In a recent number of Liberty the writer briefly descanted on Harvard College as a huge local bore, a mere "good-society" institution rather than an Academy truly devoted to knowledge, science, and reflective thought for their own sake. The college is really a local bore, because the mention of it is never absent from the newspapers of this vicinity. In like manner, there is a local literary clique, sometimes called "the Cambridge set," the sound of which is dinned int one's ears perpetually hereabouts, as if its members were altogether transcendent writers. I refer, of course, to Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Howells, Aldrich, et id omne genus of scribbling emotionalists. Within proper limits one is ready to acknowledge the "readability" and merit of the above list of these litterateurs. They are bright and witty, beyond question. But one tires at last of the damnable literature of their names which is forever audible hereabouts. Not one of those over-popular, outrageously bepuffed litterateurs is a man of really commanding intellect, as distinguished from the emotional nature. They are deft, andriot, highly-scented, and highly-rouged writers merely, felicitous workers-over of current literary material and ideas so superabundant, trickers-out of current thought and themes in pert, studied, ornamental phrase, intent mostly upon style and the tournure of their sentences, and emulating the jackdraw in the borrowed character of their plumage. After the sugar candy and treacle of this Cambridge lot of superfine scribblers, the "yawp" of rough, jaunty Walt Whitman is really refreshing, even with Walt's large liberty of speech on ordinarily forbidden themes. Occasionally a great, original idea crops out of Walt, while out of Cambridge lot only honeyed rhetoric sprouts. Who is Howells? A literary carpet-bagger in New England, a sort of sugar-cured ham from Ohio, who was pickled for a time in the language of Venice. He is a novelette-ist of the Parisian sort, who longest flights are the hops of a sparrow from spray to spray, without length or strength of imaginative wing. Howells and Aldrich are par nobile fratrum, American-born Parisians, hot-house plants which have somehow blossomed on our New England soil, as the famous magnolia tree blossomed in the vicinity of the fishy, stony Gloucester. Howells excels in amorous dialogue or the voicing of the flirtations of lavendered youths and maidens laboring under erotomania. Governor Long, who, besides being a politician, is a nice, lavendered litterateur of the Howell-Aldrich type, exhibited the utter lack of correct literary judgment and appreciation to claim for Whittier superiority as a poet over Virgil, whom he nevertheless tried to translate, — as Bottom was translated however. In "the poet's land," to borrow Schiller's phrase, Virgil has stood for centuries like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved, charming with an irresistible spell over new generations and even his sadly uncritical, "down-east" Yankee, gubernational translator, John D. Long. Line after line and passage after passage of Virgil are as deeply carved in the memory of the Indo-European race as are Shakespere's greatest proverbial lines. There are thousands of lines of Virgil which Whittier could no more have written than he could scale the zenith bodily. He is an exquisite song-bird and sentimentalist, but even in the expression of sentiment he is infinitely below Virgil's mark, while he could not sustain himself for a moment in the higher regions of the imagination in which Virgil's muse takes her flight, breathing with ease "empyreal air." But Whittier does not overestimate himself, and must be annoyed by the fulsome laudation of his admirers. Taken in over-doses of fifty or a hundred consecutive pages, Whittier's poetry cloys with its monotonous sweetness and sameness; but an occasional lyric of his like "My Playmate," for instance, is delightful and medicinal. Litterateurs who are overpraised and constantly, elaborately, and systematically bepuffed are sure, later along, to be unduly depreciated. That is the way the world takes its revenge for having been betrayed into a temporary excess of admiration. An excessive laudation of a few "literary fellers" is gross injustice to others who are as good men as they are.
B.
Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, then it could be had for fifty cents a year - Now only a click away.
10/28/13
Liberty Again Defined.
DEAR LIBERTY: — Let me suggest that your new subscriber who says that "perfect liberty is perfect obedience to natural law" probably had the element of choice in his mind, although he did not put it into words, and meant to state that perfect liberty is voluntary obedience to natural law. Obedience not voluntary would not be perfect, and would not be liberty.
It seems to me that Liberty is neither the mother nor the daughter of Order, but the equal mate, the woman of the union of which Order is the man, the product of the offspring of the two being harmonious society of integral individuals.
