ON TOUR FOR THE CAUSE 179
der Arbeiter promptly endorsed his cause. One mishap marred this
otherwise happy experience in the Ohio River metropolis: Weitling's trunk failed to arrive. In it were his overcoat and 300 copies
of the books which he expected to sell to defray a large part of his
traveling expenses.From Cincinnati, the itinerary was upstream to Pittsburgh,
where the outlook seemed favorable. The German tailors and
cabinetmakers of the city had abundant orders for their co-oper
ative stores and shops and promptly joined the Bund. At the time,
the Germans of Pittsburgh were supporting three singing societies,
three Turnvereine, a theater company, a reading club, and many
churches. Here Weitling met a street-corner preacher who de
nounced all religions and advocated a socialist "Jesusville." Weitling did not complain of the smoke and dirt for which Pittsburgh
already was noted, for he believed they served as antidotes for
diseases.Not far away from this expanding industrial center was the
German communist colony of Economy. Weitling interviewed
its governing elders and visited their clean, prosperous village of
brick and frame houses. "Ah, if the Arbeiterbund only had this
place," he sighed, as he inspected hotel, stores, meeting house,
communal laundry, vineyards, mills, and the great house and
garden of Rapp, the leader of the community. The visitor drank
good wine and enjoyed an excellent meal for which he paid
twenty-five cents at the hotel. The prosperous little community
consisted of some three hundred people, who lived in a hundred
houses, and whose property was appraised at $12,000,000 or
$14,000,000! Much of their prosperity, however, came from out
side the colony, for the community had invested its revenues in
several private enterprises. Weitling was honest enough to point
out that "their stocks yield more than their labors." He felt happy
and at home among these kindly, pious, simple German folk, who
reminded him of the people he had seen in Württemberg. He
would have been glad to tarry longer. Apparently he was not dis
turbed by their lack of interest in the social revolution and their