232 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
Unfortunately, the evidences of decay began to appear even
as these encouraging notices were printed in papers like the Cin
cinnati Volksblatt, Die Republik der Arbeiter, and Greeley's
Tribune. In the summer of 1851 a co-operative grocery collapsed
in New York, with a loss of $2,400 to its German members, in
cluding funds supposedly reserved to pay sick benefits. Weitling
blamed the disaster, as usual, on the lack of centralization and
competent leadership, but apparently there had been private pecu
lation also, for goods valued at $600 were unaccounted for. In
November, 1851, the Philadelphia Tailors' Associated sold its
store and supplies. In Louisville, after doing business for three
months with a rising profit, the German grocery and the workers'
hall were destroyed by fire. Other groups in Louisville and in Cin
cinnati became involved in a secession from Weitling's movement,
and when the Louisville projects were revived under new auspices,
they promptly failed a second time. In the course of the liquida
tion, one administrator managed to acquire the grocery, another
the boarding house. In Baltimore, the tailors finally surrendered
their shop and store to trustees and managers, who assumed the
debts of the organization. The investments of the members proved
a total loss. An association of German bakers in Baltimore met the
same fate. In the course of a few years most German co-operatives
went into bankruptcy, became private property, or were gradu
ally transformed into lodges, Turnvereine, and other social organ
izations. Many were the victims of poor management and almost
all lacked capital and had borrowed too heavily on the false as
sumption that, after all, the members were borrowing from each
other.
One more plan for the new economy must be described in this
record of Weitling's failures. In many ways, it was the most fan
tastic of all his proposals. Early in 1850, the American people
were greatly interested in building a transcontinental road to the
Pacific. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, when Weitling still believed he would have the resources to begin a social
revolution in a few years and predicted that the receipts from his