The younger party won a lawsuit to annul the communal charter. The
property was divided, and again there were two Icarias, the "young
party" retaining the old site and the "old party" moving on and
founding New Icaria, a few miles from the old. But Old Icaria was soon
split: one faction removed to California, where the Icaria-Speranza
community was founded; and the other remained at Old Icaria. Both came
to grief in 1888. Finally in 1895 New Icaria, then reduced to a few
veterans, was dissolved by a unanimous vote of the community.

* * * * *

In 1854 Victor Considerant, the French socialist, planted a
Fourieristic phalanx in Texas, under the liberal patronage of J.B.A.
Godin, the godfather of Fourierism in France who founded at Guise the
only really successful phalanx. A French communistic colony was also
attempted at Silkville, Kansas. But both ventures lasted only a few
years. Since the subsidence of these French communistic experiments,
there have been many sporadic attempts at founding idealistic
communities in the United States. Over fifty have been tried since the
Civil War. Nearly all were established under American auspices and did
not lure many foreigners.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: As is usual among people who pride themselves on their
peculiarities there were variations of opinion among these sects which
led to schisms. The Mennonites contained at one time no less than
eleven distinct branches, among them the Amish, Old and New, whose
ridiculous singularity of dress, in which they discarded all ornaments
and even buttons, earned them the nickname "Hooks and Eyes." But no
matter how aloof these sects held themselves from the world, or what
asceticism they practiced upon themselves, or what spiritual and
economic fraternity they displayed to each other, they possessed a
remarkable native cunning in bargaining over a bushel of wheat or a
shoat, and for a time most of their communities prospered.]

[Footnote 16: Under the communal contract, which was later upheld by
the Supreme Court of the United States, members agreed to merge their
properties and to renounce all claims for services; and the community,
on its part, agreed to support the members and to repay without
interest, to any one desiring to withdraw, the amount he had put into
the common fund.]

[Footnote 17: _Communistic Societies of the United States_, by Charles
Nordhoff, p. 73.]

[Footnote 18: The largest me