered comprised “a similarity of interests, feelings and objects, co-operating action and mutual assistance in cases of need,” it was a matter of trying to “attain” such a condition, since no union based on such understandings existed to “preserve” in the first place.

147.  The fact that occupants of such extreme positions as William Lloyd Garrison and John C. Calhoun also espoused free trade illustrates the universal appeal of this approach, but Warren took no stand on the matter as far as national issues were concerned. For his attitude toward slavery, see Chapter IV.

148.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 6.

149.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), 14.

150.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), above. A moderate treatment of the federal land policies during the period can be found in Fish, Rise of the Common Man, 109-136. See also Raynor G. Wellington, The Political and Sectional Influence of the Public Lands 1828-1842 (Cambridge, Mass., 1914), Chapter II.

151.  Warren never thought of law in the sense of compromise, or the expression of vacillating public policy. His demand that the laws of society be based on rigid, universally-accepted principles such as those prevailing among the scientists was little relaxed throughout his life, with the exception of a short lapse at the time of the Civil War. See Chapter IV, and also note 99, below.

152.  Warren placed his own children upon a labor exchange basis within the family, such was his passion for precision in all the labor relations on every conceivable level. See the description of this unusual arrangement in Equitable Commerce, 79-81. Referring to this inexorable perfectionism, Miss Mary Fauntleroy, nonagenarian resident of New Harmony and one of the few remaining living links to the community life and community “people,” remarked to the author in 1948 that Warren’s son, a close friend, often told her that his father “never let him have his breakfast until he had earned it.”

153.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), 16.

154.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), above.

155.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), 15. The paper had been originally begun in order to chronicle events in a community of his own, but Warren called the effort a “dead investment” at a later time. The restricted circulation has made this journal one of the rarest collectors’ items among the published materials of early nineteenth century American social history.

156.  By this time Underhill was no longer connected with the group, and the Spring Hill site was considered inadequate. For Underbill’s association with Lysander Spooner, another prominent native anarchist of the post-Civil War period, see Post, Popular Freethought, 63.

157.  The exact site of this abbreviated colony has never been revealed, but it has generally been believed in the Tuscarawas River valley, from the description of the low-lying character of the land.

158.  Practical Details, 56. While here Warren acted as local agent for George Henry Evans’ The Workingmen’s Advocate. See for instance V (November 30, 1833), 4.

159.  The complete story of the experiment in coöperative industrialism is told in the Peaceful Revolutionist,! (April 5, 1833), 14.

160.  See the accounts of this affair in Practical Details, 56; Warren, Practical Applications of the Elementary Principles of “True Civilization” to the Minute Details of Every Day Life. Being Part 111, the Last of the “True Civilization” Series . . ., 7. See bibliography for extended full title.

161.  There is no evidence to support the belief that Warren remained at Tuscarawas after 1834. His manuscript notebook “D” contains no entry dated after this year.

162.  See Fish, Rise of the Common Man, 315, for an interpretation of the entire generation of Americans to which this group belonged, especially their efforts to secure freedom by constricting the scope of government.

163.  It is worth noticing that Warren was not too clearly aware of the problem created by the functioning of associated activities. As he had reconciled cost price and barter economies in Cincinnati without paying much attention to their divergent bases, so he acquiesced to individual and collective production at Tuscarawas without recognition of any particular doctrinal conflict.

164.  For the contributions of the individualists to economic thinking during the period of Fourierist ascendancy, see Seligman, Essays in Economics, 143144.

165.  Practical Details, 57, 89.

166.  A. J. MacDonald’s account records an attempted community at Mount Vernon, Indiana, after Tuscarawas, while George Warren avers that the family spent the time from the departure from this place until 1838 at another colonial attempt at Trenton, Ohio. Neither of these experiences were ever confirmed by Warren or any associate. See accounts in Noyes, American Socialisms, 95; George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 2. It is highly probable that the return to New Harmony occurred in 1837, in view of the fact that Warren’s daughter, Caroline Maria, married John Christopher Fory there in this year, according to vital statistics records of the Working-men’s Institute.

167.  Fanny Wright bought the Cincinnati house of the Warren family at this time. Perkins and Wolfson, Frances Wright, 360-361.

168.  George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 3-4. Warren’s wife did not accompany him on this occasion. Dues account books of the New Harmony library record occasional payments by Mrs. Warren during the remainder of the year.

169.  It is probable that Warren’s press was the most rapid in existence for a time, although the Hoe “Revolving Machine,” which is credited with the printing of 8000 unbacked impressions an hour in 1845, surpassed it. Charles T. Jacobi, article “Printing,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, XI ed., XXII, 353.

170.  The first press employing the continuous web of paper and printing from plates attached to cylinders is generally credited to William Bullock of Philadelphia in 1865, although the process of printing from curved plates on a rotary press had been perfected by Charles Craske in New York as early as 1854. Jacobi, “Printing,” above; George A. Kubier, A New History of Stereotyping (New York, 1941), 174.

Warren’s press had the familiar flat bed, but the paper fed through mechanically, printing on one side and rewinding at the other end of the press. New plates had to be inserted in the bed and the operation of the press reversed to obtain the backed impression. The draftsman’s illustration of this press, by William P. Elliott, which was to have accompanied the description of the press to Washington for patent application, can be seen on exhibition in the Workingmen’s Institute Library in New Harmony.

171.  The press did not reach Evansville for two months after completion, the steamboat on which it was loaded in Cincinnati being caught in a freeze-up of the Ohio and forced ashore at Madison, Indiana on New Year’s Day, 1840. George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” above.

172.  Compare the Warren story with the account of the sabotage of the press introduced in England for the printing of the Times in 1814 by William Koenig in Oswald, History of Printing, 339-340.

173.  Warren for a time did some commercial printing there, one of the books being a New Harmony edition of Francois Michaux’s pioneer botanical study, North American Sylva. The edition Warren worked on was never completed, the unbound sheets being destroyed in a fire shortly after printing. Elias Durand, “Biographical Memoir of the Late Francois Andre Michaux,” in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, XI (December 5, 1856), 8; Jacob Schneck and Richard Owen, The History of New Harmony, 15; Meredith Nicholson, The Hoosiers, 129.

174.  See entry of January 21, 1840, in Notebook “D.” It is interesting to find that the first two books which were to have been required reading in the school were Johnson’s Treatise on Language and Robert Owen’s Essays on the Formation of Human Character, the works which no doubt had made more impression on Warren’s development as a social thinker than any other. At “Modern Times” Warren wanted “every one to become familiar with ‘Johnson on language.’ ” Warren to Stephen Pearl Andrews, June 10, 1852, Baskette Collection.

175.  Notebook “D,” March 29, 1840. Samuel Bolton, a local merchant, was an outspoken opponent of the plan at the first public meeting.

176.  Practical Details, 84.

177.  The publication in Cincinnati in 1839 of a book on banking reform is thought to have been considerably influenced by Warren’s ideas on currency. Titled Money and Banking, or Their Nature and Effects Considered; Together With a Plan for the Universal Diffusion of Their Legitimate Benefits Without Their Evils, its author remains unknown, although the publisher, William Beck, is generally considered to have written it. In view of the national character of the proposed reforms, it is highly improbable that the association with labor exchange concepts and individual control over one’s labor notes advocated by Warren supports this thesis. See Hoagland, “Humanitarianism,” in Commons, History of Labor, I, 511-512, for intimation of the former relation.

178.  Herald of Equity, I, 5.

179.  Herald of Equity, I, 2-3.

180.  One of the grounds under which Warren later justified the indulgence in barter was simply as a consequence of the individual sovereignty doctrine, which included the right to transact economic affairs in any way an individual might choose.

181.  Herald of Equity, I, 7.

182.  Practical Details, 83.

183.  Practical Details, 57,89. Warren occasionally reacted strongly to the rumors which accompanied his activities, and at one time stopped long enough to bring out a small pamphlet titled Manifesto. Dated November 27, 1841, it contained a denial that he was in the process of forming any colonies as the neighborhood was accustomed to think of them. A recent edition of this scarce and interesting statement of Warren’s ideas is that by Joseph Ishill (Berkeley Heights, N.J., 1952).

184.  Examples of the labor notes used in the New Harmony time store are among the Warren MSS. in the Workingmen’s Institute Library.

185.  Practical Details, 90-91; George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 4. See also the report of W. J. Sweasey, reprinted in Equitable Commerce, 86. Sweasey, in this town report of the Warrenite coöperative and labor exchange, estimated its noticeable influence “forty miles around.”

186.  A. J. MacDonald’s eye-witness report, as published by Noyes, is illuminating; “I have seen Mr. Warren with a large bundle of these notes, representing various kinds and quantities of labor, from mechanics and others in New Harmony and vicinity. Each individual who gave a note, affixed his or her own price per hour of labor. Warren charged as high, or nearly as high, as other men; and sometimes unskillful hands over-rated their services. I knew one instance where an individual issued too many of his notes, and they depreciated in value. I was informed that these notes were refused at the Time Store. It was supposed that public opinion would regulate these things, and I have not doubt that in time it would. In this experiment Mr. Warren said he had demonstrated as much as he intended. But I heard him complain of the difficulties he had to contend with, and especially the lack of common honesty.” Noyes, American Socialisms, 97.

187.  Periodical Letter, I, 2nd. series, 118; Nicholson, The Hoosiers, 129-130.

188.  Practical Details, 91. See note 70, below, for reports of individuals participating in the store with reference to deflation of prices in the local retail outlets.

189.  Formerly the home of Robert Dale and David Dale Owen, it is highly probable that ownership still resided in the Owen family and accounted for its being placed at Warren’s disposal.

190.  In a long communication to the Indiana Statesman of February 1, 1845, Warren re-asserted his earlier stand on his intention to merely illustrate the possibilities of an economy in which cost would regulate all its parts, and that his intention had not been to break up the retail store structure in the town. Five of the ten stores in operation before the time store began were now closed. He further admitted that individualism in business which was unqualified by coöperation produced a destructive competition, and “their iniquitous modes of action are fairly entitled to all that has been of late so strongly urged against them.”

191.  Peaceful Revolutionist, II (May, 1848), 1. The enterprise was completely ignored by the local newspaper until it had ceased operating. Warren accused fifty other journals of totally neglecting his communications from the time store during its two year existence. Practical Details, 92.

192.  Seven of these reports are reprinted in Equitable Commerce, 85-89. Two of them are by William G. Macy, a former associate of Warren at Spring Hill, and M. W. Rowe, who later became a charter member of the local chapter of the Free Land Association.

193.  Indiana Statesman, February 1, 1845.

194.  See Indiana Statesman, October 5, October 26, December 28, 1844; August 16, October 11, 1845; March 14, 1846, for itinerary of the elder Owen. Owen delivered addresses in October and November of the first year to New Harmony residents at the Workingmen’s Institute.

195.  Practical Details, 91.

196.  The loss of lands as a result of failure to pay debts was also a matter of urgent interest to Warren. The acquisition of lands by merchants and the issue of foreclosure as well as failure to pay taxes created a local political issue of intriguing character. The Whigs came under considerable fire, disgruntled townsmen averring collusion between state legislators and the merchants and large land owners. See Indiana Statesman, November 30, 1844, for a typical list being posted for tax delinquency, which incidentally included a lot of Warren’s in Robb Township of Posey County, to the north of New Harmony.

197.  See memorials of this group described in the “Journal” of the Free Land Association of New Harmony, addressed to Robert Dale Owen and also Joshua Giddings of Ohio, better known for his part in the abolitionist movement. The former is undated, the latter bears the date December 27, 1848. This interesting manuscript volume has been mutilated, but still contains valuable information concerning the operation of the Free Land Association on a local chapter basis.

198.  See minutes of January 20, 1847 of the Free Land Association “Journal,” for vote of thanks to Warren for reprinting an issue of George Henry Evans’ Young America for pamphleteering purposes of the land reform group.

199.  When the free land group ceased agitating is not known; latter portions of the “Journal” have been scissored out, unfortunately, and other sources remain obscure.

200.  Warren to Maria and Thomas Varney, February 16, 1847, reprinted in Practical Details, 104.

201.  Warren to Maria and Thomas Varney, February 7, 1847, reprinted in Practical Details, 100.

202.  Warren to Maria and Thomas Varney, April 25, 1847, reprinted in Practical Details, 115.

203.  Indiana Statesman, December 6, 1845, quoting from a dispatch originally printed in Young America describing Owen’s personal reactions to the status of community life in America, after a trip which included most of the prominent settlements actually in existence.

204.  The old clay cast method was employed in constructing the stereotype plate, and the substitution of a mixture of shellac, tar and sand for type metal was an unusual departure. Still another mixture, consisting of clay, sand, beeswax, tallow, oil, gum arabic and stearine for the purpose of making fine-surface engravings was also perfected at this time. For a comparison with the earlier stereotyping devices, see Thomas Hodgson, An Essay on the Origin and Progress of Stereotype Printing (Newcastle, England, 1820), 13-14; Theodore L. De Vinne, Printing in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1924), 6; New Harmony Gazette, I, 255, the latter for a description of the Lanefelder process developed in Austria in 1826, which aroused the attention of the Owenites while Warren was a member of the community.

205.  A full description of the compositions involved can be found in Kubler, History of Stereotyping, 301.

206.  Warren’s first work, A New System of Musical Notation, published in New Harmony, was closely followed by the other that same year, A Collection of the Most Popular Church Music Written Upon Geometric or Scientific Principles, a group of excerpts from 56 popular church hymns of the 1840’s printed in a form adapted for use by brass bands. Speaking of his father’s innovation, George Warren, himself a widely known band leader in southern Indiana in later years, explained, “He dispensed with the sharp and flat signatures, and the tier and length of the stem gave the length of the note, and the piano or forte power was designated by the size of the note itself.” “Josiah Warren,” 4-5.

207.  Patent No. 4479 on “Composition for Stereotype Plates” was issued to Warren on April 25, 1846. C. S. Partridge, Stereotyping the Papier Mache Process (Chicago, 1892), 130. A certified copy of this patent, signed and sealed by Thomas Eubank, Commissioner of Patents, August 26, 1850, is in the Warren MSS. in the Workingmen’s Institute Library.

208.  Herbert A. Kellar, Solon Robinson Pioneer and Agriculturist (Indiana Historical Collections, vol. XXI) (2 vols. Indianapolis, 1936), II, 504-507. For references to Warren’s process in other papers see Prairie Farmer, V (June, 1845), 155-156; Daily Cincinnati Gazette, July 23, July 30, 1845; Indiana Statesman, July 26, September 13, September 20, October 4, 1845, the latter issues also carrying reprints from articles on this subject in the New York Sun, New York Morning News, Vincennes (Ind.) Gazette and Princeton (Ind.) Chronicle. Other notices appeared from time to time in other stopping-off places along Robinson’s route, including Evansville, and Shawneetown, Illinois.

209.  Indiana Statesman, July 4, August 16, October 11, December 27, 1845; January 31, February 14, 1846. The cut in the last issue cited was a superb five column spread, eight inches high, of the map of the disputed Oregon Territory.

210.  One of Waren’s interesting controversies was that carried on with the editor of the Indiana Statesman, during the time following the closing of the New Harmony time store. Although he respected Warren as a technical innovator in the printing and engraving field, Burns refused to print his articles on the labor exchange, calling them “long-winded stories,” and marvelling that in the obscurity Warren was able to develop any kind of a clearly expressed idea. Indiana Statesman, February 15, 1845.

211.  The title page carried the date 1846 as the date of publication. All citations below are from this rare original edition unless otherwise noted. A selection from this edition is included in Irving Mark and Eugene L. Schwab, (eds.), The Faith of Our Fathers; An Anthology of Americana, 1790-1860 (New York, 1952), 380-384.

212.  A second edition appeared in 1849 while Warren was at “Utopia” (Smith’s Landing), Ohio, while a third was published in New York in 1852. A slightly altered version, with the addition of an editor’s preface and a different appendix, under the title True Civilization: A Subject of Vital and Serious Interest to All People but Most Immediately to Men and Women of Labor and Sorrow, printed under Warren’s direction in diffondale, Mass., in 1869, became the fourth appearance of this work. The fifth edition, posthumously released by Benjamin Tucker at Princeton, Mass., in 1875 bore the same title and content as the 1869 edition. Other Warren works incorporated the first two words of the title of this latter version, which has been the cause of a considerable amount of confusion among bibliographers.

213.  Equitable Commerce, introduction, iii.

214.  The five basic principles of the Warrenite community were re-phrased a number of times, receiving their most concise statement in 1863:

“Individuality is the great cornerstone of order. Self-sovereignty is the mandate of peace.

The principle of equivalents is the element of equilibrium or pecuniary justice, and the harmonizer of pecuniary interests.

The equitable circulating medium is an instrument necessary to the working of the principle of equivalents.

Adaptation of supplies to wants or demands is necessary in all departments.” True Civilization an Immediate Necessity, 182.

215.  Equitable Commerce, 10.

216.  “The security of person and property requires that each and every individual should be the supreme law to himself and his own. That one should have no power over another’s person or property.” Equitable Commerce, 24.

