"Our purpose is to readjust measures and systems to the changed conditions of the social and industrial life . . . to give the people industrial as well as political freedom."

The effort was recognized by such well-known socialists as Eugene V. Debs and Henry Demarest Lloyd. The founders of the Brotherhood taxed themselves and also required a membership fee of $160 per family, soon raising $10,000 to buy 200 acres of land in 1897 near the town of Edison on the Skagit-Whatcom border. *G.E. (ED) PELTON, leader of the first group of Northwest socialists, named the colony Equality from the title of a book by Edward Bellamy.

All went beautifully until after 1900. Members lived in large apartments, later in individual homes. Each person was allowed to choose his occupation but also had to agree to work at other assigned jobs if he had spare time. All policy was decided at the frequent town meetings, which everyone over eighteen was required to attend. Equality's political publication, "Industrial Freedom", was circulated nationally.

Because the colonists behaved themselves, their neighbors liked them even if their way of life was different. Everything was, indeed, utopian for about four years; then, in succeeding years of the new century, matters worsened. Ideological disputes turned the town meetings into impossible wrangles. Professing socialist fever, freeloaders joined the colony to tap the abundant food and supplies. In early 1906, a fire set by arsonists destroyed several buildings, including the barn and most of the cattle inside. Declaring that taxes were delinquent and a reign of terror existed in the colony, a group of colonists petitioned the court in Mount Vernon to place the Brotherhood under receivership. The land was then sold, the assets distributed, the colonists scattered, proving the previously declared tenets of the national socialists - that cooperative living simply did not work....."

**G.E. "Ed" Pelton was the brother of Sarah Jane Pelton, wife of Edwin Levi Irish!

Equality Colony Photo Album

Equality School Souvenir

School Photo - 1898

George "Ed" Pelton

Among the Socialists - Seattle P.I., May 14, 1898

A Cooperative Colony - Seattle Times, Nov 25, 1962

1905 Tidbits - Mt. Vernon Argus

Recollections of Catherine Savage Pulsipher