robationers. It will be seen from these
examples that the prospects of political communism are far from promising.
Its principal power has always been as a sentiment, and it can be dreaded
only as an appeal to the destitute and lawless to rise in acts of violence.
It has been powerful in France in revolutions, riots and mobs, and in this
country in aiding the late strikers in their work of destruction.

The other existing communities are founded on some religious basis, being
efforts on the part of their founders to secure their religious rights or
to live with those of the same faith in closer relations. And although
their measures have been similar in many respects to those of the political
communists, they have resorted to them not on account of any political
principles, but because they believed them to be commanded by Scripture or
to grow out of some peculiarity of religious faith or duty. Most of them
have been formed after the model of the society of the apostles, who had
their goods in common, and because of their example. None, so far as we
know, have ever proposed to establish communities by force or to have the
whole people embraced in them. Held together by their peculiar religious
principles, they have been far more successful (especially when under some
shrewd leader whom they believed to have a spiritual authority) than when
actuated purely by reason.

Perhaps the most successful of these religious communities is that of the
"True Inspirationists," known as the Amana Community, in Iowa,
seventy-eight miles west of Iowa City, on the Chicago, Rock Island and
Pacific Railroad. These are all Germans, who came to this country in 1842,
and settled at first near Buffalo, New York, on a tract of land called
Ebenezer, from which they are sometimes known as "Ebenezers." This tract
comprised five thousand acres of land, including what is now a part of the
city of Buffalo. In 1855 they moved to their present locality in Iowa. They
pretend to be under direct inspiration, receiving from God the model and
general orders for the direction of their community. The present head,
both spiritual and temporal, is a woman, a sort of sibyl who negotiates the
inspirations. Their business affairs are managed by thirteen trustees,
chosen annually by the male members, who also choose the president. They
are very religious, though having but little outward form. There are
fourteen hundred and fifty members, who live in seven different