217.  Warren believed that the fact that human beings were characterized by individual peculiarities and that it still was acknowledged and remained “un-smothered” made this the starting place for what he termed the “ascent towards order and harmony.” Equitable Commerce, 4.

218.  Equitable Commerce, 4-5.

219.  Equitable Commerce, 7.

220.  Warren averred that the term “sovereignty of the people” could mean nothing else except the sovereignty of each individual; “Where is the sovereignty of a people when the sovereignty of every individual is surrendered to votes of majorities, or to a few men appointed to interpret and administer laws and institutions?” Practical Details, 40.

221.  Equitable Commerce, 23.

222.  Warren was unconvinced that statute law had produced any decline in the number of violent crimes. He inveighed against capital punishment for murder as just another variety of murder, an act which did not perform the function of a deterrent to fresh crimes of the same type. Equitable Commerce, 22.

223.  Warren accused governments of having been responsible for more bloodshed and violence throughout history than could have possibly occurred in the absence of all governments. The indictment of government as an agent of destruction and mass murder has become a much-repeated anarchist arraignment in almost every land which has developed an anarchist press. Equitable Commerce, 19.

224.  Equitable Commerce, 22, 24.

225.  “. . . neither rulers nor ruled can tell how the laws will be interpreted or administered till they have been repeatedly infringed and punishment has been inflicted,” Warren observed, seeking to discover the precise moment when law began to disintegrate. Equitable Commerce, 20.

226.  Wars he described as “probably the greatest of all destroyers of property,” and professed to be able to find only two roots from which all wars had originated; “direct or indirect plunder” and “the privilege of governing.” Warren denied the right of any government to force its citizens to fight against their will. Equitable Commerce, 21, 44.

227.  Equitable Commerce, 27-28. The right to complete individual freedom, according to Warrenite principle, was qualified only by the responsibility of each to respect the individuality of each. Infringement of another’s sovereignty carried with it all consequences of such action. Warren believed that a harmonious society was impossible unless each member became individually responsible for his acts. The similarity of Warren and Herbert Spencer’s later “law of equal freedom” can be detected at this point, despite the divergent points of origin.

228.  Warren made no distinction between “government” and “state” as the classic anarchist writers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have generally done; a connotation of voluntarism has been imparted to the former and coercion to the latter of these terms.

229.  Equitable Commerce, 30-31.

230.  Equitable Commerce, 25, 28. There is no existing evidence that Warren at any time was a believer in biological or racial inequality.

231.  Equitable Commerce, 16, 41-42. It is important to observe the change in Warren’s attitude toward organized religion in the twenty years between the first time store and the publication of the first summary of his social philosophy. Once non-committal, he now classed all churchmen as non-producers with a personal interest in the preservation of the existing order.

232.  Equitable Commerce, 27, 31.

233.  Equitable Commerce, 34. Warren intimated that the existing basis of the “present” system of exchanges was more ideological than scientific, unworthy of satisfactory apology or incapable of prolonged resistance to an opposing system.

234.  Warren admitted that his idea of individual sovereignty would produce chaos if attempts were made to force it to function within the national state system, but he believed that it would prove successful in a world lacking national consciousness. Equitable Commerce, 24.

235.  Equitable Commerce, 26.

236.  Equitable Commerce, 67. The MacDonald Diaries reveal that Owen suggested a maximum community population of about 2000 while on board ship bound for America in the fall of 1824.

237.  Thus he gave voice to the complaint of the bilked consumer everywhere; “. . . there is scarcely an article of food, clothing, tools, or medicines that is fit for use . . . the vender does not make them but imports them beyond the reach of responsibility.” Equitable Commerce, 42-43.

238.  Equitable Commerce, 11-12, 17, 40-41, 45. Warren’s conception of machines was not as producers of unemployment but as reducers of the work day for all and social engines whose output should be shared on an equitable plan.

239.  Equitable Commerce, 41-42.

240.  Equitable Commerce, 16-17. His opposition to the taking of interest on money was as rigid as to the stand on rent.

241.  Equitable Commerce, 44-45. The occupation-and-use concept of land was a product of later theorists in the individualist anarchist group.

242.  “We must admit the claims of the hardest labor to the highest reward, or we deny our own rights, extinguish the little light we have obtained, and throw everything back into confusion.” Equitable Commerce, 52.

