COMMUNIA, IOWA 217
rivals included farmers, a physician, three women, and artisans
from Baltimore, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. Louis
Reuther, one of the newcomers, later became a highly respected
citizen of Elkader and a member of the Iowa state legislature. In
August, a private of Company G, United States Army, stationed
in Texas, who read Die Republik der Arbeiter regularly, requested
copies of the new constitution for ten recruits for the colony
whom he had found among his comrades. Though the colony
suffered from a drouth, the wheat and peach crops were especially
promising, and in July, 1853, the "Communia Association" ad
vertised in the Clayton County Herald for hands to work on their
milldam at "good wages." From June 1 to October 1, 1853, the
Arbeiterbund invested $6,250, mostly in the form of sight drafts
drawn by the colony on the treasurer for goods and materials.
August Willich came to the Arbeiter Halle in St. Louis and tried
to persuade Friedrich Hecker, the most famous of the revolu
tionists of 1848-49, to support Weitling's movement. Hecker may
have made some sympathetic comments, but he refused to become
involved. Later, Willich himself spent several days in the colony,
but when Weitling tried to induce him to accept the post of ad
ministrator, he declined the responsibility with the realistic com
ment that the job would require "more courage than a charge into
a cannon's mouth."
During May and June of 1853, Weitling was again in Com
munia. He had walked from Guttenberg to the colony on a beauti
ful moonlit night, and he was deeply moved by the experience.
Colonists seemed more co-operative than they had been the pre
vious year. He reported in Die Republik der Arbeiter that the
carpenters were busy building another house on a piecework basis
because it "works better that way"; that the population had grown
to sixty-one souls; that the food was less abundant but the harvest
promising; that the colony needed additional oxen and that the
supply of whisky was exhausted; and what seemed most signifi
cant, that though there still was some dissatisfaction, no one was
quarrelsome.
barré
(Barré)
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