F. S. C.
[It is more than likely that "F. S. C." is right in regard to our new subscriber. Knowing or man, we felt confident at the time that his meaning was not accurately expressed by his statement. Nevertheless his omission afforded a good opportunity to emphasize an important distinction, and we improved it. But even if his meaning was just what "F. S. C." thinks it was, he was not strictly correct. Liberty is not obedience, compulsory or voluntary, any more than it is disobedience, compulsory or voluntary. Nor is it even the actual choice between obedience and disobedience. It is simply and solely the freedom and power to choose. And as long as moral philosophers of the Free Religious stamp (among whom we include neither "F. S. C." nor our new subscriber) keep on trying to conceal this, the true idea of Liberty, behind such misleading phrases as the "liberty to do right" and such hackneyed and irrational discrimination as that between "liberty and license," we do not mean to often lose a chance to bring it to the light.
As for "F. S. C.'s" sexual distinction between Liberty and Order, we take very little stock in it except as a very pretty and handy figure of speech. The woman's rights people have long maintained that "there is no sex in virtue." We go farther, and doubt if there is any sex in virtues. That Liberty and Order so greatly advance each other by action and reaction that they may be regarded, in one view of the case, as almost cognate principles is not denied; but we insist that, in their relation to modern progress, Liberty comes logically first, and that Order is a result. "F. S. C." unwittingly admits the correctness of our position when he describes the offspring as "a harmonious society of integral individuals." A harmonious society of integral individuals is precisely what we mean by Order; and, if "F. S. C." has a different view of Order, it must be a very narrow one. The logical priority of Liberty to Order cannot be too strongly urged while nine-tenths of the professed friends of Order are pushing schemes to establish it by violations of Liberty. It was for this reason that we chose the grand motto which constitutes the heading of our paper. — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
It seems to me that Liberty is neither the mother nor the daughter of Order, but the equal mate, the woman of the union of which Order is the man, the product of the offspring of the two being harmonious society of integral individuals.
F. S. C.
[It is more than likely that "F. S. C." is right in regard to our new subscriber. Knowing or man, we felt confident at the time that his meaning was not accurately expressed by his statement. Nevertheless his omission afforded a good opportunity to emphasize an important distinction, and we improved it. But even if his meaning was just what "F. S. C." thinks it was, he was not strictly correct. Liberty is not obedience, compulsory or voluntary, any more than it is disobedience, compulsory or voluntary. Nor is it even the actual choice between obedience and disobedience. It is simply and solely the freedom and power to choose. And as long as moral philosophers of the Free Religious stamp (among whom we include neither "F. S. C." nor our new subscriber) keep on trying to conceal this, the true idea of Liberty, behind such misleading phrases as the "liberty to do right" and such hackneyed and irrational discrimination as that between "liberty and license," we do not mean to often lose a chance to bring it to the light.
As for "F. S. C.'s" sexual distinction between Liberty and Order, we take very little stock in it except as a very pretty and handy figure of speech. The woman's rights people have long maintained that "there is no sex in virtue." We go farther, and doubt if there is any sex in virtues. That Liberty and Order so greatly advance each other by action and reaction that they may be regarded, in one view of the case, as almost cognate principles is not denied; but we insist that, in their relation to modern progress, Liberty comes logically first, and that Order is a result. "F. S. C." unwittingly admits the correctness of our position when he describes the offspring as "a harmonious society of integral individuals." A harmonious society of integral individuals is precisely what we mean by Order; and, if "F. S. C." has a different view of Order, it must be a very narrow one. The logical priority of Liberty to Order cannot be too strongly urged while nine-tenths of the professed friends of Order are pushing schemes to establish it by violations of Liberty. It was for this reason that we chose the grand motto which constitutes the heading of our paper. — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
Mr. Colville Explains
To the Editor of Liberty,
DEAR SIR: — Allow me to inform your readers that, had I thought it objectionable to any of Mrs. Kendrick's real friends, I should not have read any extracts from the Bible at her funeral, as I do not deem reading a necessary part of a funeral service. I am not aware of having used the word of Jesus Christ in the reading, though I quoted the well-known passage from the Apocalypse, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." To me the truth itself is the Lord, and I do believe Mrs. Kendrick died in a love of truth, as her life was for many years a willing sacrifice to the truth as she beheld it. I think your readers ought to know that Mrs. Kendrick and I have been warm personal friends; that she frequently attended by lectures in Berkeley Hall, accompanied by her husband and daughter; and that I spoke at her funeral in compliance with the earnest request of the former. It is also due to me to state that no one of her friends instructed me how to proceed, and I read passages of scripture quite innocently, the very same that I had read recently t the memorial service commemorating the departure from earthly life of a daughter of the late Francis Jackson. On that occasion no exception was taken to the proceeding, and, seeing a number of my dearest friends at Mrs. Kendrick's funerals, I acted independently and unconstrainedly. If I have "outraged her memory and insulted her friends," I can only say that she was a very different woman from the Mrs. Kendricks I had the honor of knowing, and her friends must be persond of very perculiar sensibilities, at least. I wish to awaken no controversy, but an attack ought to be replied to by the one attacked in a journal styling itself Liberty.