243.  Equitable Commerce, 77.

244.  Equitable Commerce, 75.

• 1It has been evident to thoughtful observers for more than two generations that the words “anarchist,” “anarchism,” and “anarchy” have been used so loosely by writers and the general public alike that they have practically ceased to have any definite meaning. The problem here is similar to that existing in many other cases where abstract terms or generalizations having no or little substance have been overused or misused. Nor has the use of these terms by scholars tended to promote any greater degree of understanding. In too many cases the tendency has been to resemble the weaknesses of the general observer. Here the situation has been usually created by the repeated interpretation of expressions of hostility to the status quo as evidence of anarchist thought.
• 2It has been evident to thoughtful observers for more than two generations that the words “anarchist,” “anarchism,” and “anarchy” have been used so loosely by writers and the general public alike that they have practically ceased to have any definite meaning. The problem here is similar to that existing in many other cases where abstract terms or generalizations having no or little substance have been overused or misused. Nor has the use of these terms by scholars tended to promote any greater degree of understanding. In too many cases the tendency has been to resemble the weaknesses of the general observer. Here the situation has been usually created by the repeated interpretation of expressions of hostility to the status quo as evidence of anarchist thought.
• 3The idea has long been prevalent that violent conduct is characteristic of anarchists, and that anarchism is a doctrine of destruction. There exists little justification for such a stand, in actuality. In addition, the rejection of one particular variety of authority in favor of its replacement by another finds continual identification with anarchism, while social philosophies which are utterly opposed to it are on occasion labeled “anarchistic.” This merely adds to the already large amount of confusion existing on the subject, setting up extremely vague limitations and permitting the inclusion of many elements which are quite controversial.
• 4Since 1880 and thereabouts people have almost universally thought of anarchists in terms of violence and conspiracy. The result has been the regarding of anarchist literature as a product of a handful of criminals. In Europe the advent of this revolutionary movement was accompanied by a number of sensational acts which led to the identification of anarchism with socially pathological developments. In the United States there have been similar implications, to the point where even governmental policy incorporated the layman’s conception of anarchism and anarchists. The definition of anarchism employed by the Department of Justice in modern times is essentially derived from this earlier period.
• 5Although the tendency to blame destruction of property and loss of life during industrial disputes on “agitators,” “doctrinaires,” and “communists” prevailed for some time previous to the celebrated Haymarket incident in Chicago in May, 1886, such predilections received a powerful stimulus from this event. The now-familiar stereotype of the black whiskered, bomb-throwing vandal came into being at this time and created a new political symbol which has been used to manipulate mass opinion with an impressive degree of success. As a consequence of this and other factors, anarchism became so tainted with diabolism that rational study of its place in American history has rarely taken place.
• 6Although the tendency to blame destruction of property and loss of life during industrial disputes on “agitators,” “doctrinaires,” and “communists” prevailed for some time previous to the celebrated Haymarket incident in Chicago in May, 1886, such predilections received a powerful stimulus from this event. The now-familiar stereotype of the black whiskered, bomb-throwing vandal came into being at this time and created a new political symbol which has been used to manipulate mass opinion with an impressive degree of success. As a consequence of this and other factors, anarchism became so tainted with diabolism that rational study of its place in American history has rarely taken place.
• 7The attempt to link these varied phenomena into a logical sequence has been undertaken by others as well, with less success. It now appears that the assumption that American anarchism stemmed from Puritan Antinomianism and was associated with the peculiar variety of resistance to the state found in the non-resistant and “no government” sentiments of the Garrison school of “Christian Anarchist” abolitionists is untenable. It is more probable that, rather than being a derivative of native American conditions, the real source of the anti-statist evidences observed in Antinomianism and other varieties of early colonial dissidence and unrest can be discovered in the radicalism, both religious and socio-economic, already developing in England before the times of Charles I, and which found expression through lower class spokesmen at the time of the English Civil War. Concerning other aspects of this matter, it can be argued quite effectively that the designation “Christian Anarchist” is really a contradiction in terms, and that religious rebellion along individualist lines can be interpreted as anarchism only under highly specialized circumstances. The rejection of one variety of religious authority in favor of its replacement by another can hardly be related to anarchism, which categorically rejects authority. In another connection, the interpretation of American anti-statism as an evolutionary process, passing from religious to economic spheres, is also open to serious objections. There is not only lack of continuity in influence, but no logical sequence in the elaboration of a program of propaganda. In searching the field it becomes more apparent that the elements of a radical movement with a fully developed propaganda structure can be found in one of the sub-areas only. It is the contention of this work that individualist anarchism can be seen to satisfy the requirements mentioned elsewhere. Not only is it the only part of the radical movement native to America with a propaganda, but it has depended on natives for its promotion. Furthermore, it is unique in that members of the group actually attempted under practical conditions to try out its theory.
• 8In the United States there seems to have been little notice of an extensive literature hostile to the state and its functions until after Haymarket. The dominant conception of anarchism after the violence in Chicago was in accord with the inflammatory utterances of the European-born revolutionaries now gathered in the several large Northern cities. Lack of attention had resulted in the failure to note that a serious split had been developing within the worldwide anarchist movement, and that various distinct elements could now be recognized.
• 9The semantic smokescreen raised up by the moral uproar here and overseas after Haymarket and a number of sensational assassinations in Europe covered over in the process the uncompromising stand taken by the American individualist anarchists, who deplored the use of force, or “direct action,” and asserted as before their traditional hope of the eventual adoption of noncoercive individualist equity as a result of education and rational conviction. Much of what they had to say had been propagated here for nearly a half century before there developed a competing body of beliefs put forward by followers of Bakunin and Kropotkin. In the form in which it appeared during the 80’s and 90’s, but especially as broadcast by Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and other Russians after the turn of the century, it is possible to see emerging the full outlines of what has since become known as communist anarchism. It has since received its best statement by Italian and Spanish radicals. (Further examination of the famed Haymarket Germans suggests a serious question as to whether these men were not far closer to state socialism, actually, than anarchism.)
• 10The semantic smokescreen raised up by the moral uproar here and overseas after Haymarket and a number of sensational assassinations in Europe covered over in the process the uncompromising stand taken by the American individualist anarchists, who deplored the use of force, or “direct action,” and asserted as before their traditional hope of the eventual adoption of noncoercive individualist equity as a result of education and rational conviction. Much of what they had to say had been propagated here for nearly a half century before there developed a competing body of beliefs put forward by followers of Bakunin and Kropotkin. In the form in which it appeared during the 80’s and 90’s, but especially as broadcast by Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and other Russians after the turn of the century, it is possible to see emerging the full outlines of what has since become known as communist anarchism. It has since received its best statement by Italian and Spanish radicals. (Further examination of the famed Haymarket Germans suggests a serious question as to whether these men were not far closer to state socialism, actually, than anarchism.)
• 11The two groups differed sharply on basic issues. The communist anarchists rejected private property, and taught the ideal of the collective autonomous commune. A portion of their number advocated the overthrow of the State by violence. The individualist anarchists held that the collective society in any form was an impossibility without the eventuality of authoritarianism, and ultimately, totalitarianism, and adhered resolutely to the concept of private property insofar as the term could be defined as the total product of a given individual’s labor, but not more broadly than this. They abandoned the idea of an equalitarian utopia, and worked for a world free from arbitrary restrictions on opportunity and legal privilege, which breakdowns they claimed “laissez faire” really produced. No other radical group denounced the prevailing system more vigorously than the spokesmen for individualist anarchism.
• 12The two groups differed sharply on basic issues. The communist anarchists rejected private property, and taught the ideal of the collective autonomous commune. A portion of their number advocated the overthrow of the State by violence. The individualist anarchists held that the collective society in any form was an impossibility without the eventuality of authoritarianism, and ultimately, totalitarianism, and adhered resolutely to the concept of private property insofar as the term could be defined as the total product of a given individual’s labor, but not more broadly than this. They abandoned the idea of an equalitarian utopia, and worked for a world free from arbitrary restrictions on opportunity and legal privilege, which breakdowns they claimed “laissez faire” really produced. No other radical group denounced the prevailing system more vigorously than the spokesmen for individualist anarchism.
• 13The individualist anarchists had no blueprint for the future of social organizations under conditions free from coercion. The direction to be taken by voluntary associations was left for the future, and no predictions of a static millennium filled their writing. The group had within their number adherents to a system of decentralized local communities of small size, and at the same time proponents of free associations of producers and consumers within large urban industrial centers. The best known of this group of native radicals, Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Stephen Pearl Andrews, William B. Greene, Ezra Heywood, and Benjamin R. Tucker, came in for a measure of attention during the peak of the furor over radicalism reached at about the time of the Spanish-American War. But the greater part of the attention of the time was focussed on their German and Russian contemporaries, with whom they were already at variance in many respects. Those most familiar with the individualist suggestions for the solution of the currency, labor and other pressing problems dismissed them as the fulminations of a group of irresponsibles, dreamers and cranks. Their work along practical lines at an earlier time was practically unknown in any circles, and much of what they had to say later on was mostly forgotten when the stage was taken over by the Industrial Workers of the World, The Socialist Party and the First International.
• 14.  George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 1. This brief biographical reminiscence of Warren by his only son is an unpublished manuscript written in Evansville, Indiana in 1893, apparently at the request of Lockwood, who was engaged in preparing his study of the New Harmony communities. See Warren MSS., Workingmen’s Institute, George B. Lockwood to George W. Warren, November 10, 1893. Many of the early dates mentioned in this manuscript have proven inaccurate.
• 15.  George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” above. This lamp was patented February 28, 1821, but Warren paid little attention to this matter after becoming part of the New Harmony community. Dictionary of American Biography, XIX, 483. See also note 80, below.
• 16.  The standard work on Owen’s life is Frank Podmore, Robert Owen, A Biography (2 vols. London, 1906). Other works of value are William L. Sargant, Robert Owen, and His Social Philosophy (London, 1860); Lloyd Jones, The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen (2 vols. London, 1890); G. D. H. Cole, The Life of Robert Owen (London, 1930). Owen’s autobiography, The Life of Robert Owen by Himself (New York edition, 1920), is a valuable source.
• 17.  A brief, concise statement of Owen’s stand on this matter may be found in George Milton Janes, Who Should Have Wealth and Other Papers (Milwaukee, 1925), 48. Owen’s “Five Fundamental Facts of Human Nature” are reproduced by Podmore, Robert Owen, 481-482. Page citations are from the one volume edition (New York, 1910).
• 18.  Owen was born at Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales, on May 14, 1771. He purchased and began operating the mills at New Lanark in 1798. See the brief, approved biographical sketch in his periodical The New Moral World (London and Leeds, 1834-1845), I (November 1, 1834), 7. This publication was a continuation of The Crisis (London, 1832-1834), which is an extremely important source for the origin and early operations of the renowned Labor Exchanges. Other indispensable periodicals for material concerning Owen are Robert Owen’s Journal (London, 1850-1852), and Robert Owen’s Millennial Gazette (London, 1856-1858). The biography by Podmore contains the most adequate bibliography of Owen’s works, among the standard treatments, which may be supplemented by National Library of Wales, A Bibliography of Robert Owen, the Socialist 1771-1858 (Aberystwyth, Wales, 1914).
• 19.  A brief account stressing the accomplishments of the Rappites at New Harmony is Jacob Schneck and Richard Owen, The History of New Harmony, Ind. (Evansville, Ind., 1890). See also Lockwood, New Harmony Movement, 19-57; John S. Duss, George Rapp and His Associates (Indianapolis, 1914), an account by a specialist in Rappite history.
• 20.  Podmore, Robert Owen, 288; Lockwood, New Harmony Movement, 75; Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way. Twenty-Seven Years of Autobiography (New York, 1874), 211. Owen claimed that the purchase price was $140,000. The New Harmony Gazette, II (August 15, 1827), 353.
• 21.  Owen’s brief stopover in Cincinnati on his way to New Harmony on December 9, 1824 did not include a speaking engagement there, according to his son William, who was with him on this journey. Joel W. Hiatt, ed., “Diary of William Owen from November 10, 1824, to April 20, 1825,” in Indiana Historical Society Publications, IV, 61. Owen left New Harmony January 7, 1825, and spoke in Cincinnati on his way to Washington where he addressed the House of Representatives in February and March. Hiatt, ed., “Diary,” 97. For further corroboration consult The Diaries of Donald Mac-Donald 1824-1826 (Indiana Historical Society Publications, vol. XIV) (Indianapolis, 1942), 236, 296.
• 22.  The name of the community was not decided upon at first, the space being left blank in the preamble. Warren’s suggestion that the association adopt the title “Commonwealth of New Harmony” was negatived, and William Owen’s motion that the space remain blank was carried. The name “New Harmony Community of Equality” was adopted February 5, 1826. See “Minutes of the Convention for Forming a Constitution for the Society of New Harmony held Jan. 25, 1826,” February 2, 1826, February 5, 1826. The preamble is reproduced in the minutes for February 1, 1826. In the valuation list prepared at the direction of the select committee on February 8, 1826, Warren and his family were assigned $169 per annum. Warren might have arrived in the spring of 1825. MacDonald reported that several families arrived at New Harmony from Cincinnati between April 13 and April 24, but did not mention Warren specifically. MacDonald Diaries, 292.
• 23.  “When I reached New Harmony, early in 1826, . . . I looked at everything with eyes of enthusiasm. . . . The evening gatherings too, delighted me . . . the weekly concert, with an excellent leader, Josiah Warren, and a performance of music . . . much beyond what I had expected in the backwoods . . .” Robert Dale Owen, “My Experiences of Community Life,” in Atlantic Monthly, XXXII (September, 1873), 338.
• 24.  The first entry of the Warren family in the account book of the community store is dated March 8, 1826. The family pass books have never been located, and constitute another Warren document of considerable interest for which search continues. For a description of the account books see William Pelham to William Creese Pelham, September 7, 1825, in Harlow Lindley, ed., Indiana as Seen by Early Travellers (Indiana Historical Collections, vol. Ill) (Indianapolis, 1916), 371.
• 25.  Warren MSS. notebook, Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, undated, unpaginated. This is another obscure Warren source, unrelated to the series of notebooks which are apparently in the nature of a diary, containing entries through June, 1873, and of which only one has so far been located. See note 13. For mention of the above document elsewhere, consult R. C. Stewart, “The Labadie Labor Collection,” in Michigan Alumnus Quarterly Review, LIII (May 10, 1947), 250.
• 26.  Periodical Letter, II (July, 1856), 55; Warren, Practical Details in Equitable Commerce, showing the workings in actual experiment, during a series of years, of the social principles expounded in the works called “Equitable Commerce” by the author of this and “The Science of Society,” by Stephen P. Andrews, 71, cited hereafter as Practical Details. A second edition from the same plates was published in 1854. Although this book was not published until 1852, some of the material existed in manuscript for twenty-five years before revision and release under the above title. For the most part, this latter work is the principal source of information concerning the decision to leave New Harmony and the events of the three years following. Any account of Warren’s early experiments in social reform is bound to rely upon it heavily.
• 27.  Warren’s views have been summarized adequately in Ely, Labor Movement, 238. A fuller treatment by Warren is contained in Periodical Letter, 2nd. series, I (December, 1856), 34.
• 28.  Periodical Letter, II (July, 1856), 55-56. Dr. Lyman O. Warren has raised some interesting points in speculating upon the intellectual origins of Josiah Warren’s unorthodox thinking. He has called attention to the observation of the famous philosopher George Santayana in his Persons and Places that the Brighton Warrens, of whom Josiah was a member, were “a dissentient family.” Santayana was a boyhood friend of the uncles of Dr. Warren. The record for independent intransigence appears to go back at least as far as his first American ancestors. John Warren of the Arbella is noted in Bond’s History of Watertown as having been arrested on one occasion for nonattendance at church and for harboring Quakers on another. Further investigation into the family prior to migration to America, itself an act of extraordinary self-assertion and independence, might establish a much longer record of nonconformism. A future biographer of Josiah Warren might well consider the pertinence of this durable tradition.
• 29.  Six years after leaving New Harmony, Warren wrote, “It is the influence of surrounding circumstances which . . . divided society into rich and poor, which enables some to command and others unable to do otherwise than obey. It is the influence of circumstances which produces different classes in society, and that influence only, which divides men into different political parties and ranges them under different banners of religion. . . . It will be seen that this knowledge warrants us in making a critical examination into our own condition, and all the circumstances which have surrounded us from birth, to see whether they have been . . . such as are most favorable to our happiness, and it teaches us not to reverence or perpetuate bad circumstances simply because we are born under them. . . . This knowledge therefore lays a broad, rational and consistent foundation for unlimited improvement; . . .” The Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 5. This short-lived Warren periodical continues to be considered the first anarchist publication in existence.
• 30.  Warren MSS., Labadie Collection, undated entry in notebook. It is thought from the arrangement of the material that this notebook was intended as reference at impromptu meetings in private homes, where Warren was a more convincing speaker than he was on the public lecture platform.
• 31.  The idea of paper money representing a certain amount of labor rather than a certain precious commodity was held in common and developed separately by several radical economic thinkers in the first half of the nineteenth century as well. Besides Owen in England, similar conceptions on a different scale can be found in the writings of John Gray, A Lecture on Human Happiness (London, 1825); William Thompson, An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness (London, 1824; another edition, 1850); John Francis Bray, Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy; or, the Age of Might and the Age of Right (Leeds, 1839). Johann Karl Rodbertus in Germany and Pierre Joseph Proudhon in France evolved similar monetary substitutions. Short summaries of their theories can be found in Edward C. K. Gonner, The Social Philosophy of Rodbertus (London, 1899); Dennis W. Brogan, Proudhon (London, 1934); Henry Cohen, Proudhon’s Solution of the Social Problem (New York, 1927). The simplicity of application of this idea by Warren is unique during a time confined almost entirely to theorizing about this matter.
• 32.  These were later published as a bound collection under this title. (Manchester, Eng. 1837). A contemporary edition appeared in London in 1813 under the title A New View of Society; or, Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character, with separate pagination.
• 33.  Consult Edger A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith (New York, 1937), Chapters XII-XIII, for a development of the background of the labor cost theory. Whether Warren was acquainted with the writings of Adam Smith is not known but unlikely. However Proudhon, developing a similar line of thought to Warren in a French environment, mentioned Smith, along with the Bible and Hegel as his three principal sources of inspiration. Zenker, Anarchism, 35.
• 34.  The following extract from the diary of William Owen, referring to his father’s visit in Kentucky on the way to New Harmony in the late fall of 1824, is of great interest in the effort to assign proper credit for the labor note idea: “We walked through the town-Mayesville [sic] and found a good front and a tolerable second street. Hunter and my father bought mits and Mr. Owen had a bantering conve[r]sation with the storekeeper regarding money and labor notes. He told us that a gallon of whisky, which will make twelve individuals quite drunk, can be bought for 12½ cents.” Hiatt, ed., “Diary of William Owen,” 61. Italics are the present writer’s.
• 35.  John R. Commons and Associates, A Documentary History of Industrial Society, V, 79.
• 36.  Practical Details, 75.
• 37.  It should be remembered that Warren’s continual use of the term “equitable commerce” occurred with the understanding that the word “commerce” was being used in its overall sense as the sum total of human activities and not merely economic considerations alone. There is no doubt that Warren believed that major reforms in the economic sphere were the most important, nevertheless.
• 38.  The first systematic and extended arrangement of Warren’s convictions was his Equitable Commerce: a new developement [sic] of principles for the harmonious adjustment and regulation of the pecuniary, intellectual and moral intercourse of mankind, proposed as elements of New Society (New Harmony, Ind., 1846), hereafter cited as Equitable Commerce.
• 39.  Ely, Labor Movement, 238; Warren, Practical Details, 13.
• 40.  An admirable summation of Warren’s philosophy of individualism is that of Thomas Low Nichols, Forty Years of American Life, II, 39. Nichols’ relations with Warren and the anarchists at “Modern Times” will be found in Chapter III.
• 41.  Warren, Practical Details, 13. Capitalized portions are Warren’s.
• 42.  Practical Details, above.
• 43.  Practical Details, 14.
• 44.  Practical Details, above.
