COMMUNIA, IOWA 255
practically the same detailed plan for organization and administra
tion to be found in the Garantieen.
These details need not concern us here, save as the new charter's
provisions indicated a retreat from pure communism. The con
stitution provided, among other things, that while all members
should continue to receive "store bills" good for products at the
central store in payment for their labor and services, rents and
prices were to be fixed at cost plus ten per cent for the pension
fund and another ten per cent for schools and administrative costs.
Members could lease land from the colony and maintain their own
households and livestock, provided they were willing to bear the
total expense of such private establishments; and children hence
forth would be fed and clothed at the common expense only if
parents agreed to entrust their education to the directors of the
colony for an eight-year period.
Every Saturday evening a "directory of the workers" met in
Communia to lay out the tasks for the following week and to fix
the rents charged for privately operated farms and businesses.
For purposes of administration, the farms seem to have been di
vorced from mills and other industries and crafts. Women were
required to sign quitclaim declarations before a justice of the
peace, surrendering their rights to a dower and to one third of
their husband's estates. A supplementary constitution for an or
ganization resembling a building and loan association provided
that anyone who contributed sufficient funds for a house could
direct its construction and occupy it during his lifetime. While
the widow would be permitted to live in the family home until her
death, the children, if they left the colony, had no claim beyond
the actual cash investment. Thus private enterprise was beginning
to be recognized in the life of individual families, but stores and
industries were to remain common property and be operated for
equal benefits and profits for all.
On March 30, 1853, Weitling telegraphed his paper in New
York that the colony was ready to accept his new charter and to
barré
(Barré)
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