250 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
and win the confidence of the rank and file of the Arbeiterbund.
Weitling proposed a plan of representation for the transaction of
business and a procedure which required a unanimous vote but
stipulated also that in the event unanimity could not be obtained,
the president, after a reasonable interval, could make the decision
on his own responsibility. His critics immediately raised the cry
of dictatorship. Weitling replied that since all workers would re
ceive equal pay and the "regent" not a penny more than the
humblest worker, democracy had been adequately safeguarded.
In submitting proposals to the members of the Arbeiterbund for
comment and criticism, he reiterated that he personally had no
desire to become a dictator and referred to the "freedom to scold,
gossip, mistrust, slander, lie, loaf, and waste ... as a tyranny
far greater than the edicts of a simple despot."
Meantime, the colonists had gone to work, and the wheat and
oats crops were promising, though the outlook for corn was not
so favorable, partly because the colony lacked horses and plows
and partly because the men refused to work on Sunday. Weitling
bought a mowing machine in Dubuque. Materials had to be hauled
to the colony over a distance requiring a full day's journey. Skilled
craftsmen, including an expert gardener and a shepherd, were
badly needed. In the summer of 1852, an old comrade, Simon
Schmidt, the tanner, arrived from Kalamazoo. W. Caspelmann
and his wife transferred their farm to the colony; an unmarried
machinist from Cincinnati deposited $200; and a gardener's family
of Belleville, Illinois, $600. Robert Meyer, secretary of the Central
Committee in New York, paid in $190 before starting the over
land journey for Iowa. Additional colonists came from Philadel
phia; and J. Krieg, a close friend and regular correspondent of
Weitling, and J. Först came with their families from Cincinnati.
Both were cabinetmakers.
At the close of July, 1852, another inventory was taken. It listed
assests of $8,680: $2,600 for the land, $1,300 for buildings, $1,380
for livestock, and $600 for agricultural implements. The harvest
and existing food supplies were valued at $1,000, and the balance