• 45.  On his return to Cincinnati, Warren leased the tract of land bounded by Elm, John, Fifth and Ninth Streets from Nicholas Longworth for 99 years. His return of the lease to Longworth is anomalous, in view of the fact that he still conceived of land as a commodity and subject to purchase and sale. The loss of this tract as a bargaining weapon must have been keenly felt at the time consideration of a colony site was taking place. See George Warren, “Josiah Warren,” 2, for a summary of this curious incident.
• 46.  Practical Details, 14.
• 47.  The earliest proposal for the employment of labor notes in England similar to those which enjoyed widespread use in Warren’s Cincinnati store is that of the Brighton Co-Operative Benevolent Fund Association, in November, 1827, six months after their successful introduction in the Ohio pioneer venture. The operation of the store and the determination of the value of the labor notes differed slightly from that already functioning in America. One of the plates from which the English labor notes were printed is in the collection of the Workingmen’s Institute. See the description of the English plan in Podmore, Robert Owen, 386, quoting from the Cooperative Magazine of November, 1827.
• 48.  Quarterly Letter, I, 6.
• 49.  Quarterly Letter, I, above. The amount charged to pay this item was a variable in Warren’s plan. By the fifth month of the first year the amount added to original cost had been reduced to four per cent. Twenty years later he recommended adding six per cent to the original cost. Practical Details, 22; Equitable Commerce, 61.
• 50.  Practical Details, 15.
• 51.  Practical Details, 29.
• 52.  The Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 6. Warren skirted barter economy but briefly, even though he saw nothing particularly invidious about its operation if the need of either party involved did not constitute a margin sufficiently noticeable to promote exploitation one by the other.
• 53.  Quarterly Letter, I, 6.
• 54.  Warren, True Civilization an Immediate Necessity and the Last Ground of Hope for Mankind. Being the Results and Conclusions of Thirty-nine Years’ Laborious Study and Experiments in Civilization as it is, and in Different Enterprises for Reconstruction, 88, hereafter cited as True Civilization an Immediate Necessity; Practical Details, 15.
• 55.  Warren MSS., Labadie Collection, “A Scrap of History,” undated and un-paginated. This brief manuscript appears to be part of another attempted publication, but a comparison with his published works indicates that it remained unused.
• 56.  The first customer in the time store was Warren’s brother, according to Warren’s account. He recalled prevailing upon him to make the first purchase to start the experiment, “desperate with disappointment and chagrin” at the failure of three friends to make promised transactions. Warren, Practical Details, 17-18. Two weeks after the Time Store opened, the Western Tiller of Cincinnati began publication of a series of eight dispatches, which ran from June 1 through July 27, written by “A Late Member of New Harmony,” and addressed “To the Friends of the Social System,” which, based on the criteria of internal criticism, must be attributed to Warren. These essays are not only prepared in his peculiar style, but amount to a trial run of some of the ideas to be found later in Equitable Commerce.
• 57.  Practical Details, 24; Peaceful Revolutionist, I (April 5, 1833), 15,
• 58.  Practical Details, 22, 25, 31.
• 59.  This was Richard Folger, who with John Pickering, were among the earliest supporters of equity. Pickering later broke with Warren at the time of the commencement of “Utopia,” some twenty years later. Practical Details, 33; Periodical Letter, I, 2nd. series, supplement 2, p. 2; Peaceful Revolutionist, II (May, 1848), 13-15.
• 60.  Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 6.
• 61.  See Warren’s letter to the Mechanic’s Free Press (Philadelphia, 1827-1831), May 10, 1828, p. 2, quoted in Commons, Documentary History, V, 133-137.
• 62.  Practical Details, 16; Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 7.
• 63.  Practical Details, 27, 29.
• 64.  Compare prices reported by Warren in 1827 in Practical Details, 21, 23, 27.
• 65.  The following is a representative example: “Bought three barrels of rice at Haydn & Co’s. auction at 1½ cents a pound, and am selling it out at 1¾, while the customary price for so good an article has uniformly been 8 cents a pound; people are coming from all directions to get it . . .” Practical Details, 26.
• 66.  This has been a controversial point among interested observers, although Warren leaves no doubt about the matter. For confirmation of the three year duration see Peaceful Revolutionist, I (February 5, 1833), 7; The Herald of Equity, I (February, 1841), 6.
• 67.  Practical Details, 40.
• 68.  Practical Details, 23. Saunders later wrote for the Free Enquirer under the pseudonym “Philanthropos.” Free Enquirer, I, new series, (December 31, 1829), 79; Periodical Letter, I, 2nd. series, (January, 1858), 98-101.
• 69.  Ely stated that Warren did a total business of $150,000 during the operation of the time store, but Warren’s contemporary accounts were much more modest than this. In March, 1829 he revealed that he had never utilized more than $4,000 in the proceedings up to that time, and that he had retailed a total of about $30,000 worth of goods. Warren had actually begun the process of liquidation of the store at this time, but shortly revived it again. It is unlikely that his volume quintupled in the next year of operations. Ely, Labor Movement, 239; Practical Details, 31-32.
• 70.  Practical Details, 41.
• 71.  Practical Details, 42.
• 72.  True Civilization an Immediate Necessity, 107-108.
• 73.  Practical Details, 43.
• 74.  The fullest work on the most famous of Owen’s sons is Richard W. Leopold, Robert Dale Owen, A Biography (Cambridge, Mass., 1940). This stresses his later life as an Indiana political figure and convert to spiritualism and largely dismisses his activities as a reformer and freethinker. For another treatment with differing interpretations see Elinor Pancoast and Anne E. Lincoln, The Incorrigible Idealist, Robert Dale Owen in America (Bloomington, Ind., 1940).
• 75.  The most recent work of extensive character is the sympathetic study by Alice J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolf son, Frances Wright, Free Enquirer (New York, 1939). Of considerable use also is William R. Waterman, Frances Wright (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. CXV, no. 1) (New York, 1924).
• 76.  A valuable account of this journal may be found in Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines 1741-1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 536-538.
• 77.  This was also true of Philadelphia, where The Mechanic’s Free Press had already made Warren’s views known to the workingmen of the city. Three stores involving Warren’s plan had begun operating in this city before the Cincinnati store completed its second year. Mechanic’s Free Press, May 17, September 20, 1828; March 14, 1829.
• 78.  Practical Details, 43.
• 79.  Bailie, Josiah Warren, 25.
• 80.  Waterman notes the influence of Warren in Frances Wright’s proposed reconstruction of society. Frances Wright, 251. When the two first became acquainted is uncertain; no evidence exists to support the contention that their association dates from New Harmony days, as Warren undoubtedly left the colony before Fanny’s residence was established. However, they had begun exchanging ideas in Cincinnati before she left for New York. Shortly before Warren undertook his own trip to the East, she recalled being at his home in Cincinnati in 1828, the occasion for this comment being the appearance of a lamp in the New York scene which she claimed was a theft of the earlier one patented by Warren in 1821. The Free Enquirer, II (May 22, 1830), 240. See also her favorable sketch of Warren and his accomplishments in The Free Enquirer, II (October 23, 1830), 412. It is interesting to observe that this comment, somewhat uncritical and ignorant of several facts concerning the Warren venture, was written after he had left New York and returned to the West. There is no indication that Robert Dale Owen had lost any confidence in the eventual success of a coöperative village from the spirit of this communication.
• 81.  Warren’s short notice was headed “To the Friends of the Equal Exchange of Labor in the West” and was dated July 4, 1830. The Free Enquirer, II (July 17, 1830), 301-302.
• 82.  The old clay cast method was employed in constructing the stereotype plate, and the substitution of a mixture of shellac, tar and sand for type metal was an unusual departure. Still another mixture, consisting of clay, sand, beeswax, tallow, oil, gum arabic and stearine for the purpose of making fine-surface engravings was also perfected at this time. For a comparison with the earlier stereotyping devices, see Thomas Hodgson, An Essay on the Origin and Progress of Stereotype Printing (Newcastle, England, 1820), 13-14; Theodore L. De Vinne, Printing in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1924), 6; New Harmony Gazette, I, 255, the latter for a description of the Lanefelder process developed in Austria in 1826, which aroused the attention of the Owenites while Warren was a member of the community.
• 83.  A full description of the compositions involved can be found in Kubler, History of Stereotyping, 301.
• 84.  Warren’s first work, A New System of Musical Notation, published in New Harmony, was closely followed by the other that same year, A Collection of the Most Popular Church Music Written Upon Geometric or Scientific Principles, a group of excerpts from 56 popular church hymns of the 1840’s printed in a form adapted for use by brass bands. Speaking of his father’s innovation, George Warren, himself a widely known band leader in southern Indiana in later years, explained, “He dispensed with the sharp and flat signatures, and the tier and length of the stem gave the length of the note, and the piano or forte power was designated by the size of the note itself.” “Josiah Warren,” 4-5.
• 85.  Patent No. 4479 on “Composition for Stereotype Plates” was issued to Warren on April 25, 1846. C. S. Partridge, Stereotyping the Papier Mache Process (Chicago, 1892), 130. A certified copy of this patent, signed and sealed by Thomas Eubank, Commissioner of Patents, August 26, 1850, is in the Warren MSS. in the Workingmen’s Institute Library.
• 86.  Herbert A. Kellar, Solon Robinson Pioneer and Agriculturist (Indiana Historical Collections, vol. XXI) (2 vols. Indianapolis, 1936), II, 504-507. For references to Warren’s process in other papers see Prairie Farmer, V (June, 1845), 155-156; Daily Cincinnati Gazette, July 23, July 30, 1845; Indiana Statesman, July 26, September 13, September 20, October 4, 1845, the latter issues also carrying reprints from articles on this subject in the New York Sun, New York Morning News, Vincennes (Ind.) Gazette and Princeton (Ind.) Chronicle. Other notices appeared from time to time in other stopping-off places along Robinson’s route, including Evansville, and Shawneetown, Illinois.
• 87.  Indiana Statesman, July 4, August 16, October 11, December 27, 1845; January 31, February 14, 1846. The cut in the last issue cited was a superb five column spread, eight inches high, of the map of the disputed Oregon Territory.
• 88.  One of Waren’s interesting controversies was that carried on with the editor of the Indiana Statesman, during the time following the closing of the New Harmony time store. Although he respected Warren as a technical innovator in the printing and engraving field, Burns refused to print his articles on the labor exchange, calling them “long-winded stories,” and marvelling that in the obscurity Warren was able to develop any kind of a clearly expressed idea. Indiana Statesman, February 15, 1845.
• 89.  The title page carried the date 1846 as the date of publication. All citations below are from this rare original edition unless otherwise noted. A selection from this edition is included in Irving Mark and Eugene L. Schwab, (eds.), The Faith of Our Fathers; An Anthology of Americana, 1790-1860 (New York, 1952), 380-384.
• 90.  A second edition appeared in 1849 while Warren was at “Utopia” (Smith’s Landing), Ohio, while a third was published in New York in 1852. A slightly altered version, with the addition of an editor’s preface and a different appendix, under the title True Civilization: A Subject of Vital and Serious Interest to All People but Most Immediately to Men and Women of Labor and Sorrow, printed under Warren’s direction in diffondale, Mass., in 1869, became the fourth appearance of this work. The fifth edition, posthumously released by Benjamin Tucker at Princeton, Mass., in 1875 bore the same title and content as the 1869 edition. Other Warren works incorporated the first two words of the title of this latter version, which has been the cause of a considerable amount of confusion among bibliographers.
• 91.  Equitable Commerce, introduction, iii.
• 92.  The five basic principles of the Warrenite community were re-phrased a number of times, receiving their most concise statement in 1863:
• 93.  Equitable Commerce, 10.
• 94.  “The security of person and property requires that each and every individual should be the supreme law to himself and his own. That one should have no power over another’s person or property.” Equitable Commerce, 24.
• 95.  Warren believed that the fact that human beings were characterized by individual peculiarities and that it still was acknowledged and remained “un-smothered” made this the starting place for what he termed the “ascent towards order and harmony.” Equitable Commerce, 4.
• 96.  Equitable Commerce, 4-5.
• 97.  Equitable Commerce, 7.
• 98.  Warren averred that the term “sovereignty of the people” could mean nothing else except the sovereignty of each individual; “Where is the sovereignty of a people when the sovereignty of every individual is surrendered to votes of majorities, or to a few men appointed to interpret and administer laws and institutions?” Practical Details, 40.
• 99.  Equitable Commerce, 23.
• 100.  Warren was unconvinced that statute law had produced any decline in the number of violent crimes. He inveighed against capital punishment for murder as just another variety of murder, an act which did not perform the function of a deterrent to fresh crimes of the same type. Equitable Commerce, 22.
• 101.  Warren accused governments of having been responsible for more bloodshed and violence throughout history than could have possibly occurred in the absence of all governments. The indictment of government as an agent of destruction and mass murder has become a much-repeated anarchist arraignment in almost every land which has developed an anarchist press. Equitable Commerce, 19.
• 102.  Equitable Commerce, 22, 24.
• 103.  “. . . neither rulers nor ruled can tell how the laws will be interpreted or administered till they have been repeatedly infringed and punishment has been inflicted,” Warren observed, seeking to discover the precise moment when law began to disintegrate. Equitable Commerce, 20.
• 104.  Wars he described as “probably the greatest of all destroyers of property,” and professed to be able to find only two roots from which all wars had originated; “direct or indirect plunder” and “the privilege of governing.” Warren denied the right of any government to force its citizens to fight against their will. Equitable Commerce, 21, 44.
• 105.  Equitable Commerce, 27-28. The right to complete individual freedom, according to Warrenite principle, was qualified only by the responsibility of each to respect the individuality of each. Infringement of another’s sovereignty carried with it all consequences of such action. Warren believed that a harmonious society was impossible unless each member became individually responsible for his acts. The similarity of Warren and Herbert Spencer’s later “law of equal freedom” can be detected at this point, despite the divergent points of origin.
• 106.  Warren made no distinction between “government” and “state” as the classic anarchist writers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have generally done; a connotation of voluntarism has been imparted to the former and coercion to the latter of these terms.
• 107.  Equitable Commerce, 30-31.
• 108.  Equitable Commerce, 25, 28. There is no existing evidence that Warren at any time was a believer in biological or racial inequality.
• 109.  Equitable Commerce, 16, 41-42. It is important to observe the change in Warren’s attitude toward organized religion in the twenty years between the first time store and the publication of the first summary of his social philosophy. Once non-committal, he now classed all churchmen as non-producers with a personal interest in the preservation of the existing order.
• 110.  Equitable Commerce, 27, 31.
• 111.  Equitable Commerce, 34. Warren intimated that the existing basis of the “present” system of exchanges was more ideological than scientific, unworthy of satisfactory apology or incapable of prolonged resistance to an opposing system.
• 112.  Warren admitted that his idea of individual sovereignty would produce chaos if attempts were made to force it to function within the national state system, but he believed that it would prove successful in a world lacking national consciousness. Equitable Commerce, 24.
• 113.  Equitable Commerce, 26.
• 114.  Equitable Commerce, 67. The MacDonald Diaries reveal that Owen suggested a maximum community population of about 2000 while on board ship bound for America in the fall of 1824.
• 115.  Thus he gave voice to the complaint of the bilked consumer everywhere; “. . . there is scarcely an article of food, clothing, tools, or medicines that is fit for use . . . the vender does not make them but imports them beyond the reach of responsibility.” Equitable Commerce, 42-43.
• 116.  Equitable Commerce, 11-12, 17, 40-41, 45. Warren’s conception of machines was not as producers of unemployment but as reducers of the work day for all and social engines whose output should be shared on an equitable plan.
• 117.  Equitable Commerce, 41-42.
• 118.  Equitable Commerce, 16-17. His opposition to the taking of interest on money was as rigid as to the stand on rent.
• 119.  Equitable Commerce, 44-45. The occupation-and-use concept of land was a product of later theorists in the individualist anarchist group.
• 120.  “We must admit the claims of the hardest labor to the highest reward, or we deny our own rights, extinguish the little light we have obtained, and throw everything back into confusion.” Equitable Commerce, 52.
• 121.  Equitable Commerce, 77.
• 122.  Equitable Commerce, 75.
• 123 An example of the problem involved in the matter of accurately using such specialized words can be found in the interesting study by Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., “The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary,” in Journal of the History of Ideas, IX (June, 1948), 259-302.
• 124 Ernest A. Vizetelly, The Anarchists (London, 1911), and Peter Latouche, Anarchy! An Authentic Exposition of the Methods of Anarchists and the Aims of Anarchism (London, 1908), are prime examples of popular writing concerned with anarchism primarily as a program of calculated terrorism aimed in particular to those in high places. Latouche, in his zeal to lay all prominent international political assassinations at the door of the anarchists, even included those of Presidents Lincoln and Garfield. Anarchy!, 238. For vindication of the employment of violence by anarchists, see Peter A. Kropotkin, article “Anarchism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, XI ed., (29 vols. London, 1910), I, 916.
• 125 There is virtually no credible evidence for the assumption that violence is a basic element of the strategy of the anarchists. In distinguishing between the doctrine and the coercive action sometimes associated with it, the non-anarchist German observer and critic Ernst Victor Zenker remarked, “That the theory of Anarchism is not merely a systematic incitement to robbery and murder, we need hardly to repeat. . . . Proudhon and Stirner . . . never once preached force. . . . The doctrine of propaganda which since Proudhon’s time has always accompanied a certain form of anarchist theory, is a foreign element, having no necessary or internal connection with the fundamental ideas of anarchism. It is simply a piece of tactics borrowed from the circumstances peculiar to Russia, and accepted moreover only by one fraction of the Anarchists, and approved by very few indeed in its most crude form; it is merely the old tactics of all revolutionary parties in every age.” Anarchism, a Criticism and History of Anarchist Theory (English translation, New York, 1897), 306.
• 126 Zenker, Anarchism, 6. An early and exhaustive inquiry into the matter is Césare Lombroso, Gli Anarchici (Turin, 1894). A German edition was published in Hamburg the next year under the title Die Anarchisten. Eine Kriminal Psychologische und Sociologische Studie. Lombroso’s methods and techniques as well as most of his conclusions have been discarded for some time.
• 127 Henry David, The History of the Haymarket Affair, continues to be the most thorough account of this unfortunate occurrence. In American history the identification of anarchism with terroristic activities dates from this time, an impression which neither time nor attempts at rectification of the injustice inflicted at the time have succeeded in erasing.
• 128 An accompanying attitude has been the double standard which has tacitly been adhered to with respect to the employment of extra-legal violence. No public condemnation accompanied the use of coercion on the part of industrialists and local groups of citizènry, acting in a vigilante capacity, in disputes with strikers and radicals, until very recently. For an account of this matter see Robert Hunter, Violence and the Labor Movement (New York, 1914), 276-326.
• 129 See especially David W. Petegorsky, Left Wing Democracy in the English Civil War; A Study of the Social Philosophy of Gerrard Winstanley (London, 1947), Chapters I-V, and Mildred A. Gibb, John Lilburne, The Leveller (London, 1947), introduction. See also Mosca, Ruling Classes, 271-272, for the advancement of a cyclical theory dealing with the persistence of anarchist and allied sentiments in the ancient literature of China, India, Persia, Israel, Greece and Rome, and continuing down through the Christian Fathers and the Muslims. The influence of Merriam’s view on subsequent writers dealing with anarchism in the United States is readily observable, however.
• 130 The 1880’s saw the presence in the United States of anarchists in numbers almost equal to those of socialists. Morris Hillquit, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life (New York, 1934), 4.
• 131 For a presentation of this matter as it came to a head at the time of the badly-ignored Anarchist convention in Pittsburgh in 1883, see Chester McA. Destler, “Shall Red and Black Unite? An American Revolutionary Document of 1883,” in Pacific Historical Review, XIV (December, 1945), 434-451.
• 132  For brief expert summaries of both “schools” from the individualist point of view see Victor Yarros, article “Individualist or Philosophical Anarchism,” 41-45, and Clarence Lee Swartz, article “Anarchist Communism,” 45-50, in William D. P. Bliss and Rudolph M. Binder, (eds.), The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform (New York, 1908). For an admirable and sympathetic treatment of the European anarchist philosophy and its exponents by a conservative, consult Alvan F. Sanborn, Paris and the Social Revolution (Boston, 1905), Chapters I-VII.
• 133  For other aspects of this conflict consult Ernest Armand, Formas de Vida en común sin Estado no Autoridad (Carlos Espinosa, trans.) (Madrid, 1934); Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture (Los Angeles, 1937); same author, La Juventud de un Rebeide (Buenos Aires, 1947); Helmut Rüdiger, Federalismen (Stockholm, 1947).
• 134  “In a world where inequality of ability is inevitable, anarchists do not sanction any attempt to produce equality by artificial or authoritarian means. The only equality they posit and will strive their utmost to defend is the equality of opportunity. This necessitates the maximum amount of freedom for each individual. This will not necessarily result in equality of incomes or of wealth but will result in returns proportionate to service rendered. To base society on the supposition that the laborer of great capacity will content himself, in favor of the weak, with half his wages, furnish his services gratuitously, and produce for that abstraction called “society,” in the words of Proudhon, ‘is to base society on a sentiment, . . . which, erected systematically into a principle, is only a false virtue, a dangerous hypocrisy.’ A hypocrisy, unfortunately, eagerly subscribed to by a weak, downtrodden, and misguided portion of the populace.” Quoted from Laurance Labadie, Anarchism Applied to Economics (a leaflet). Emphasized portions are his.
• 135  For example, the presence at the Warrenite colony of “Modern Times” of such a wide variety of the most extreme types of unconventional behavior has resulted in the estimation of this experiment in anarchist voluntarism as a gathering of spiritualists, Fourierites, free lovers, Comtean Positivists, and even Swedenborgians. Scarcity of contemporary accounts is in a large way responsible for the confusion of interpretations.
• 136The details concerning Warren’s birthplace and parentage are still obscure. Beyond the knowledge of his birth in 1798, practically nothing of an authoritative nature exists. One thing is quite definite, nevertheless; sharing an illustrious colonial name did not mean a similar sharing of the general good fortune of the Warren clan. The year 1819 found him making the familiar trek westward and southward down the Ohio which a vast number of Americans continued to make until the midway point in the century was reached, with the principal aim in view of bettering their economic conditions. Warren and an elder brother, George, had shown considerable promise as musicians while still very young, and had become members of the “Old Boston Brigade Band” while still boys of school age. When he and his recently-acquired wife settled in Cincinnati, Josiah continued to earn his livelihood as a musician and teacher of music, an activity he never completely deserted.