Yours for the truth, W. J. COLVILLE.
[Mr. Colville errs in supposing that we criticised him for reading from the Bible. That strange book contains many passages which Mrs. Kendrick, in common with all sensible people, ardently admired, and which might have been read with peculiar propriety at her funeral. It was the character of Mr. Colville's selection that aroused our indignation. The keynote of the services was a sentence not only containing the words Christ Jesus (which Mr. Colville certainly used), but directly inculcating the Christian scheme of salvation, for which Mrs. Kendrick entertained no sentiment save that of the profoundest contempt. As one of her most intimate friends, a spiritualist, has since said to us, "a more inappropriate passage could not have been selected." To show Mr. Colville that we are not averse to quoting scripture properly, we call his attention, in answer to his strained symbolism identifying the truth with the Lord, to the seventeenth verse of the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottle perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." It is true that Mr. Colville had no instructions concerning the service, but for the very reason, we suppose, that his intimate acquaintance with the deceased inspired a confidence that he would say nothing inappropriate. We may have erred in imputing unworthy motives in explanation of his conduct, but we had to choose between impeaching his motives or his good sense. That our criticism was substantially correct we have the amplest proof in the thanks and congratulations thereon that continue to pour in on us from Mrs. Kendrick's dearest friends present at the funeral. — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
DEAR SIR: — Allow me to inform your readers that, had I thought it objectionable to any of Mrs. Kendrick's real friends, I should not have read any extracts from the Bible at her funeral, as I do not deem reading a necessary part of a funeral service. I am not aware of having used the word of Jesus Christ in the reading, though I quoted the well-known passage from the Apocalypse, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." To me the truth itself is the Lord, and I do believe Mrs. Kendrick died in a love of truth, as her life was for many years a willing sacrifice to the truth as she beheld it. I think your readers ought to know that Mrs. Kendrick and I have been warm personal friends; that she frequently attended by lectures in Berkeley Hall, accompanied by her husband and daughter; and that I spoke at her funeral in compliance with the earnest request of the former. It is also due to me to state that no one of her friends instructed me how to proceed, and I read passages of scripture quite innocently, the very same that I had read recently t the memorial service commemorating the departure from earthly life of a daughter of the late Francis Jackson. On that occasion no exception was taken to the proceeding, and, seeing a number of my dearest friends at Mrs. Kendrick's funerals, I acted independently and unconstrainedly. If I have "outraged her memory and insulted her friends," I can only say that she was a very different woman from the Mrs. Kendricks I had the honor of knowing, and her friends must be persond of very perculiar sensibilities, at least. I wish to awaken no controversy, but an attack ought to be replied to by the one attacked in a journal styling itself Liberty.
Yours for the truth, W. J. COLVILLE.
[Mr. Colville errs in supposing that we criticised him for reading from the Bible. That strange book contains many passages which Mrs. Kendrick, in common with all sensible people, ardently admired, and which might have been read with peculiar propriety at her funeral. It was the character of Mr. Colville's selection that aroused our indignation. The keynote of the services was a sentence not only containing the words Christ Jesus (which Mr. Colville certainly used), but directly inculcating the Christian scheme of salvation, for which Mrs. Kendrick entertained no sentiment save that of the profoundest contempt. As one of her most intimate friends, a spiritualist, has since said to us, "a more inappropriate passage could not have been selected." To show Mr. Colville that we are not averse to quoting scripture properly, we call his attention, in answer to his strained symbolism identifying the truth with the Lord, to the seventeenth verse of the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottle perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." It is true that Mr. Colville had no instructions concerning the service, but for the very reason, we suppose, that his intimate acquaintance with the deceased inspired a confidence that he would say nothing inappropriate. We may have erred in imputing unworthy motives in explanation of his conduct, but we had to choose between impeaching his motives or his good sense. That our criticism was substantially correct we have the amplest proof in the thanks and congratulations thereon that continue to pour in on us from Mrs. Kendrick's dearest friends present at the funeral. — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
GARIBALDI
Once the Cyclopean king the poets sung
Was Etna's beacon of eternal light
That led the grateful mariner along
The trackless desert of the sea, when night
And storm and darkness o'er the planet hung
Their mantle, ere the needle's marvelous sight
Tracked through the gloom the pole star, and revealed
To the foiled pilot's ken where 'twas concealed.
