ZION'S COOPERATIVE UNION. 61 



have been wonderful, if jou reckon the public improvements 

 as well as their private property, and private property the 

 church respects and encourages. There is no communistic 

 system. Their cooperation is such as might prevail in any 

 community with different religious beliefs. 



Their trade is on the same plan. "Zion's Cooperative 

 Union" does the trading for all the Mormons of the Terri- 

 tory. It buys in immense quantities, and distributes to each 

 settlement, and in each settlement just help enough is taken 

 to distribute the goods. There is no waste from useless 

 stores and unemployed clerks. Any one who wishes a part 

 of the profits of this trade, has but to put in his money 

 and draw his proportion. AVhen we see one hundred thou- 

 sand of the poorest people in the world carried across the 

 wilderness and made comparatively rich in a few years, we 

 see the possibilities of cooperation, and long for a principle 

 of wisdom and wise forethought that shall secure what blind 

 faith and obedience to church ofiicials have here wrought. 



The third instance is that of Anaheim, in Los Angeles 

 County, Southern California. For this account I am indebted 

 mainly to Mr. Charles Nordhoff's valuable work on "Com- 

 munistic Societies." 



In 1857, fifty Germans of San Francisco, California, 

 bought, by an agent, Mr. Hansen, eleven hundred and sixty- 

 two acres of land at two dollars an acre. 



Kone of them were farmers ; but there were carpenters, 

 blacksmiths, a teacher, a miller, a hatter, merchants, team- 

 sters, etc. They were, with one or two exceptions, poor. 

 They continued to work for wages, and Mr. Hansen cared 

 for the land, improving and planting it by hired labor. 



It was divided into fifty twenty-acre lots and fifty village- 

 lots, of one acre each. In three years, the distribution was 

 made to the owners, and by that time each shareholder had 

 paid in twelve hundred dollars. Those who could not raise 

 all the money were helped by the others. The farms were 

 divided by lots, some paying more and some less, according 

 to the appraised value of each estate. 



Here was a settlement of fil't}' families, — cooperation for 

 three years. Then cooperation ceased. Not one failed. In 

 1872, the property that had cost each of them, on an average, 