• 137The change of locale seems to have sharpened a native inventive genius. Here he began a restless career of invention and innovation in the fields of illumination, printing-press manufacture, stereotyping and musical notation worthy of closer examination in connection with contributions of the Ohio valley to the growing industrial consciousness of the nation. His first contribution was a lamp of revolutionary construction, devised to burn lard instead of the much costlier tallow. It had unusual success, and led to the construction and operation of a factory devoted to its production which prospered, lard oil not yet being known.
• 138It is highly probable that with this background and bent, Josiah Warren might have become one of the early men of wealth in the growing Midwest, had not the personality of Robert Owen intruded and so impressed him with the exciting and disturbing spirit of social reform. Owen’s attempt to remake the pattern of mankind’s affairs is doubtless an occurrence without comparison in the social history of the new West. One of the few early industrial millionaires, the Welsh textile magnate and philanthropist conceived of a new world on a scale which was lavish far beyond the imagination of his time.
• 139Owen was an environmental determinist. Beginning with the assumption that human nature was a constant, he related all behavior patterns to subsequent reactions to environmental forces. The core of his doctrine was that man’s character was a product of exterior stress which he as an individual had no appreciable part in forming. Thus the social system was responsible for its wayward folk, and desirable modes of conduct could be brought about by proper education and supervision. Owen decried the idea of personal responsibility, believing the tenet absurd and productive only of harm; praise and blame on a personal level formed no part of his working social vocabulary.
• 140Having already partially developed his environmental thesis in his model factory town of New Lanark, Scotland, which enjoyed unsurpassed living and working conditions, Owen was determined to put it into operation on an even more striking level, with a new continent as a backdrop. He purchased the colony of Harmony, Indiana from its founders and occupants, a divergent German Lutheran sect known as Rappites. A communal venture with a deeply religious flavor, this group had developed an extensive and strikingly productive estate out of raw wilderness on the Indiana bank of the Wabash River some fifty miles upstream from its juncture with the Ohio. Desiring once more to return to their earlier home in western Pennsylvania, they sold the tract of 30,000 acres of land and the sturdy buildings thereon to Owen for the sum of $150,000. He then renamed it New Harmony and brought in settlers sympathetic to his philosophy and anxious to experience practical success. It was the largest and most promising experiment in environmentalism in the nineteenth century.
• 141Having already partially developed his environmental thesis in his model factory town of New Lanark, Scotland, which enjoyed unsurpassed living and working conditions, Owen was determined to put it into operation on an even more striking level, with a new continent as a backdrop. He purchased the colony of Harmony, Indiana from its founders and occupants, a divergent German Lutheran sect known as Rappites. A communal venture with a deeply religious flavor, this group had developed an extensive and strikingly productive estate out of raw wilderness on the Indiana bank of the Wabash River some fifty miles upstream from its juncture with the Ohio. Desiring once more to return to their earlier home in western Pennsylvania, they sold the tract of 30,000 acres of land and the sturdy buildings thereon to Owen for the sum of $150,000. He then renamed it New Harmony and brought in settlers sympathetic to his philosophy and anxious to experience practical success. It was the largest and most promising experiment in environmentalism in the nineteenth century.
• 142Having already partially developed his environmental thesis in his model factory town of New Lanark, Scotland, which enjoyed unsurpassed living and working conditions, Owen was determined to put it into operation on an even more striking level, with a new continent as a backdrop. He purchased the colony of Harmony, Indiana from its founders and occupants, a divergent German Lutheran sect known as Rappites. A communal venture with a deeply religious flavor, this group had developed an extensive and strikingly productive estate out of raw wilderness on the Indiana bank of the Wabash River some fifty miles upstream from its juncture with the Ohio. Desiring once more to return to their earlier home in western Pennsylvania, they sold the tract of 30,000 acres of land and the sturdy buildings thereon to Owen for the sum of $150,000. He then renamed it New Harmony and brought in settlers sympathetic to his philosophy and anxious to experience practical success. It was the largest and most promising experiment in environmentalism in the nineteenth century.
• 143Warren was to know the exhilaration and dejection of the founding and decline of the Owenite interlude at New Harmony before striking out on his own as a social radical. Although unable to hear Owen speak until 1825, he was a member of the first group gathering for the purpose of forming a community of property at the appointed place. By the fall of this same year he was taking active party in the Preliminary Society, and was a participant in the drafting and approving of the first constitution of the New Harmony Community of Equality in February, 1826. His musical training was soon employed; as leader of the community’s band, he was long remembered by the first settlers. By the late winter Warren, his wife and baby daughter were an established family unit of the settlement, and were to remain there for over a year.
• 144Warren was to know the exhilaration and dejection of the founding and decline of the Owenite interlude at New Harmony before striking out on his own as a social radical. Although unable to hear Owen speak until 1825, he was a member of the first group gathering for the purpose of forming a community of property at the appointed place. By the fall of this same year he was taking active party in the Preliminary Society, and was a participant in the drafting and approving of the first constitution of the New Harmony Community of Equality in February, 1826. His musical training was soon employed; as leader of the community’s band, he was long remembered by the first settlers. By the late winter Warren, his wife and baby daughter were an established family unit of the settlement, and were to remain there for over a year.
• 145Warren was to know the exhilaration and dejection of the founding and decline of the Owenite interlude at New Harmony before striking out on his own as a social radical. Although unable to hear Owen speak until 1825, he was a member of the first group gathering for the purpose of forming a community of property at the appointed place. By the fall of this same year he was taking active party in the Preliminary Society, and was a participant in the drafting and approving of the first constitution of the New Harmony Community of Equality in February, 1826. His musical training was soon employed; as leader of the community’s band, he was long remembered by the first settlers. By the late winter Warren, his wife and baby daughter were an established family unit of the settlement, and were to remain there for over a year.
• 146Warren was to know the exhilaration and dejection of the founding and decline of the Owenite interlude at New Harmony before striking out on his own as a social radical. Although unable to hear Owen speak until 1825, he was a member of the first group gathering for the purpose of forming a community of property at the appointed place. By the fall of this same year he was taking active party in the Preliminary Society, and was a participant in the drafting and approving of the first constitution of the New Harmony Community of Equality in February, 1826. His musical training was soon employed; as leader of the community’s band, he was long remembered by the first settlers. By the late winter Warren, his wife and baby daughter were an established family unit of the settlement, and were to remain there for over a year.
• 147Warren made a quick and incisive deduction as to the cause of the debacle which placed him at once in a camp far removed from that in which the faithful Owenites would henceforth gather. He felt that the common property scheme of the New Harmony colony had been instituted by Owen as a means and not as an end; that what had been desired was a social situation in which the interests of the different individuals would coöperate instead of clash one with the other. Even though thirty years of retrospection upon the experience continued to bring back pleasant memories of what had transpired there, the management of financial and property affairs convinced him of the failure of their mission; “but for property considerations the experiments never would have commenced,” was his pithy summation of the situation. Why did an amicable settlement of material affairs fail to become a reality? Warren blamed it upon the submergence of the individual within the confines of the community. The consequences of such a procedure, said Warren, were inevitable. Not only was individual initiative stifled by failure to provide a place within the structure for personal rights and interests beyond the sphere of religious matters, but the elimination of individual property rights resulted in almost total dissipation of responsibility for the occurrence of individual incapacity, failure, and short-comings of other kinds. This was not all. He had noted that the expressions of natural differences of opinion were increasingly looked upon as unfortunate developments and obstacles to success, which had damaging effect on the continuance of courtesy and tolerance. Thus, despite frequent reorganizations, failures became more abrupt and chaos drew nearer. Warren summed up the whole matter in one vigorous outburst:
• 148Warren made a quick and incisive deduction as to the cause of the debacle which placed him at once in a camp far removed from that in which the faithful Owenites would henceforth gather. He felt that the common property scheme of the New Harmony colony had been instituted by Owen as a means and not as an end; that what had been desired was a social situation in which the interests of the different individuals would coöperate instead of clash one with the other. Even though thirty years of retrospection upon the experience continued to bring back pleasant memories of what had transpired there, the management of financial and property affairs convinced him of the failure of their mission; “but for property considerations the experiments never would have commenced,” was his pithy summation of the situation. Why did an amicable settlement of material affairs fail to become a reality? Warren blamed it upon the submergence of the individual within the confines of the community. The consequences of such a procedure, said Warren, were inevitable. Not only was individual initiative stifled by failure to provide a place within the structure for personal rights and interests beyond the sphere of religious matters, but the elimination of individual property rights resulted in almost total dissipation of responsibility for the occurrence of individual incapacity, failure, and short-comings of other kinds. This was not all. He had noted that the expressions of natural differences of opinion were increasingly looked upon as unfortunate developments and obstacles to success, which had damaging effect on the continuance of courtesy and tolerance. Thus, despite frequent reorganizations, failures became more abrupt and chaos drew nearer. Warren summed up the whole matter in one vigorous outburst:
• 149Warren made a quick and incisive deduction as to the cause of the debacle which placed him at once in a camp far removed from that in which the faithful Owenites would henceforth gather. He felt that the common property scheme of the New Harmony colony had been instituted by Owen as a means and not as an end; that what had been desired was a social situation in which the interests of the different individuals would coöperate instead of clash one with the other. Even though thirty years of retrospection upon the experience continued to bring back pleasant memories of what had transpired there, the management of financial and property affairs convinced him of the failure of their mission; “but for property considerations the experiments never would have commenced,” was his pithy summation of the situation. Why did an amicable settlement of material affairs fail to become a reality? Warren blamed it upon the submergence of the individual within the confines of the community. The consequences of such a procedure, said Warren, were inevitable. Not only was individual initiative stifled by failure to provide a place within the structure for personal rights and interests beyond the sphere of religious matters, but the elimination of individual property rights resulted in almost total dissipation of responsibility for the occurrence of individual incapacity, failure, and short-comings of other kinds. This was not all. He had noted that the expressions of natural differences of opinion were increasingly looked upon as unfortunate developments and obstacles to success, which had damaging effect on the continuance of courtesy and tolerance. Thus, despite frequent reorganizations, failures became more abrupt and chaos drew nearer. Warren summed up the whole matter in one vigorous outburst:
• 150Warren made a quick and incisive deduction as to the cause of the debacle which placed him at once in a camp far removed from that in which the faithful Owenites would henceforth gather. He felt that the common property scheme of the New Harmony colony had been instituted by Owen as a means and not as an end; that what had been desired was a social situation in which the interests of the different individuals would coöperate instead of clash one with the other. Even though thirty years of retrospection upon the experience continued to bring back pleasant memories of what had transpired there, the management of financial and property affairs convinced him of the failure of their mission; “but for property considerations the experiments never would have commenced,” was his pithy summation of the situation. Why did an amicable settlement of material affairs fail to become a reality? Warren blamed it upon the submergence of the individual within the confines of the community. The consequences of such a procedure, said Warren, were inevitable. Not only was individual initiative stifled by failure to provide a place within the structure for personal rights and interests beyond the sphere of religious matters, but the elimination of individual property rights resulted in almost total dissipation of responsibility for the occurrence of individual incapacity, failure, and short-comings of other kinds. This was not all. He had noted that the expressions of natural differences of opinion were increasingly looked upon as unfortunate developments and obstacles to success, which had damaging effect on the continuance of courtesy and tolerance. Thus, despite frequent reorganizations, failures became more abrupt and chaos drew nearer. Warren summed up the whole matter in one vigorous outburst:
• 151Although Warren broke sharply with Owen’s collective plans for producing the good life, in other respects the cleavage was not so clearly marked. Indeed, his championing of individual sovereignty was to posit a dilemma which was never satisfactorily reconciled. His writings continued to put forth the doctrine of environmentalism, but liberally interleaved with a persistent promotion of belief in free will and individual responsibility which Owen would have categorically dismissed as prime heresy. Conventional society lost Warren forever, despite all this. For almost half a century he followed a course of ceaseless activity, attempting several experiments embracing his own conception of societary reorganization. He never repudiated Owen in an overt way, his attitude toward the founder of New Harmony remaining one of deep respect to his last days. Many years after the break took place Warren declared:
• 152Although Warren broke sharply with Owen’s collective plans for producing the good life, in other respects the cleavage was not so clearly marked. Indeed, his championing of individual sovereignty was to posit a dilemma which was never satisfactorily reconciled. His writings continued to put forth the doctrine of environmentalism, but liberally interleaved with a persistent promotion of belief in free will and individual responsibility which Owen would have categorically dismissed as prime heresy. Conventional society lost Warren forever, despite all this. For almost half a century he followed a course of ceaseless activity, attempting several experiments embracing his own conception of societary reorganization. He never repudiated Owen in an overt way, his attitude toward the founder of New Harmony remaining one of deep respect to his last days. Many years after the break took place Warren declared:
• 153One element of Owen’s thought found ready acceptance, in contrast to the lukewarm attitude toward social experimentation. In the hands of Warren and a large number of Warren’s followers throughout the remander of the century, the basic economic doctrine of coöperation met no opposition whatever, despite the serious trouble encountered in putting it into action. This was the proposal to exchange all labor employed in the production of goods and services equally, hour for hour, substituting for the state or privately controlled currency based on metallic commodities a circulating medium consisting of “labor notes.” These were simply bills issued in the form of currency, limited in issue and signed by the issuer, promising to furnish labor at specified occupations or activities for specific periods, in exchange for services desired of and rendered by another. These were to be issued on the basis of hours of labor or fractions of hours, depending upon the amount of another’s labor consumed.
• 154Owen had been mulling over the labor theory of value before coming to America. His four Essays on the Formation of Human Character, published in New Lanark in 1812-1813, contained indications of his whole-hearted conversion to this doctrine. The contention that the true price of a thing is the amount of labor expended in its production had been espoused by political economists generations before Adam Smith, although Smith had stated it in classic form in 1776. Owen’s labor note idea was a ground-breaker in the direction of practical realization of this idea, and this he also had fully developed in his own mind before reaching New Harmony.
• 155Owen had been mulling over the labor theory of value before coming to America. His four Essays on the Formation of Human Character, published in New Lanark in 1812-1813, contained indications of his whole-hearted conversion to this doctrine. The contention that the true price of a thing is the amount of labor expended in its production had been espoused by political economists generations before Adam Smith, although Smith had stated it in classic form in 1776. Owen’s labor note idea was a ground-breaker in the direction of practical realization of this idea, and this he also had fully developed in his own mind before reaching New Harmony.
• 156Owen had been mulling over the labor theory of value before coming to America. His four Essays on the Formation of Human Character, published in New Lanark in 1812-1813, contained indications of his whole-hearted conversion to this doctrine. The contention that the true price of a thing is the amount of labor expended in its production had been espoused by political economists generations before Adam Smith, although Smith had stated it in classic form in 1776. Owen’s labor note idea was a ground-breaker in the direction of practical realization of this idea, and this he also had fully developed in his own mind before reaching New Harmony.
• 157Warren became a permanent convert to this new system, propagandizing for its adoption both verbally and through practical attempts for almost forty-five years. Its operation was never realized at New Harmony, so Josiah Warren became the first person to employ the device in everyday economic intercourse. His Cincinnati Time Store of 1827-1830 became the first scientific experiment in coöperative economy in modern history, despite its limited objectives as such, as well as its obscurity resulting from the modest unsophisticated structure employed and the stark utilitarianism which prevailed during its existence.
• 158While Warren was forming his own philosophy, rejecting part of Owen’s convictions and accepting another part, his New Harmony experiences as a member of the original Community of Equality were producing other repercussions. His observation of human differences, among other things, shattered his faith in the ideal of economic equality. Basing his conclusions on the assumption that different persons put differing amounts of energy and time toward the accomplishment of various ends, and satisfied with the motivational drives which “enlightened self-interest” might supply, he proposed the substitution of the ideal of equal opportunities to the access to land, raw materials and credit. Equal opportunities being provided, individual differences and completely free competition would gradually work toward the establishment of an equitable society, in which returns would be measured by the amount of work performed, both quantitatively and qualitatively. To Warren the striving for equity was the highest possible goal of human effort.
• 159While Warren was forming his own philosophy, rejecting part of Owen’s convictions and accepting another part, his New Harmony experiences as a member of the original Community of Equality were producing other repercussions. His observation of human differences, among other things, shattered his faith in the ideal of economic equality. Basing his conclusions on the assumption that different persons put differing amounts of energy and time toward the accomplishment of various ends, and satisfied with the motivational drives which “enlightened self-interest” might supply, he proposed the substitution of the ideal of equal opportunities to the access to land, raw materials and credit. Equal opportunities being provided, individual differences and completely free competition would gradually work toward the establishment of an equitable society, in which returns would be measured by the amount of work performed, both quantitatively and qualitatively. To Warren the striving for equity was the highest possible goal of human effort.
• 160Warren’s complete program was a cumulative affair which did not receive definitive statement for almost twenty years. A part of this period of growth was his growing disregard for constituted authority, partially a product of attachment to a number of attitudes which convinced him that institutional government was a superfluous part of human society. His primary source of dissatisfaction with what he called the “communistic experiments” in New Harmony was the combination of interests. This combination required, as he saw it, a government based on authority and demanding obedience which resulted in the death of individual liberty. The alternative which he proposed and crusaded for was a system based on voluntary coöperation, but at no place rising above any individual within its structure; “the sovereignty of the individual” had to be preserved at all costs. This matter he considered more important than any artificial arrangement of individuals which demanded the fidelity of all. There was no compensation which could equate the sacrifice of this principle of individuality. There is a frontier flavor to his own blunt declaration of individualist war upon the hobbling tendencies of institutionalism which still commands at-tention:
• 161Warren’s complete program was a cumulative affair which did not receive definitive statement for almost twenty years. A part of this period of growth was his growing disregard for constituted authority, partially a product of attachment to a number of attitudes which convinced him that institutional government was a superfluous part of human society. His primary source of dissatisfaction with what he called the “communistic experiments” in New Harmony was the combination of interests. This combination required, as he saw it, a government based on authority and demanding obedience which resulted in the death of individual liberty. The alternative which he proposed and crusaded for was a system based on voluntary coöperation, but at no place rising above any individual within its structure; “the sovereignty of the individual” had to be preserved at all costs. This matter he considered more important than any artificial arrangement of individuals which demanded the fidelity of all. There was no compensation which could equate the sacrifice of this principle of individuality. There is a frontier flavor to his own blunt declaration of individualist war upon the hobbling tendencies of institutionalism which still commands at-tention:
• 162Warren’s complete program was a cumulative affair which did not receive definitive statement for almost twenty years. A part of this period of growth was his growing disregard for constituted authority, partially a product of attachment to a number of attitudes which convinced him that institutional government was a superfluous part of human society. His primary source of dissatisfaction with what he called the “communistic experiments” in New Harmony was the combination of interests. This combination required, as he saw it, a government based on authority and demanding obedience which resulted in the death of individual liberty. The alternative which he proposed and crusaded for was a system based on voluntary coöperation, but at no place rising above any individual within its structure; “the sovereignty of the individual” had to be preserved at all costs. This matter he considered more important than any artificial arrangement of individuals which demanded the fidelity of all. There was no compensation which could equate the sacrifice of this principle of individuality. There is a frontier flavor to his own blunt declaration of individualist war upon the hobbling tendencies of institutionalism which still commands at-tention:
• 163Warren’s complete program was a cumulative affair which did not receive definitive statement for almost twenty years. A part of this period of growth was his growing disregard for constituted authority, partially a product of attachment to a number of attitudes which convinced him that institutional government was a superfluous part of human society. His primary source of dissatisfaction with what he called the “communistic experiments” in New Harmony was the combination of interests. This combination required, as he saw it, a government based on authority and demanding obedience which resulted in the death of individual liberty. The alternative which he proposed and crusaded for was a system based on voluntary coöperation, but at no place rising above any individual within its structure; “the sovereignty of the individual” had to be preserved at all costs. This matter he considered more important than any artificial arrangement of individuals which demanded the fidelity of all. There was no compensation which could equate the sacrifice of this principle of individuality. There is a frontier flavor to his own blunt declaration of individualist war upon the hobbling tendencies of institutionalism which still commands at-tention:
• 164Using this concept of individualism, then it appeared logical to him that interests, responsibilities and actions all had to be confined to this level.
• 165To solve this problem Warren brought forth the labor exchange idea which he had absorbed from Owen and which remained firmly planted in his mind. This became his initial action in the effort to promote adoption of a satisfactory method of effecting equitable exchanges, paying little attention to the complexities which had grown upon this branch of human relations through centuries of changing ethical approaches. Nevertheless, an economy based on the exchange of equivalents, or as he termed it, “labor for labor,” became the basis for the new society he projected. His formula therefore rejected the idea of paying for such goods of the earth as were not the product of human labor. Unlike later adherents to native anarchism, Warren continued to think land a fit subject for sale, an obvious inconsistency. On other matters, which he occasionally referred to as “spontaneous fruits of nature,” the raw materials derived from labor on the land, he held that such were no more fit subjects for monopoly and sale than sunshine or air.
• 166As regards compensation, Warren saw nothing fundamentally wrong with the original Owenite proposal to exchange labor time on an equal hour-for-hour basis. One of the perennial stumbling blocks to the realization of the labor cost theory, the problem of determining the relative intensities and production of the hour’s work being exchanged, did bother him somewhat. But he assumed that the principle of individual sovereignty being preserved at all times, each individual would make what he considered the necessary exceptions to the hour-for-hour yardstick without causing any noticeable disaffection among those involved in the labor exchange group.
• 167Josiah Warren was no aimless manipulator of theories. All his life he manifested a tireless interest in proof through demonstration. Scarcely had the reluctant admission of failure in Indiana appeared in the New Harmony Gazette in May 1827, when Warren gathered his family, his scant goods and savings together and returned to Cincinnati, anxious to try out his economic scheme in an actual social situation. He decided that the best means of effecting proof of the workability of his views was through the operation of a retail store, observing that such a trial was bound to affect a wide variety of persons, and its operations would thus become a type of laboratory exhibit.
• 168The venture was carefully planned. Warren had no intention of continuing in the capacity of storekeeper if what he thought proved to be successful. His intention was to close the store abruptly and begin a model village at once on the outskirts of Cincinnati. The residents he hoped to recruit from among the more enthusiastic of the group of co-operators. This was to be done as quietly as possible, publicity being kept to a bare minimum. His strategy involved the practical demonstration of every element of non-coercive equity on the autonomous local community level in such a manner as to leave no doubt as to their value and practicability. Following the explanation of the manner in which the process had been accomplished, Warren believed that a rapid growth of mutualist villages would take place. Like Robert Owen, he anticipated great things for the betterment of mankind, although the structure he contemplated was far less complex.
• 169Thus the anarchist vision of a world composed of autonomous local communities, in which individuality would be one sacred principle and economic life regulated by the mutual exchange of goods and services on a cost basis, found its expression on the trans-Allegheny frontier two decades before similar European conceptions made their appearance. Furthermore, while the present-day modified coöperative movement looks to Rochdale, England and the earlier London Labor Exchanges, the first venture in coöperative marketing had an uncontestably American setting, predating either of these more widely known English events and in some respects providing the inspiration for them.
• 170The original stock of the store consisted of three hundred dollars’ worth of groceries and dry goods which were in greatest demand. Warren posted the bills of purchase within view of all potential customers, that all might see what had originally been paid for the goods on sale. Accompanying them was a notice stating that the cost price would be charged plus a seven per cent mark-up to pay what he called “contingent expenses.” This constituted the first part of the transaction. He made it plain that no element of the cash price consisted of his profit or return as storekeeper. The customer was first to pay this cost price, plus the seven per cent, which was to defray shipping cost and general overhead of the store. But for the portion which represented his own labor, Warren merely required the customer to present him with a labor note. This note promised to repay an equal amount of time, in the customer’s occupation, to the storekeeper, as he had consumed of the storekeeper’s time in effecting the transfer of the merchandise. The principal distinction between Warren’s store and those of his neighbors was this simple feature, the separation of the merchant’s compensation from the cost of the goods sold.
• 171The original stock of the store consisted of three hundred dollars’ worth of groceries and dry goods which were in greatest demand. Warren posted the bills of purchase within view of all potential customers, that all might see what had originally been paid for the goods on sale. Accompanying them was a notice stating that the cost price would be charged plus a seven per cent mark-up to pay what he called “contingent expenses.” This constituted the first part of the transaction. He made it plain that no element of the cash price consisted of his profit or return as storekeeper. The customer was first to pay this cost price, plus the seven per cent, which was to defray shipping cost and general overhead of the store. But for the portion which represented his own labor, Warren merely required the customer to present him with a labor note. This note promised to repay an equal amount of time, in the customer’s occupation, to the storekeeper, as he had consumed of the storekeeper’s time in effecting the transfer of the merchandise. The principal distinction between Warren’s store and those of his neighbors was this simple feature, the separation of the merchant’s compensation from the cost of the goods sold.
• 172The original stock of the store consisted of three hundred dollars’ worth of groceries and dry goods which were in greatest demand. Warren posted the bills of purchase within view of all potential customers, that all might see what had originally been paid for the goods on sale. Accompanying them was a notice stating that the cost price would be charged plus a seven per cent mark-up to pay what he called “contingent expenses.” This constituted the first part of the transaction. He made it plain that no element of the cash price consisted of his profit or return as storekeeper. The customer was first to pay this cost price, plus the seven per cent, which was to defray shipping cost and general overhead of the store. But for the portion which represented his own labor, Warren merely required the customer to present him with a labor note. This note promised to repay an equal amount of time, in the customer’s occupation, to the storekeeper, as he had consumed of the storekeeper’s time in effecting the transfer of the merchandise. The principal distinction between Warren’s store and those of his neighbors was this simple feature, the separation of the merchant’s compensation from the cost of the goods sold.
• 173Often asked by people who failed to understand what he was trying to do, why he did not charge a blanket percentage to cover the entire matter of costs and profit, Warren patiently explained that failure to disconnect the two operations would destroy the principle he was trying to illustrate. No percentage could be accurately assigned to serve either the seller’s or the buyer’s interest; no particular relation existed between the profit and the labor expended in production of the article vended. Thus for instance twenty percent profit on needles would soon result in the storekeeper’s ruination, while the same percentage on broadcloth would net him a return of probably two dollars for a scant ten minutes work, obviously inequitable. A storekeeper, he went on, might buy and sell one barrel or a hundred barrels of flour in the same time; thus the correct basis upon which he should be paid was solely the amount of time expended in conducting the transaction.
• 174Warren was convinced that nothing was superior to the direct exchange of commodities and services; if agreement as to labor content existed, it was preferable to any system involving elements of confidence and risk, which he was convinced the use of currency necessarily provoked. Realizing that specialization and diversity of tastes made this only a partial solution to the continual problem of exchange, the adoption of the labor note paper bills served the function of completing all exchanges not available to settlement by direct exchange. There was a difference in the application of this device by Warren as compared to its original purpose as conceived by Owen. Where the latter had intended it as a means of effecting transactions among the different communities at New Harmony, the former reduced the scope to the local function of a limited currency, but valid among all those who engaged in any part of the business at the time store.
• 175The name “time store” was a popular designation, not an original appellation of Warren’s, and had come into general use by the end of the third month of the store’s existence. The circumstances responsible for this have aroused the interest and curiosity of several commentators, but Warren’s own explanation is the clearest.
• 176This was an innovation. It was to the interest of the customer to take up as little of the storekeeper’s time as possible, since time was one of the elements in the price settlement. Thus wrangling and higgling over prices, which Warren considered a particularly degrading feature of ordinary commerce, was eliminated in time store operations, a matter of considerable significance at a time when such functions were an almost fundamental part of merchandising. Transactions were expedited by the open display of goods and prominence of list prices, another unprecedented feature.
• 177It is interesting to note that before the store was terminated, Warren succeeded in reducing the commerce in such staples as flour, meal, beans, beef, pork and shoes to a modified labor exchange level. A set of actual labor prices based on an average estimate of the labor cost of production of each of these commodities evolved, which was posted in the store, and these changed from time to time as labor estimates fluctuated. The partial realization of an economy resting exclusively on exchange of labor notes thus took place independent of the use of legal currency.
• 178Warren’s unpretentious establishment opened its doors on May 18, 1827 and after a faltering start produced results which he found highly gratifying. The failure of New Harmony had become common knowledge in Cincinnati by the time Warren expressed his determination to begin his labor exchange store, and his friends begged him to refrain from additional attempts at reform. The promise of financial support in commencing a conventional business venture was of no avail. Nor was he inhibited by denunciations of his plan as “utopian” or “visionary,” or as just one more of the numerous tricks to aid speculating or swindling which were all too common in the port towns along the water route to New Orleans. Despite all the discouraging factors, the time store began operations, and at the end of three months had resulted in making an impression in the retail trade of the area which has since drawn the attention of students of early American economic radicalism.
• 179Warren’s methods of doing business were adopted by a neighboring merchant, while he declared that the new methods permitted him to sell as much merchandise in an hour as normally was retailed in a day. This increased activity forced him to close part of the day to rest and to furnish information as to how the labor exchange store functioned. There was a mixed reception to the new shop. Some, who considered the principles equitable, thought them a thing of the future. Others circulated rumors that Warren was an accomplice of big merchants, helping them dispose of their damaged and inferior stocks of goods. One opponent, still remembering New Harmony and the suspicion it had aroused among conservative folk, asserted that Warren was an agent of Robert Owen and had been commissioned to engage in a plot to undermine the United States. No one seemed to realize that Warren’s system was a direct blow at the money economy and the power that such a system had in determining the nature of production and the incidence of distribution. The time store founder was not to feel the full impact of a large-scale whispering campaign for some time in the future, not until the time of the founding of the much-discussed individualist colony on Long Island.
• 180Warren, in his anxiety to extend the labor exchange method in as many ways as possible, gave music lessons in the evenings to young men who understood the operation of the plan and agreed to enter as participants. He and a group of his mutual customers succeeded in securing a teacher for their children who also accepted compensation in labor notes. In 1829 he asserted that three physicians had already purchased goods on these same principles, promising professional services on demand. An agnostic, he took pleasure in telling at a later time of an influential Methodist convert to the time store principles who had interrupted an argument about a point of faith and charity with the following observation: “Well, brothers, people have been disputing for eighteen hundred years about what is true Christianity. Now, if you will go down to the corner of Fifth and Elm Streets, you will see it in operation for the first time in the world.”
• 181Warren, in his anxiety to extend the labor exchange method in as many ways as possible, gave music lessons in the evenings to young men who understood the operation of the plan and agreed to enter as participants. He and a group of his mutual customers succeeded in securing a teacher for their children who also accepted compensation in labor notes. In 1829 he asserted that three physicians had already purchased goods on these same principles, promising professional services on demand. An agnostic, he took pleasure in telling at a later time of an influential Methodist convert to the time store principles who had interrupted an argument about a point of faith and charity with the following observation: “Well, brothers, people have been disputing for eighteen hundred years about what is true Christianity. Now, if you will go down to the corner of Fifth and Elm Streets, you will see it in operation for the first time in the world.”
• 182Warren borrowed money to aid in the development of the store in its early days, but insisted on giving the lenders notes which were payable on demand. He never explained whether such payments had ever been requested or whether he had ever agreed to pay interest, or how immediate payment was possible if the sum obtained through loan had been invested in fixed capital by the time demand for its return had been made. There is no doubt, however, that he received the necessary backing, in view of the prolonged period of operations.
• 183Warren was opposed to enlarging the scope of his activities. He stressed continually that he was not attempting to put retail storekeepers out of business but trying to demonstrate principles of mutualism. He did double the capacity of the original store before the end of the first year, employing the labor of seven carpenters on the familiar exchange procedure; still he insisted on keeping the business on the same simple relationship between keeper and customer and never expanded to the extent of hiring clerks. This action would have been in the nature of a partnership under his conception of the plan, and such combination of interests was diametrically opposed to the principle of individuality which he unequivocally professed.
• 184The introduction of still another aspect of labor exchange opened his eyes to other inequalities in the economic system which he believed called for reparation. This was what he called the “report of demand.” A large sheet of paper was posted on one wall of the store on which those with particular needs made them known, and those with labor and services available for exchange stated the nature of their particular ability or capacity. At the same time he posted a list of commodities for which he would exchange the same, in an attempt to produce a “leveling” of supply. Warren’s conception of the terms “supply” and “demand” had little relation to their use in economic terminology of the present day. In his simple system, the declared desire to have a given object constituted “demand” for it, and no relation whatever to the possession of ability to pay on the basis of theoretical graduated price curves, in a money economy. He was convinced that existing economic relationships were exactly reversed in operation, to that demanded by distributive justice. The only way to bring about equity was to adapt supply to what he called “demand,” and thus eliminate the occasion for speculation in human need.
• 185The great number of requests for employment in unwanted occupations distressed him considerably, as did the observation that the labor return of children and women was artificially depressed below the level existing among adult men engaged in similar activities. This led to an investigation and condemnation of the apprentice system, which he called an “obsolete barbarity,” a deliberate and artificial restriction of employment which curtailed demand for many services and products. Thus began a full-scale campaign to spread information about all types of skills, a matter of vital concern at a time previous to the widespread adoption of automatic machinery. Warren reasoned that the cost-basis economy required the production of all goods at the lowest possible labor cost. This could only be accomplished by the employment of each in the activity he could do best, and therefore cheapest, from the point of view of labor time involved. It was at this time also that he observed another harrassing element in the labor exchange operation. This was the problem of determining intensity of relative hours of labor, further complicated by the fact that the most repulsive types of labor were generally the poorest paid. This matter he wrestled with for the remainder of his life, and was never able to satisfy himself as to the best method of solution.
• 186Warren’s activities in marketing spread over a wide range. He sold almost any product or article which he thought would demonstrate his theory. In all transactions, he attempted a drastic underselling of his competitors to provide the greatest possible contrast between the profit system and the coöperative system. This occasionally involved practices which were not strictly in accordance with equity, such as purchases in wholesale lots, often at public auctions. Such were sacrifices and not exchanges of equivalents. He justified this action by asserting that other retailers bought as much as he, but failed to pass on the saving to their patrons.
• 187Warren’s activities in marketing spread over a wide range. He sold almost any product or article which he thought would demonstrate his theory. In all transactions, he attempted a drastic underselling of his competitors to provide the greatest possible contrast between the profit system and the coöperative system. This occasionally involved practices which were not strictly in accordance with equity, such as purchases in wholesale lots, often at public auctions. Such were sacrifices and not exchanges of equivalents. He justified this action by asserting that other retailers bought as much as he, but failed to pass on the saving to their patrons.
• 188The Cincinnati Time Store was finally liquidated in May, 1830. Warren had long been satisfied that his plan was sound and that he had succeeded in regulating his business by principles without utilizing what he called “the customary machinery of organization,” or the “erection of any power over the individual.” In fact, he thought that this had been proven in the first six months. The original intent to start communities based on such principles he found more difficult to promote than expected. As early as November, 1827, he had contemplated beginning on a holding of 1500 acres of land in Logan County, Ohio, which had been offered for the purpose by an enthusiast named Samuel Hyde Saunders. Nothing was done at this time, nor even a year later when he considered moving outside the city and forming a model village.
• 189The Cincinnati Time Store was finally liquidated in May, 1830. Warren had long been satisfied that his plan was sound and that he had succeeded in regulating his business by principles without utilizing what he called “the customary machinery of organization,” or the “erection of any power over the individual.” In fact, he thought that this had been proven in the first six months. The original intent to start communities based on such principles he found more difficult to promote than expected. As early as November, 1827, he had contemplated beginning on a holding of 1500 acres of land in Logan County, Ohio, which had been offered for the purpose by an enthusiast named Samuel Hyde Saunders. Nothing was done at this time, nor even a year later when he considered moving outside the city and forming a model village.
• 190The Cincinnati Time Store was finally liquidated in May, 1830. Warren had long been satisfied that his plan was sound and that he had succeeded in regulating his business by principles without utilizing what he called “the customary machinery of organization,” or the “erection of any power over the individual.” In fact, he thought that this had been proven in the first six months. The original intent to start communities based on such principles he found more difficult to promote than expected. As early as November, 1827, he had contemplated beginning on a holding of 1500 acres of land in Logan County, Ohio, which had been offered for the purpose by an enthusiast named Samuel Hyde Saunders. Nothing was done at this time, nor even a year later when he considered moving outside the city and forming a model village.
• 191A third and final decision to begin a village was made in April, 1829. Despite the hundreds of customers who had made purchases in the time store, all involving the acceptance and utility of labor notes, Warren ruefully recalled that only four people were ready to take part in this adventure. Warren learned, as had Owen before him, that the inertia of the status quo was a formidable antagonist to such a sweeping reorganization of human affairs as he entertained. He was too practical to think that such a plan as he proposed could succeed if supported only by the poor, the needy, and others at the bottom of the economic ladder, even though it was one of the principal reasons for starting in the first place, to eliminate the perpetuation of this by-product of what he called “legalized cannibalism.” He remarked that hundreds were interested in his proposition who were too poor to afford the loss of the month’s income which removing and changing positions would occasion. Others had different objections. Some feared inability to obtain employment under the new conditions. Others did not look favorably upon the equitable compensation of women and children or the proposal to teach the secrets of carefully guarded trades in a few days or weeks. Those with means admitted in private conversations the worth of some of his proposals yet abstained entirely from offering assistance.
