When I began work on this book in 1991, the largest Marxist-inspired society in history was in the midst of collapse. Monuments to that great experiment were being destroyed — statues were toppled and walls were knocked down. Soviet communism, as established by … [Read more...] about Foreword: Co-Operative Dreams – A History of the Kaweah Colony
Co-Operative Dreams: A History of the Kaweah Colony
Chapter 1: Keller and California Land
Having occasion to take a train down the valley I was fortunate to find a seat… behind two men who were civil engineers.[One] informed his companion that east of Visalia was the most magnificent forest in the state of giant redwoods [which had] lately been … [Read more...] about Chapter 1: Keller and California Land
Chapter 2: Haskell and the Labor Movement
Burnette G. Haskell, of San Francisco, [was] one of the most erratic and brilliant geniuses in the history of the labor movement on the Pacific Coast.(Ira Cross, History of the Labor Movement in California) The Co-Operative Land Purchase and Colonization … [Read more...] about Chapter 2: Haskell and the Labor Movement
Chapter 3: Stewart and the Land Office
Plans were matured with little delay, and on October 5, 1885, thirty-seven persons appeared at the United States Land Office in Visalia to make application to enter tracts of this land under the Timber and Stone Law (Act of 1878). (George W. Stewart) When … [Read more...] about Chapter 3: Stewart and the Land Office
Chapter 4: Road Work Begins
So the work began — a work in reality stupendous, contemplating as it did the building of a mountain road for twenty miles to cost not less than a quarter of a million, upon a cash capital of some twenty-five dollars and by about thirty enthusiastic but … [Read more...] about Chapter 4: Road Work Begins
Chapter 5: Crisis and Settlement
Far better that the Colony die than that it be perverted from its first great purpose of demonstrating the fact that men can govern themselves without being 'bossed' —without imperialism.(Burnette Haskell, 'The Crisis') Well, I don’t see the necessity … [Read more...] about Chapter 5: Crisis and Settlement