A MODERN UTOPIA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 81, 29 December 1928, Page 4

A MODERN UTOPIA

NO SURPLUS PROFITS. A new type of Utopia, in which every worker will be taxed all of his earnings above (he amount necessary to provide a living for his family, is to be established on a tract of 11,000 acres recently purebased in the Ozark Mountains by the Reorganised Church of the Latter Day Saints, according to a special Consolidated Press Association dispatch from Springfield, Missouri, states the “Literary Digest.” The colony, although operated along communistic lines, will depend upon the religious standards of the members rather than on economic laws for success. Announcement of the project, it is stated, came from Dr. Frederick M. Smith, president of the Latter Day Saints’. Church. Dr. Smith is said to be- a direct descendant of Joseph M. Smith, one of the founders of the Mormon Church, and the Saints’ organisation is an offshoot from the Mormons. The Smith branch has headquarters in Independence, Missouri, where a million-dollar temple is being completed on a site chosen almost one hundred years ago by the Mormon leader when he and his followers stopped there during their migrations from Illinois to Utah. As to the new settlement, it is stated :— “In the Ozark Zion every member will be protected with life insurance and financed by the colony. Members of the colony will own their own bouses, but schools, churches, public utilities, and public enterprises will be owned by • boards of trustees.*