• 192A third and final decision to begin a village was made in April, 1829. Despite the hundreds of customers who had made purchases in the time store, all involving the acceptance and utility of labor notes, Warren ruefully recalled that only four people were ready to take part in this adventure. Warren learned, as had Owen before him, that the inertia of the status quo was a formidable antagonist to such a sweeping reorganization of human affairs as he entertained. He was too practical to think that such a plan as he proposed could succeed if supported only by the poor, the needy, and others at the bottom of the economic ladder, even though it was one of the principal reasons for starting in the first place, to eliminate the perpetuation of this by-product of what he called “legalized cannibalism.” He remarked that hundreds were interested in his proposition who were too poor to afford the loss of the month’s income which removing and changing positions would occasion. Others had different objections. Some feared inability to obtain employment under the new conditions. Others did not look favorably upon the equitable compensation of women and children or the proposal to teach the secrets of carefully guarded trades in a few days or weeks. Those with means admitted in private conversations the worth of some of his proposals yet abstained entirely from offering assistance.
• 193Warren felt at the time that those who participated in his time store still lacked the capacity to understand the nature of the proposals the way he had explained them. Many years later, however, he became convinced that, looking back on the wreckage of several community attempts, failure had been due more to the planned efforts of an element among the business community, which he claimed had everywhere created difficulties and placed obstacles in the way of success of his non-profit community projection. In spite of the mounting gloom occasioned by the unresponsiveness of his former coöperators to the call to form a village, the plan was persevered in, and the land was selected upon which to move, in the spring of 1829.
• 194Warren felt at the time that those who participated in his time store still lacked the capacity to understand the nature of the proposals the way he had explained them. Many years later, however, he became convinced that, looking back on the wreckage of several community attempts, failure had been due more to the planned efforts of an element among the business community, which he claimed had everywhere created difficulties and placed obstacles in the way of success of his non-profit community projection. In spite of the mounting gloom occasioned by the unresponsiveness of his former coöperators to the call to form a village, the plan was persevered in, and the land was selected upon which to move, in the spring of 1829.
• 195Warren felt at the time that those who participated in his time store still lacked the capacity to understand the nature of the proposals the way he had explained them. Many years later, however, he became convinced that, looking back on the wreckage of several community attempts, failure had been due more to the planned efforts of an element among the business community, which he claimed had everywhere created difficulties and placed obstacles in the way of success of his non-profit community projection. In spite of the mounting gloom occasioned by the unresponsiveness of his former coöperators to the call to form a village, the plan was persevered in, and the land was selected upon which to move, in the spring of 1829.
• 196At this point the strange interlude of Warren’s relations with Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright occurred. Owen, the gifted son of the New Harmony patron, and the brilliant Scotswoman, champion of a dozen unpopular causes ranging from Negro equality to anti-clericalism, had moved the center of operations of the intellectual radical movement associated with New Harmony from Indiana to New York City. There they had renewed publication of the celebrated community newsorgan, The New Harmony Gazette, under the name The Free Enquirer, devoting most of the space now to the propagation of the general sentiments of freethought, with generous portions of acrimonious controversy with adherents of various brands of orthodoxy as a special feature. Althought more concerned with their protracted joust with biblical fundamentalists, and in particular, the wave of emotional revivalism then sweeping through some elements of Protestantism, the two young liberals retained a sympathetic interest in all attempts at community organization. This was understandable, since most of this activity during this period was primarily a backwash of the parent essay at New Harmony.
• 197At this point the strange interlude of Warren’s relations with Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright occurred. Owen, the gifted son of the New Harmony patron, and the brilliant Scotswoman, champion of a dozen unpopular causes ranging from Negro equality to anti-clericalism, had moved the center of operations of the intellectual radical movement associated with New Harmony from Indiana to New York City. There they had renewed publication of the celebrated community newsorgan, The New Harmony Gazette, under the name The Free Enquirer, devoting most of the space now to the propagation of the general sentiments of freethought, with generous portions of acrimonious controversy with adherents of various brands of orthodoxy as a special feature. Althought more concerned with their protracted joust with biblical fundamentalists, and in particular, the wave of emotional revivalism then sweeping through some elements of Protestantism, the two young liberals retained a sympathetic interest in all attempts at community organization. This was understandable, since most of this activity during this period was primarily a backwash of the parent essay at New Harmony.
• 198At this point the strange interlude of Warren’s relations with Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright occurred. Owen, the gifted son of the New Harmony patron, and the brilliant Scotswoman, champion of a dozen unpopular causes ranging from Negro equality to anti-clericalism, had moved the center of operations of the intellectual radical movement associated with New Harmony from Indiana to New York City. There they had renewed publication of the celebrated community newsorgan, The New Harmony Gazette, under the name The Free Enquirer, devoting most of the space now to the propagation of the general sentiments of freethought, with generous portions of acrimonious controversy with adherents of various brands of orthodoxy as a special feature. Althought more concerned with their protracted joust with biblical fundamentalists, and in particular, the wave of emotional revivalism then sweeping through some elements of Protestantism, the two young liberals retained a sympathetic interest in all attempts at community organization. This was understandable, since most of this activity during this period was primarily a backwash of the parent essay at New Harmony.
• 199The Ohio activities of Josiah Warren had attracted the attention of the land and labor reform press of New York City, where slums were already a problem, and depressed segments of the population a feature of the urban social structure. It is not unusual, then, to find the editors of The Free Enquirer becoming concerned to the point of proposing collaboration in achieving the aims of Warren’s non-political scheme for alleviating the evidences of economic distress which had come to his attention during the few years of his reform career.
• 200Owen prevailed upon Warren to postpone the beginning of his community in Ohio in favor of a similar beginning in the vicinity of New York. This was made to appear extremely attractive through the promise of considerable financial and material support already at the former’s bidding. Owen, as had his father, had in mind a much larger unit than Warren. This was apparently to be publicized through a press campaign, intending no doubt to include the pages of the Free Enquirer, in a broad program of propaganda to advertise its potential advantages. Dazzled by this offer, Warren abandoned the proposed movement to the outskirts of Cincinnati, and thus the decision came about to continue the time store into a third year.
• 201Owen’s existing business precluded the immediate start of the New York village, and what was intended to be a temprary lull dragged on. Thus the time store celebrated a third anniversary before Warren liquidated the remaining stock and began the momentous journey to New York, anticipating memorable results. But still another delay intervened; Owen was called to Europe and the plans languished. Yet there still remained a strong spirit of affirmation of the previous support of Warren on his part and that of Fanny Wright as well. The Free Enquirer continued to express confidence in the eventual success of a Warrenite colony, and Warren himself was still hopeful, but the summer found him somewhat subdued. In mid-July he addressed a communication to his Cincinnati associates, confessing that nothing tangible had been accomplished, but asserting that the call to begin practical operations would come at an early date.
• 202Owen’s existing business precluded the immediate start of the New York village, and what was intended to be a temprary lull dragged on. Thus the time store celebrated a third anniversary before Warren liquidated the remaining stock and began the momentous journey to New York, anticipating memorable results. But still another delay intervened; Owen was called to Europe and the plans languished. Yet there still remained a strong spirit of affirmation of the previous support of Warren on his part and that of Fanny Wright as well. The Free Enquirer continued to express confidence in the eventual success of a Warrenite colony, and Warren himself was still hopeful, but the summer found him somewhat subdued. In mid-July he addressed a communication to his Cincinnati associates, confessing that nothing tangible had been accomplished, but asserting that the call to begin practical operations would come at an early date.
• 203Owen’s existing business precluded the immediate start of the New York village, and what was intended to be a temprary lull dragged on. Thus the time store celebrated a third anniversary before Warren liquidated the remaining stock and began the momentous journey to New York, anticipating memorable results. But still another delay intervened; Owen was called to Europe and the plans languished. Yet there still remained a strong spirit of affirmation of the previous support of Warren on his part and that of Fanny Wright as well. The Free Enquirer continued to express confidence in the eventual success of a Warrenite colony, and Warren himself was still hopeful, but the summer found him somewhat subdued. In mid-July he addressed a communication to his Cincinnati associates, confessing that nothing tangible had been accomplished, but asserting that the call to begin practical operations would come at an early date.
• 204Turning from presses to type faces, he brought out two small volumes in 1844 which made use of a revived interest in an early eighteenth century stereotyping process. This involved the substitution of a composition of unusual hardness in the place of metal, which reduced printing costs markedly and furthered the contest with publishers in general. These pioneer booklets, which sought to revolutionize the system of musical notation and thereby enable aspiring musicians to reduce the expense and duration of training, met no better fate than any of his other earlier accomplishments, other than to further the development of what he later designated as “Universal Typography.”
• 205Turning from presses to type faces, he brought out two small volumes in 1844 which made use of a revived interest in an early eighteenth century stereotyping process. This involved the substitution of a composition of unusual hardness in the place of metal, which reduced printing costs markedly and furthered the contest with publishers in general. These pioneer booklets, which sought to revolutionize the system of musical notation and thereby enable aspiring musicians to reduce the expense and duration of training, met no better fate than any of his other earlier accomplishments, other than to further the development of what he later designated as “Universal Typography.”
• 206Turning from presses to type faces, he brought out two small volumes in 1844 which made use of a revived interest in an early eighteenth century stereotyping process. This involved the substitution of a composition of unusual hardness in the place of metal, which reduced printing costs markedly and furthered the contest with publishers in general. These pioneer booklets, which sought to revolutionize the system of musical notation and thereby enable aspiring musicians to reduce the expense and duration of training, met no better fate than any of his other earlier accomplishments, other than to further the development of what he later designated as “Universal Typography.”
• 207Warren compromised his principles in respect to previous unyielding theoretical opposition to patents. At the urging of Owen’s sons and his old friend, the midwestern scientific agricultural pioneer Solon Robinson, the process was patented in the spring of 1845. Robinson not only brought the documents to the Patent Office at this time, but acted as agent for Warren. While travelling through the Midwest, he publicized its merits, which were recognized by editors with whom he came in contact all along the Ohio. The inventor himself illustrated his ability as an engraver with numerous examples of his artistry, several of which embellished the heretofore stark pages of New Harmony’s weekly journal.
• 208Warren compromised his principles in respect to previous unyielding theoretical opposition to patents. At the urging of Owen’s sons and his old friend, the midwestern scientific agricultural pioneer Solon Robinson, the process was patented in the spring of 1845. Robinson not only brought the documents to the Patent Office at this time, but acted as agent for Warren. While travelling through the Midwest, he publicized its merits, which were recognized by editors with whom he came in contact all along the Ohio. The inventor himself illustrated his ability as an engraver with numerous examples of his artistry, several of which embellished the heretofore stark pages of New Harmony’s weekly journal.
• 209Warren compromised his principles in respect to previous unyielding theoretical opposition to patents. At the urging of Owen’s sons and his old friend, the midwestern scientific agricultural pioneer Solon Robinson, the process was patented in the spring of 1845. Robinson not only brought the documents to the Patent Office at this time, but acted as agent for Warren. While travelling through the Midwest, he publicized its merits, which were recognized by editors with whom he came in contact all along the Ohio. The inventor himself illustrated his ability as an engraver with numerous examples of his artistry, several of which embellished the heretofore stark pages of New Harmony’s weekly journal.
• 210Regardless of patent protection and the attendant publicity, no attempt was made to plumb the commercial possibilities of the composition cast method of stereotyping. To Warren it meant more as an opportunity to expand his own printing activities, especially in broadcasting the message of equitable commerce. Since he had contemplated for some time publishing a comprehensive summary of his philosophy and explorations in social matters, it now was possible to fulfill these aspirations with a minimum of expense. Despite the interruptions caused by the handicaps of working without help in an endeavor where the benefits of division of labor were obvious, the work persevered. The difficulties were not all mechanical; Warren was not a literary man, and wrote painfully, in a simple but often stilted style, which was further burdened by a somewhat archaic vocabulary, even in the estimate of his contemporaries. The final product of two years of collation and revision of a mass of notes taken sporadically for almost twenty years, all its imperfections considered, was a document of undeniable simplicity. Published in April, 1847, Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce became the first important publication of anarchist doctrine in America, and with minor deletions, additions and revisions, went into more editions within the next thirty years than any other product of native anarchist thought to this time.
• 211Regardless of patent protection and the attendant publicity, no attempt was made to plumb the commercial possibilities of the composition cast method of stereotyping. To Warren it meant more as an opportunity to expand his own printing activities, especially in broadcasting the message of equitable commerce. Since he had contemplated for some time publishing a comprehensive summary of his philosophy and explorations in social matters, it now was possible to fulfill these aspirations with a minimum of expense. Despite the interruptions caused by the handicaps of working without help in an endeavor where the benefits of division of labor were obvious, the work persevered. The difficulties were not all mechanical; Warren was not a literary man, and wrote painfully, in a simple but often stilted style, which was further burdened by a somewhat archaic vocabulary, even in the estimate of his contemporaries. The final product of two years of collation and revision of a mass of notes taken sporadically for almost twenty years, all its imperfections considered, was a document of undeniable simplicity. Published in April, 1847, Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce became the first important publication of anarchist doctrine in America, and with minor deletions, additions and revisions, went into more editions within the next thirty years than any other product of native anarchist thought to this time.
• 212Regardless of patent protection and the attendant publicity, no attempt was made to plumb the commercial possibilities of the composition cast method of stereotyping. To Warren it meant more as an opportunity to expand his own printing activities, especially in broadcasting the message of equitable commerce. Since he had contemplated for some time publishing a comprehensive summary of his philosophy and explorations in social matters, it now was possible to fulfill these aspirations with a minimum of expense. Despite the interruptions caused by the handicaps of working without help in an endeavor where the benefits of division of labor were obvious, the work persevered. The difficulties were not all mechanical; Warren was not a literary man, and wrote painfully, in a simple but often stilted style, which was further burdened by a somewhat archaic vocabulary, even in the estimate of his contemporaries. The final product of two years of collation and revision of a mass of notes taken sporadically for almost twenty years, all its imperfections considered, was a document of undeniable simplicity. Published in April, 1847, Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce became the first important publication of anarchist doctrine in America, and with minor deletions, additions and revisions, went into more editions within the next thirty years than any other product of native anarchist thought to this time.
• 213Equitable Commerce as an expression of social discontent catches much of the flavor of the world-wide revolt sentiment of the mid-nineteenth century. In an apocalyptic discourse reminiscent of, but anticipating Marx’s Communist Manifesto, Warren also looked out upon a civilization approaching a revolutionary crisis, but with the battle lines being drawn on a broad parasite-producer rather than the more limited capitalist-industrial worker line:
• 214The Warrenite program, however, discarded familiar reform interpretations and solutions, all varieties of collectivism, paternalism, violent revolutionary and political action. Elaborating on some of the ideas already expressed in other writings and further confirmed by experience and convictions produced thereby, he launched a delineation of the individualist stand on the proper reward of labor, security of personal property and freedom of the individual. Summed up in the two slogans “Sovereignty of the Individual” and “Cost the Limit of Price,” Equitable Commerce concentrated on preparing a case for this kind of individualism. The belief in the absolute inviolability of the individual personality expressed in its pages placed him in a camp opposite from the advocates of reform through legislation or violence.
• 215In Warren’s estimation, liberty and security were complementary, not opposites; liberty was the foundation upon which security of both person and property rested, and as long as there was one insecure person, there was potential insecurity for all others. This called for location in proper relation of power, which for each individual extended over his own person and property, and not beyond. This was expected to result in the undermining of the structure of all authority obtained from any other source than that of voluntary grant. To admit boundless individuality in nature and then to create institutions requiring agreement contrary to one’s will appeared the height of contradiction. Personal differences were an inseparable part of the individual personality, which he refused to see by-passed in the “pursuit of policy and expediency.” On this basis he rejected institutional activity which ultimately depended upon compliance on the part of the members unable to see it conducive to their best interests to do so, or which compromised them by demanding conformity as the price for favors allegedly furnished.
• 216In Warren’s estimation, liberty and security were complementary, not opposites; liberty was the foundation upon which security of both person and property rested, and as long as there was one insecure person, there was potential insecurity for all others. This called for location in proper relation of power, which for each individual extended over his own person and property, and not beyond. This was expected to result in the undermining of the structure of all authority obtained from any other source than that of voluntary grant. To admit boundless individuality in nature and then to create institutions requiring agreement contrary to one’s will appeared the height of contradiction. Personal differences were an inseparable part of the individual personality, which he refused to see by-passed in the “pursuit of policy and expediency.” On this basis he rejected institutional activity which ultimately depended upon compliance on the part of the members unable to see it conducive to their best interests to do so, or which compromised them by demanding conformity as the price for favors allegedly furnished.
• 217In Warren’s estimation, liberty and security were complementary, not opposites; liberty was the foundation upon which security of both person and property rested, and as long as there was one insecure person, there was potential insecurity for all others. This called for location in proper relation of power, which for each individual extended over his own person and property, and not beyond. This was expected to result in the undermining of the structure of all authority obtained from any other source than that of voluntary grant. To admit boundless individuality in nature and then to create institutions requiring agreement contrary to one’s will appeared the height of contradiction. Personal differences were an inseparable part of the individual personality, which he refused to see by-passed in the “pursuit of policy and expediency.” On this basis he rejected institutional activity which ultimately depended upon compliance on the part of the members unable to see it conducive to their best interests to do so, or which compromised them by demanding conformity as the price for favors allegedly furnished.
• 218In Warren’s estimation, liberty and security were complementary, not opposites; liberty was the foundation upon which security of both person and property rested, and as long as there was one insecure person, there was potential insecurity for all others. This called for location in proper relation of power, which for each individual extended over his own person and property, and not beyond. This was expected to result in the undermining of the structure of all authority obtained from any other source than that of voluntary grant. To admit boundless individuality in nature and then to create institutions requiring agreement contrary to one’s will appeared the height of contradiction. Personal differences were an inseparable part of the individual personality, which he refused to see by-passed in the “pursuit of policy and expediency.” On this basis he rejected institutional activity which ultimately depended upon compliance on the part of the members unable to see it conducive to their best interests to do so, or which compromised them by demanding conformity as the price for favors allegedly furnished.