But in our day flames on Caprera's shore
A beacon brighter than old Etna's ray,
That signals, "Italy's long night is o'er,
And there has dawned for her a brighter day
Than when upon Rome's seven hills late power
That held a world in awe: the gracious away
Of reason, truth, and right, and liberty."
This precious boon Italia owes to thee.
Brave Garibaldi! And the time will come
When Caprera will be to men a shrine
More sacred than the prophet's honored tombs
At Mecca, or the mount in Palestine
Where died the fabled Savior. But no gloom
Will cast its shadow o'er our lives from thine,
More than thy country's saviour, whom men bless
As freedom's champion, lover of thy race!
Was Etna's beacon of eternal light
That led the grateful mariner along
The trackless desert of the sea, when night
And storm and darkness o'er the planet hung
Their mantle, ere the needle's marvelous sight
Tracked through the gloom the pole star, and revealed
To the foiled pilot's ken where 'twas concealed.
But in our day flames on Caprera's shore
A beacon brighter than old Etna's ray,
That signals, "Italy's long night is o'er,
And there has dawned for her a brighter day
Than when upon Rome's seven hills late power
That held a world in awe: the gracious away
Of reason, truth, and right, and liberty."
This precious boon Italia owes to thee.
Brave Garibaldi! And the time will come
When Caprera will be to men a shrine
More sacred than the prophet's honored tombs
At Mecca, or the mount in Palestine
Where died the fabled Savior. But no gloom
Will cast its shadow o'er our lives from thine,
More than thy country's saviour, whom men bless
As freedom's champion, lover of thy race!
Timely Truth Tersely Told.
[From the New York "Sun."]
A correspondent in Brooklyn writes in praise of the notion of putting the railroads of the country under a national system, "the control and management of which shall be in the hands of agents of the whole people."
The cannot imagine anything more absurd, unpatriotic, and dangerous than this scheme.
There is one end which should be constantly pursued by every intelligent American in whatever belongs to legislation and to government. This end is to diminish the power of government, to reduce the number and authority of officeholders, and to abolish as far as possible the interference of political agents in private affairs.
Let our correspondent also recall the wisdom which suggests that we should
"rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."
A correspondent in Brooklyn writes in praise of the notion of putting the railroads of the country under a national system, "the control and management of which shall be in the hands of agents of the whole people."
The cannot imagine anything more absurd, unpatriotic, and dangerous than this scheme.
There is one end which should be constantly pursued by every intelligent American in whatever belongs to legislation and to government. This end is to diminish the power of government, to reduce the number and authority of officeholders, and to abolish as far as possible the interference of political agents in private affairs.
Let our correspondent also recall the wisdom which suggests that we should
"rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."
A New Method of Agitation.
An Italian journal, La Miseria, recommends the following proposition, which is well worthy the attention of Anarchists in all countries, suggesting, as it does, an excellent means of utilizing enforced idleness in the interest of the social revolution. Here is the plan:
To effect a permanent organization of laborers out of work, which, losing daily its old members, should recruit daily new ones from the laborers who remain out of work. Thus, by turns, all the laborers of the community would pass through the ranks of the organization.
This society should have a permanent committee composed of trusty and devoted men, endowed with the powers purely executive and continually receiving fresh inspiration from the will of the mass of unemployed laborers. The members of this committee themselves should not be necessarily unemployed, or in circumstances which would prevent them from displaying constant activity.
