252 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
here like a king, without care and without want." Robert Meyer,
secretary of the Bund, who traveled from New York to Iowa al
most wholly by rail because of the low-water mark of the rivers,
was delighted to find good food, smoking tobacco, and snuff on his
arrival at Communia. He reported a serious housing shortage,
however, and the need for a good feather bed as well as better
"general leadership"; but the colonists impressed him as honest
men and women of good character, who apparently were per
forming their tasks well and joyously. J. Krieg wrote in October
that all was peace and harmony in Communia; Karl Schock, writ
ing to Weitling two months later, described the card and chess
games in which the colonists spent their evenings, the good hunt
ing for deer and prairie chickens on Sunday, and the delightful
excursions by wagon or sleigh into the neighboring communities.
Not even a big prairie fire could affect his enthusiasm. "I am work
ing for myself and for my brothers," he concluded. Visitors were
beginning to come to the colony, and to patronize its store and
blacksmith shop; travelers stayed overnight occasionally, and
traffic on the post road to Dubuque, which passed the houses of the
colonists, increased rapidly. By December, 1852, the colony con
sisted of 22 men, 9 women, and 17 children. Krieg wrote, "We
have more freedom here than in the cities where we are under the
control of the employers."
Late in 1852, the colony acquired from a neighbor, for $1,273, a
sawmill and a forty-acre plot on the Volga River. By constructing
a dam, Weitling hoped to develop water power sufficient to oper
ate a flour mill also. Six hundred dollars was paid in cash and the
remainder was promised within six weeks. Confident of a steady
influx of new colonists, Weitling predicted an output of 2,000 to
3,000 feet of lumber daily, depending on the water supply. In
reality, the undertaking ended in disaster with a loss amounting to
$4,000.
Weitling had the title to the forty acres recorded in his own
name as security for the Arbeiterbund, which furnished the funds
for the transaction. Under existing law and in view of the anoma-
barré
(Barré)
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