Fourier, Charles

foo're-er, Charles (1772-1837), a French reformer. He was educated for a commercial life, and with the exception of military service during the period of the French Revolution, he spent the greater part of his days in various subordinate mercantile positions. While yet but nineteen he was employed in a mercantile house at Marseilles. In order to hold up prices the manager withheld a cargo of rice from the market until it spoiled. He then directed Fourier to throw it overboard. At the same time thousands of French were starving for food. The waste of competition and the great expense of keeping rival salesmen in the same territory became impressed upon the young clerk's mind. Writing in the early years of the nineteenth century he stated that 3,000 grocers were employed in supplying the city of Paris, when 300 could do it better, and that 1,000 traveling salesmen were canvassing the trade of the city less satisfactorily than 20 men could do the work if they had a monopoly of the business. On the other hand, he found a vast amount of poverty--a large number of people unable to pay the prices of an expensive system of supply. Fourier's proposed remedy for all this evil was the organization of society into phalanxes. Each phalanx was to produce as nearly as possible all articles of food, clothing, and other necessities needed by its own numbers, and was to distribute these articles through a storehouse of its own, thus cutting out all merchants and carriers. With a management to set each person at work producing just what was likely to be needed, everyone would have employment; and, as all articles were to be put into the storehouses at cost, all would be fed and clothed and sheltered at little expense, and a large part of the world's worry and misery and hunger would be avoided. According to this plan there could be no wealthy people, and none were to be permitted to suffer for want of ordinary supplies. Fourierism, as his plan is called, is not exactly socialism, but it is a form of it. About 1840 these ideas began to take root in the United States. The famous Brook Farm undertook to put them into effect. Two papers, the Phalanx and the Harbinger, were established to spread Fourierism. A society or association for the support of the new doctrines was organized with no less a man than Horace Greeley at its head. About thirty-four phalanxes were organized. The strongest were the North American and the Wisconsin. The movement died out about 1850. The study of Fourierism is an interesting introduction to that of state ownership and communism. See Brook Farm; Socialism; Communism

Four-o'clock, a well known garden flower. It is known to botanists as Mirabilis, meaning wonderful. The popular name of four-o'clock has reference to the late hour in the day at which the flowers open. It was introduced from tropical America, and is known sometimes as Marvel of Peru. There are several species. The common four-o'clock is an erect, bushy, quick-growing herb from two to three feet high. It blossoms profusely in autumn.

The flower has no corolla; but the calyx, which is tubular and salver-formed, has the color and fine texture of a corolla. In its native clime, and in the southern part of the United States, the four-o'clock produces tubers that may be stored like those of the dahlia. The northern florist depends entirely on seed.