The society should give the greatest possible publicity to its acts through the newspapers, and, if need be, by huge posters. The objects of the society should be: (1) to group the entire idle proletariat of the locality; (2) to make known as widely as possible the number and position of its members; (3) to affirm, by all methods in harmony with the socialistic and revolutionary spirit, the right to life and the will to work, and especially to compete for contracts to be awarded, offering as sole guarantee the capital of its own poverty. Then, to present themselves at public festivals, meetings, and popular assemblies, interrupt the festivities, and demand a consideration of the question of Misery. On especial occasions, — for instance, in case of an exceptional increase of poverty or of the gathering of a great multitude, — to present themselves in procession with other industrial bodies, or else to march by themselves en masse through the city to expose their misery and hunger.
To display, at these public manifestations of hunger, placards bearing this inscription: "We, who produce all things, have no bread." If unable to fly the red flag of the International let them use a black flag as an emblem of death, or else display a workingmen's blouse or some other tattered garment as an emblem of pauperism.
The society should not appeal to charity, or to philanthropy, or to the justice of government or municipal authorities, or to no matter what benevolent institution. It should place its sole reliance on the echo which its suffering would awaken in the hearts of the people and on the terror which would be struck to the hearts of the exploiters by the apparition of the advance-guard of the Revolution.
To effect a permanent organization of laborers out of work, which, losing daily its old members, should recruit daily new ones from the laborers who remain out of work. Thus, by turns, all the laborers of the community would pass through the ranks of the organization.
This society should have a permanent committee composed of trusty and devoted men, endowed with the powers purely executive and continually receiving fresh inspiration from the will of the mass of unemployed laborers. The members of this committee themselves should not be necessarily unemployed, or in circumstances which would prevent them from displaying constant activity.
The society should give the greatest possible publicity to its acts through the newspapers, and, if need be, by huge posters. The objects of the society should be: (1) to group the entire idle proletariat of the locality; (2) to make known as widely as possible the number and position of its members; (3) to affirm, by all methods in harmony with the socialistic and revolutionary spirit, the right to life and the will to work, and especially to compete for contracts to be awarded, offering as sole guarantee the capital of its own poverty. Then, to present themselves at public festivals, meetings, and popular assemblies, interrupt the festivities, and demand a consideration of the question of Misery. On especial occasions, — for instance, in case of an exceptional increase of poverty or of the gathering of a great multitude, — to present themselves in procession with other industrial bodies, or else to march by themselves en masse through the city to expose their misery and hunger.
To display, at these public manifestations of hunger, placards bearing this inscription: "We, who produce all things, have no bread." If unable to fly the red flag of the International let them use a black flag as an emblem of death, or else display a workingmen's blouse or some other tattered garment as an emblem of pauperism.
The society should not appeal to charity, or to philanthropy, or to the justice of government or municipal authorities, or to no matter what benevolent institution. It should place its sole reliance on the echo which its suffering would awaken in the hearts of the people and on the terror which would be struck to the hearts of the exploiters by the apparition of the advance-guard of the Revolution.
Liberty Still Ahead.
FRIEND TUCKER: — Put me down for one of the bound volumes of Liberty. I am familiar with most of the radical literature of the day, especially the periodicals. Took the "Index" eight years, but outgrew it. Have got two volumes of it to sell, all in good order. Liberty is still ahead, but I shall catch up in time, and drop it when it ceases to instruct and lead. Am glad you are not afraid of your subscribers. Liberty should be a weekly, and as large as the "Truth Seeker." What do you say for an effort in that direction? The world needs your though more largely diffused. Get up a stock company, and we will all help. Agitate the thing through Liberty, and commence at once.
Admiringly, D. P. WILLCOX
Deadwood, Dakota, January 1, 1881.
[Liberty would soon lag behind, were we to follow our friend's advice. A stock company would ruin the paper. All that keeps it fresh and bright and bold and true is its absolute control by one individual, who had a definite purpose in view. Liberty intends to become a weekly in due time, and as large as necessity requires. But slow and sure! — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
Admiringly, D. P. WILLCOX
Deadwood, Dakota, January 1, 1881.
[Liberty would soon lag behind, were we to follow our friend's advice. A stock company would ruin the paper. All that keeps it fresh and bright and bold and true is its absolute control by one individual, who had a definite purpose in view. Liberty intends to become a weekly in due time, and as large as necessity requires. But slow and sure! — EDITOR LIBERTY.]
Hard-pan Jurisprudence.