• 219In the vein of his earlier writings on law, Warren continued to castigate legislation as one aspect of this denial of individual freedom. He objected particularly to the demand of unconditional fealty from all, enthusiastic or hesitant, to the wishes of the larger number. Warren saw no virtue in majorities; to him right was not a quantitative matter to be determined by sheer numbers. Should a thing be an evil when espoused by a few, the support of a larger number at a later time did not automatically change its nature, making what had been reprehensible now respectable and desirable. He refused to consider the manipulation of verbal symbols “laws” in the same sense:
• 220In the vein of his earlier writings on law, Warren continued to castigate legislation as one aspect of this denial of individual freedom. He objected particularly to the demand of unconditional fealty from all, enthusiastic or hesitant, to the wishes of the larger number. Warren saw no virtue in majorities; to him right was not a quantitative matter to be determined by sheer numbers. Should a thing be an evil when espoused by a few, the support of a larger number at a later time did not automatically change its nature, making what had been reprehensible now respectable and desirable. He refused to consider the manipulation of verbal symbols “laws” in the same sense:
• 221In the vein of his earlier writings on law, Warren continued to castigate legislation as one aspect of this denial of individual freedom. He objected particularly to the demand of unconditional fealty from all, enthusiastic or hesitant, to the wishes of the larger number. Warren saw no virtue in majorities; to him right was not a quantitative matter to be determined by sheer numbers. Should a thing be an evil when espoused by a few, the support of a larger number at a later time did not automatically change its nature, making what had been reprehensible now respectable and desirable. He refused to consider the manipulation of verbal symbols “laws” in the same sense:
• 222Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area. Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens. What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power. Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent. On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars, compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.
• 223Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area. Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens. What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power. Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent. On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars, compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.
• 224Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area. Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens. What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power. Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent. On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars, compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.
• 225Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area. Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens. What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power. Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent. On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars, compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.
• 226Warren thus attached to law, by virtue of its perpetual uncertainty, the blame for the great majority of crimes. Statute law could hardly be expected to do anything except aggravate and expand the diseases of society over a larger area. Warren scorned the explanation of laws and government by political theorists who sought to relate them to reality as manifestations of a common desire for the protection of life and possessions. He refused to believe that human history revealed such realization, and was convinced that the state had failed in its basic mission in providing protection for its citizens. What was worse, in his mind, was the effect of the governing process, which had been precipitated into a struggle for control of the governing privilege. This was the result, he explained, of the discovery that in an environment characterized by insecurity, the least insecure were the persons who were successful in obtaining control of the governing power. Thus rulers and ruling groups, protected temporarily by virtue of holding power, punished crimes by death and imprisonment without realizing that these were consequences of their own acts. The increasing complexity of laws and lawmaking succeeded in increasing the volume of violations rather than producing the security of the society which they purported to represent. On still another level, there was the spectacle of a government involving its citizens in group responsibilities from which many may have preferred to remain apart, and in extreme situations, such as wars, compelling them to desert their own interests and even die without recourse of any sort.
• 227Warren proposed a solution which dispensed with government other than that of each person over himself; “. . . never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time and property, each living and acting at his own cost; . . . The only ground upon which man can know liberty is that of disconnection, disunion, individuality.” American radical writing has few expressions which match the determination found in this piece of anti-statist literature, even though the complexity of human relationships in modern urban industrial society make its message of separation of interests sound of little use or pertinence. Other than this course, Warren predicted, would only increase conflicts and consequently would require more direction from the “outside,” more mediation, more intervention, which he termed “government.”
• 228Warren proposed a solution which dispensed with government other than that of each person over himself; “. . . never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time and property, each living and acting at his own cost; . . . The only ground upon which man can know liberty is that of disconnection, disunion, individuality.” American radical writing has few expressions which match the determination found in this piece of anti-statist literature, even though the complexity of human relationships in modern urban industrial society make its message of separation of interests sound of little use or pertinence. Other than this course, Warren predicted, would only increase conflicts and consequently would require more direction from the “outside,” more mediation, more intervention, which he termed “government.”
• 229The next part of the exposition of the ideal equitable society described the process whereby the aims of the individual and the needs of society were to be blended. The dog-eat-dog kind of “individualism” Warren saw all about him caused him considerable concern. His aim was to avoid the initiative-destroying propensities of the community of property, with which he was all too familiar. Keeping in mind physical and intellectual variables present among persons, he built up his version of an economy geared to a system of exchanges which used the labor cost of production as its sole guide. He proposed an economic structure consisting of producing members, acting either alone or in groups organized entirely on the principle of voluntary cooperation to make the most from the known advantages of division of labor. In all cases there was to be full individual responsibility, a condition to be arrived at by agreement where more than one person was involved. Only under such circumstances would it be possible for a group to live socially without the committal of powers of decision into the hands of an arbiter, judge, politician or other representative of outside agency claiming to operate in the interests of the group, in which he included the churches. No halfway process would be of any avail, because it was impossible to surrender a definite quantity of one’s liberty. Once erected, a government always tended to encroach upon what it did not control, due to its control over the interpretation of the language which delegated the powers it first obtained.
• 230The next part of the exposition of the ideal equitable society described the process whereby the aims of the individual and the needs of society were to be blended. The dog-eat-dog kind of “individualism” Warren saw all about him caused him considerable concern. His aim was to avoid the initiative-destroying propensities of the community of property, with which he was all too familiar. Keeping in mind physical and intellectual variables present among persons, he built up his version of an economy geared to a system of exchanges which used the labor cost of production as its sole guide. He proposed an economic structure consisting of producing members, acting either alone or in groups organized entirely on the principle of voluntary cooperation to make the most from the known advantages of division of labor. In all cases there was to be full individual responsibility, a condition to be arrived at by agreement where more than one person was involved. Only under such circumstances would it be possible for a group to live socially without the committal of powers of decision into the hands of an arbiter, judge, politician or other representative of outside agency claiming to operate in the interests of the group, in which he included the churches. No halfway process would be of any avail, because it was impossible to surrender a definite quantity of one’s liberty. Once erected, a government always tended to encroach upon what it did not control, due to its control over the interpretation of the language which delegated the powers it first obtained.
• 231The next part of the exposition of the ideal equitable society described the process whereby the aims of the individual and the needs of society were to be blended. The dog-eat-dog kind of “individualism” Warren saw all about him caused him considerable concern. His aim was to avoid the initiative-destroying propensities of the community of property, with which he was all too familiar. Keeping in mind physical and intellectual variables present among persons, he built up his version of an economy geared to a system of exchanges which used the labor cost of production as its sole guide. He proposed an economic structure consisting of producing members, acting either alone or in groups organized entirely on the principle of voluntary cooperation to make the most from the known advantages of division of labor. In all cases there was to be full individual responsibility, a condition to be arrived at by agreement where more than one person was involved. Only under such circumstances would it be possible for a group to live socially without the committal of powers of decision into the hands of an arbiter, judge, politician or other representative of outside agency claiming to operate in the interests of the group, in which he included the churches. No halfway process would be of any avail, because it was impossible to surrender a definite quantity of one’s liberty. Once erected, a government always tended to encroach upon what it did not control, due to its control over the interpretation of the language which delegated the powers it first obtained.
• 232The next part of the exposition of the ideal equitable society described the process whereby the aims of the individual and the needs of society were to be blended. The dog-eat-dog kind of “individualism” Warren saw all about him caused him considerable concern. His aim was to avoid the initiative-destroying propensities of the community of property, with which he was all too familiar. Keeping in mind physical and intellectual variables present among persons, he built up his version of an economy geared to a system of exchanges which used the labor cost of production as its sole guide. He proposed an economic structure consisting of producing members, acting either alone or in groups organized entirely on the principle of voluntary cooperation to make the most from the known advantages of division of labor. In all cases there was to be full individual responsibility, a condition to be arrived at by agreement where more than one person was involved. Only under such circumstances would it be possible for a group to live socially without the committal of powers of decision into the hands of an arbiter, judge, politician or other representative of outside agency claiming to operate in the interests of the group, in which he included the churches. No halfway process would be of any avail, because it was impossible to surrender a definite quantity of one’s liberty. Once erected, a government always tended to encroach upon what it did not control, due to its control over the interpretation of the language which delegated the powers it first obtained.
• 233The way of life which Warren sought to inaugurate according to Equitable Commerce incorporated a number of considerations which were bound to make the entire project unpalatable to most of the affluent and comfortable members of society among his readers, and to all those with ambitions of carving out for themselves a higher position in the existing order. The ultimate re-organization of society on the basis of decentralized local communities in which the needs and capabilities of all might be readily learned, was expected to lead to the circumvention of political boundaries and the placing of all inter-community relations on a voluntary level as well. It was assumed that community services would be supplied in a superior manner by individuals who contracted to furnish them when called for by those who wanted and paid for such conveniences. Warren mentioned nothing concerning the problem of inter-community transportation and communication. Furthermore, this system was predicated on the theory that there was an optimum community size, following the attainment of which it was expected that additional communities would develop nearby to the parent. In developing this matter, Warren appeared to be thinking in terms of the experiences of the last year at New Harmony during its Owenite phase, although Owen himself had stated before New Harmony the necessity of limiting the size of the community.
• 234The way of life which Warren sought to inaugurate according to Equitable Commerce incorporated a number of considerations which were bound to make the entire project unpalatable to most of the affluent and comfortable members of society among his readers, and to all those with ambitions of carving out for themselves a higher position in the existing order. The ultimate re-organization of society on the basis of decentralized local communities in which the needs and capabilities of all might be readily learned, was expected to lead to the circumvention of political boundaries and the placing of all inter-community relations on a voluntary level as well. It was assumed that community services would be supplied in a superior manner by individuals who contracted to furnish them when called for by those who wanted and paid for such conveniences. Warren mentioned nothing concerning the problem of inter-community transportation and communication. Furthermore, this system was predicated on the theory that there was an optimum community size, following the attainment of which it was expected that additional communities would develop nearby to the parent. In developing this matter, Warren appeared to be thinking in terms of the experiences of the last year at New Harmony during its Owenite phase, although Owen himself had stated before New Harmony the necessity of limiting the size of the community.
• 235The way of life which Warren sought to inaugurate according to Equitable Commerce incorporated a number of considerations which were bound to make the entire project unpalatable to most of the affluent and comfortable members of society among his readers, and to all those with ambitions of carving out for themselves a higher position in the existing order. The ultimate re-organization of society on the basis of decentralized local communities in which the needs and capabilities of all might be readily learned, was expected to lead to the circumvention of political boundaries and the placing of all inter-community relations on a voluntary level as well. It was assumed that community services would be supplied in a superior manner by individuals who contracted to furnish them when called for by those who wanted and paid for such conveniences. Warren mentioned nothing concerning the problem of inter-community transportation and communication. Furthermore, this system was predicated on the theory that there was an optimum community size, following the attainment of which it was expected that additional communities would develop nearby to the parent. In developing this matter, Warren appeared to be thinking in terms of the experiences of the last year at New Harmony during its Owenite phase, although Owen himself had stated before New Harmony the necessity of limiting the size of the community.
• 236The way of life which Warren sought to inaugurate according to Equitable Commerce incorporated a number of considerations which were bound to make the entire project unpalatable to most of the affluent and comfortable members of society among his readers, and to all those with ambitions of carving out for themselves a higher position in the existing order. The ultimate re-organization of society on the basis of decentralized local communities in which the needs and capabilities of all might be readily learned, was expected to lead to the circumvention of political boundaries and the placing of all inter-community relations on a voluntary level as well. It was assumed that community services would be supplied in a superior manner by individuals who contracted to furnish them when called for by those who wanted and paid for such conveniences. Warren mentioned nothing concerning the problem of inter-community transportation and communication. Furthermore, this system was predicated on the theory that there was an optimum community size, following the attainment of which it was expected that additional communities would develop nearby to the parent. In developing this matter, Warren appeared to be thinking in terms of the experiences of the last year at New Harmony during its Owenite phase, although Owen himself had stated before New Harmony the necessity of limiting the size of the community.
• 237One of the primary requirements of the self-sufficient society was his insistence on the decentralization of manufactures, to be confined to the production for satisfaction of local needs exclusively. Among other things, this was considered beneficial in order to fix responsibility for the utility and quality of the products, which were variables over which consumers in a profit economy far removed from the site of production had practically no control.
• 238With respect to machinery, the position taken in some ways anticipated Henry George. Warren did not look upon it as a separate factor of production, but merely a combination of the two he recognized, land, or raw materials, and the labor which went into its production. The combined labor of producing the materials incorporated in the machine, in addition to that needed to construct the machine itself equalled what he called the “cost” of the machine, and belonged to the laborers and inventors who conceived and built it. Machinery was a social benefaction only so long as it made products available priced to consumers in terms of cost of production. The displacement of labor resulting from the introduction of machinery might seek employment in other activities not yet fully mechanized, having benefited from the cheapened product now resulting from the technological innovation. Warren looked forward to a future work day of two or three hours through the abolition of craft monopolies and the social sharing of the benefits of machine production. He did not believe that needs were indefinitely expansible, and thought that if technical production was geared to needs, there would be none of the pernicious effects of speculative manufacture with its disastrous accompaniments of “over-production” and subsequent destruction for the purpose of preserving price levels.
• 239With respect to machinery, the position taken in some ways anticipated Henry George. Warren did not look upon it as a separate factor of production, but merely a combination of the two he recognized, land, or raw materials, and the labor which went into its production. The combined labor of producing the materials incorporated in the machine, in addition to that needed to construct the machine itself equalled what he called the “cost” of the machine, and belonged to the laborers and inventors who conceived and built it. Machinery was a social benefaction only so long as it made products available priced to consumers in terms of cost of production. The displacement of labor resulting from the introduction of machinery might seek employment in other activities not yet fully mechanized, having benefited from the cheapened product now resulting from the technological innovation. Warren looked forward to a future work day of two or three hours through the abolition of craft monopolies and the social sharing of the benefits of machine production. He did not believe that needs were indefinitely expansible, and thought that if technical production was geared to needs, there would be none of the pernicious effects of speculative manufacture with its disastrous accompaniments of “over-production” and subsequent destruction for the purpose of preserving price levels.
• 240Warren’s opposition to the private ownership of machinery on the basis of a patent monopoly or any other contingency except actual construction was no more resolute than his opposition to the acquisition of land for speculative purposes. While fifteen years before he had questioned land titles themselves, he now was willing to accept the prevailing division, providing all land sales subsequent to the original purchase involved no addition to what he called the “prime cost” beyond expenses resulting from surveying, drawing up of contracts, and even taxes, to which there was no expression of resistance, a remarkable concession.
• 241Warren’s opposition to the private ownership of machinery on the basis of a patent monopoly or any other contingency except actual construction was no more resolute than his opposition to the acquisition of land for speculative purposes. While fifteen years before he had questioned land titles themselves, he now was willing to accept the prevailing division, providing all land sales subsequent to the original purchase involved no addition to what he called the “prime cost” beyond expenses resulting from surveying, drawing up of contracts, and even taxes, to which there was no expression of resistance, a remarkable concession.
• 242Equitable Commerce contained the now-familiar exposition of the labor note currency, with variations resulting from discrepancies which previous trial now exposed. Warren sought to solve the problem caused by the refusal of some members in his previous labor exchange to participate in accepting similar amounts of any member’s time. This came as a result of his declaration that work of greatest repugnance was worthy of the highest remuneration, since distastefulness must be considered one of the elements of “cost” if anyone was to perform the unpleasant tasks in a non-coercive society. It was felt that the undermining of this principle destroyed the whole basis of the labor exchange plan. Another novelty in the statement of the labor notes bore on the issue created by persons with different evaluations of labor time. Although Warren had repudiated gold and silver and all other commodity-backed moneys as inferior to the direct matching of labor for labor, in Equitable Commerce he decided that there should be an alternative to the acceptance of the actual labor of the person presenting any given note. This resulted in the concession to back the labor currency with “Indian” corn, which was judged to be superior to metals with respect to ease of determining its cost of production in man hours. All subsequent labor notes bore guarantees of payment in a number of pounds of corn.
• 243Equitable Commerce contained the now-familiar exposition of the labor note currency, with variations resulting from discrepancies which previous trial now exposed. Warren sought to solve the problem caused by the refusal of some members in his previous labor exchange to participate in accepting similar amounts of any member’s time. This came as a result of his declaration that work of greatest repugnance was worthy of the highest remuneration, since distastefulness must be considered one of the elements of “cost” if anyone was to perform the unpleasant tasks in a non-coercive society. It was felt that the undermining of this principle destroyed the whole basis of the labor exchange plan. Another novelty in the statement of the labor notes bore on the issue created by persons with different evaluations of labor time. Although Warren had repudiated gold and silver and all other commodity-backed moneys as inferior to the direct matching of labor for labor, in Equitable Commerce he decided that there should be an alternative to the acceptance of the actual labor of the person presenting any given note. This resulted in the concession to back the labor currency with “Indian” corn, which was judged to be superior to metals with respect to ease of determining its cost of production in man hours. All subsequent labor notes bore guarantees of payment in a number of pounds of corn.
• 244Warren had no intention of creating a sensational incident and a focus for violent language by placing his ideas and the results of his investigations and experiences within the perusing reach of those with polemical predispositions. The concluding pages had a note of abdication on his part in the event of such incidence, which in many ways was the index of Warren’s personality and a source of criticism at a later time: