FINAL WARNING: The Communist Agenda
and the elimination of unhealthy living conditions. Even though he
failed in an attempt to merge all the trade unions into a “Great Trades
Union,” his reforms completely transformed the town of New Lanark,
Scotland. In 1827, Owen resigned as manager, and dissolved the
colony, because he was forced to change his thinking. He wrote: “No
societies with common property and equality could prosper. In order
to succeed it was needful to exclude the intemperate, the idle, the
careless, the quarrelsome, the avaricious, the selfish...”His son, Robert Dale Owen (1801-77), was a leader in the
Workingman’s Party in 1829, which evolved down through the years
into the U.S. Communist Party.In 1817, a group of German separatists, led by Joseph M. Bimeler,
settled near the Tuscarawas River in Ohio, naming their society after
one of the few Biblical plain cities that escaped the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah. In 1819, they were incorporated as the Society
of Separatists of Zoar. All property was held in common; factories and
shops were managed by an elected Board of Trustees. They prospered
during the 1850’s, establishing the town of Zoar, having over 10,000
acres, and $1 million worth of assets. After Bimeler’s death in 1853,
interest declined, and the town dissolved in 1898.There were other communistic settlements, such as Harmony, PA
(1805); Nashoba, Tennessee (1825); the Cooperative Store at Toad
Street (1844); and the Cooperative Society of Oldham (1850), set up by
the Rochdale Pioneers, which also failed.Some groups today can trace their roots to the 19th century
communes. In the 1830’s, Joseph Smith, who founded the Church of
Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), moved his
followers from New York, to Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Utah,
because of religious persecution. He believed that a form of communal
Christianity existed during the time of the Apostles.John Humphrey Noyes (“Father Noyes”), after establishing a colony at
Putney, Virginia, in 1846, set up another in Oneida, New York, in 1848,
which featured common property ownership and child rearing,
selective ‘breeding’ of babies, and a society in which every woman
was considered to be the wife of each man, and every man the