One Abraham Payne of Providence, a liberal in theology, a woman suffragist, and an advanced thinker on many subjects, lately attempted to tell the people or Rhode Island whether they had the right to call a convention and frame a new constitution. the learning and great legal reputation of the gentleman brought a very intelligent audience to hear his paper.
But, instead of assuming to have an opinion of his own on the subject, Mr. Payne consumed his whole time in quoting the opinions of Daniel Webster. Chief Justice Durfee, and other fossils. "This authority says this," "this authority says that," etc.
"But what do you say?" shouted an ignorant laborer, after the reading of the paper. Mr. Payne responded by a speedy retirement. He, of course, had no opinion in the presence of the dead and dry bones of Webster and other defunct judicial popes.
Mr. Payne, as a vice-president of the Free Religious Association, regards with cultured pity and contempt the benighted Orthodox who look to popes, bibles, and preachers for their opinions in theology. In his profession, however, he waives his right of judgment in the presence of his judicial superiors, — an authority-ridden judicial slave.
The ignorant laborer suggested that anything was constitutional that had bayonets enough behind it, and that brute force, after all, was the highest judicial authority. He was ignorant and uncultured enough to have an opinion, and dare to express it. Is there not a possibility that he had studied constitutional law with greater success than Popes Webster and Durfee?
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Liberty desires to testify to its heartfelt admiration for the devotion displayed by Mrs. Scotville, Guiteau's sister, in her support of her unfortunate, insane relative. In a letter answering the statement that the defence had become discouraged, she nobly said: "Be that as it may, the one who probably cares more than any person living for the prisoner and his defence begs leave to state that, so far as she is concerned, there is no discouragement. I shall stand by him against the whole world, against my whole family even, as I have stood since that fated second of July, until the end, whatever that may be, shall come. Because I know that his cause is righteous; because to him it was the command of God, and he obeyed against his own will and inclinations. 'This faith shall be accounted unto him for righteousness.' If the Lord wills, I can say good-by to him on the scaffold even as calmly as if it were good-night, so well assured am I of his eternal salvation." Such words, uttered in the face of a passion-crazed people, sound like the voice of a saint among savages.
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D. G. Croly says, in the New York "Hour," that, "apart from their ideas on the marriage question, the Oneida Communists were the most honest, conscientious, religious people I never knew." Does Mr. Croly mean to say that the Oneidans held their ideas of marriage dishonestly and in violation of their consciences and religion, or does he insinuate as much only because he is afraid to say a good word for that feature of their system which as contributed most to their unpopularity?
But, instead of assuming to have an opinion of his own on the subject, Mr. Payne consumed his whole time in quoting the opinions of Daniel Webster. Chief Justice Durfee, and other fossils. "This authority says this," "this authority says that," etc.
"But what do you say?" shouted an ignorant laborer, after the reading of the paper. Mr. Payne responded by a speedy retirement. He, of course, had no opinion in the presence of the dead and dry bones of Webster and other defunct judicial popes.
Mr. Payne, as a vice-president of the Free Religious Association, regards with cultured pity and contempt the benighted Orthodox who look to popes, bibles, and preachers for their opinions in theology. In his profession, however, he waives his right of judgment in the presence of his judicial superiors, — an authority-ridden judicial slave.
The ignorant laborer suggested that anything was constitutional that had bayonets enough behind it, and that brute force, after all, was the highest judicial authority. He was ignorant and uncultured enough to have an opinion, and dare to express it. Is there not a possibility that he had studied constitutional law with greater success than Popes Webster and Durfee?
--------------------------------------------------------
Liberty desires to testify to its heartfelt admiration for the devotion displayed by Mrs. Scotville, Guiteau's sister, in her support of her unfortunate, insane relative. In a letter answering the statement that the defence had become discouraged, she nobly said: "Be that as it may, the one who probably cares more than any person living for the prisoner and his defence begs leave to state that, so far as she is concerned, there is no discouragement. I shall stand by him against the whole world, against my whole family even, as I have stood since that fated second of July, until the end, whatever that may be, shall come. Because I know that his cause is righteous; because to him it was the command of God, and he obeyed against his own will and inclinations. 'This faith shall be accounted unto him for righteousness.' If the Lord wills, I can say good-by to him on the scaffold even as calmly as if it were good-night, so well assured am I of his eternal salvation." Such words, uttered in the face of a passion-crazed people, sound like the voice of a saint among savages.
