Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/698

678 $94,000. As has been seen, there was a variety of industries, and no ordinary person could form an approximately correct estimate of the values of the various assets, so the statement was accepted as true. It may be of interest to see how this large estimate was obtained. For a particular purpose an estimate was once asked for of the value of the sawmill machinery, etc. When obtained, it was found to be only one-third of the last annual inventory. When the foreman was asked to explain the discrepancy, he said that he had been instructed by the officials not to make the inventory lower than that of the preceding year. A lot of catalogues and two old directories, one of Chicago and one of St. Louis, were inventoried at $65. Nearly all, if not all, the buildings were inventoried at from two to five times their value; and the buildings which were bought on the farms, and should therefore not have been inventoried at all, since the farms were inventoried at their purchase price, or higher, were put in at a high figure. The gristmill appeared a third time in the inventory with the mill machinery. These and other facts lead me to believe that the net assets were not more than one-third or one-fourth of the value given to them in the annual statement. Another statement which went the rounds of the press was that the colony was rated A1 by Bradstreet. The fact is that in 1899 it was rated merely C by Bradstreet.

So many things had been given to the colonists by well-meaning friends outside the colony that they had become a little pauperized. There was a feeling that, if they needed anything, they had only to express their wants in their paper and some good friend of the colony would send it to them. They were undeceived, however, when a receiver was appointed, and their appeals for aid, through the paper and by letters, were practically unanswered.

The colony had a constitution which could be amended by a vote of the members. A board of thirteen directors legislated for the colony, but their actions were at all times subject to a referendum vote, if demanded. Colonists also had the privilege