------------------------------------------------------
D. G. Croly says, in the New York "Hour," that, "apart from their ideas on the marriage question, the Oneida Communists were the most honest, conscientious, religious people I never knew." Does Mr. Croly mean to say that the Oneidans held their ideas of marriage dishonestly and in violation of their consciences and religion, or does he insinuate as much only because he is afraid to say a good word for that feature of their system which as contributed most to their unpopularity?
Capital the Chief of Criminals.
One of the most frightful of the abuses resulting from the tremendous power now lodged in the hands of capitalists is their utter disregard for human life. In the insolent indifference of their autocratic sway they pay less heed to the safety of their employees than to the protection of their property. The lives and limbs of laborers are regarded as the merest trifles in comparison with the prospective loss or gain of a few dollars. Only a week ago, in Fairfield, Maine, a boiler explosion occurred in the engine-house of the Kennebee Framing Company, killing three men and seriously crippling several others. It now appears that the boilers had been in such notoriously bad condition for two years past that engineer after engineer had come and gone, refusing to work in close proximity to these potential instruments of death and destruction. The stockholders and directors, nearly all of them men of immense wealth and one of them an ex-governor of the State were repeatedly warned and expostulated with and remonstrated with in regard to their criminal neglect, but all to no purpose. They thought only of their pocket-books and bank accounts, and shut their eyes to the danger. For once, however, fortune dealt out righteous retribution; for, when the fatal moment came, a son of one of the principle directors, twenty years of age, whose duty it was to pay off men, had just stepped into the boiler-room to take their time, and was literally roasted to death in the escaping steam. Liberty wishes death to no man, but is non the less sincerely glad that the grief and suffering bound to result from this cruel and carelessness fell, partially at least, upon the hearts, if they have any of, of those responsible for it, instead of invading the homes of additional laborers. In no other respect however, was this an exceptional occurrence. Similar cases, more of less glaring, daily meet the eyes of all who read the newspapers. Nor is there likely to be an improvement until capital shall be stripped of its power for evil. The Fairfield disaster occurred simply because the corporation could find plenty of men willing to risk their lives rather than throw up their job in the face of the possibility that no other be obtained in the season to keep their families from starving or freezing to death. As long as labor is thus dependent upon capital, so long will it be outraged with impunity. It is useless to look to the State for remedy or punishment. Capital rules every department of it from legislature to court. It is through the State that capital wields its power. Take away the privilege which capital compels the State to grant it, strike down the infamous money and land monopolies, and almost immediately, as has been demonstrated over and over again, the demand for laborers would so far exceed the supply that labor would be the master and capital subject to its bidding. Then no expense would be spared in taking every possible precaution for the health and safety of the workers, and one could open his newspaper at breakfast without gear of the destruction of his appetite by blood-curdling accounts of explosions, collisions, and holocausts entirely within the power of human foresight to avoid. But, as things go now, everything is sacrificed to capital, the chief murderers, and to the State, the weapon with which it does its bloody work.
The "New" Morality of Free Religion.
The last issue of Liberty called attention to the claim set up by the teachers and prophets of Free Religion, to wit, that they have successfully passed by that first phase of liberalism where so great a stress is put upon the importance of negative criticism and denial, and are now serenely encamped on the broad plains of a new constructive, philosophical science, preparatory to leading the world onwards by new paths of living waters and universal good: which claim was contested, Liberty maintaining that, whatever denial Free Religionists have left behind, no new affirmative gospel as yet has fallen from their lips. And this, we stated, is true as regards both the beatitudes of religion and the practical moral problems of the time.
But let it be understood that we by no means gain-say the fact that the disciples of Free Religion make a point of morality. Equally with their Christian brethren of the present day, they come boldly to the front, vindicating the standard moral code. They are opposed to theft, lying, adultery, - indeed, they reaffirm the ten moral rules of the decalogue with as much unction as the most devout Biblical sect. We do not criticise this; we refer to it merely to say that there is nothing new or especially "affirmative" in it. It is the old, old story again, the same rehearsed in the Episcopal service for lo, these many centuries, with its "Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners." But how far this reiteration of the Jewish commandments will go in shaping the new civilization is a matter of speculation. Some may think, as doubtless our Free Religion friends do, that, in the absence of their yet-to-be-developed scientific religion, a good stiff emphasis on the old-time moral dogmas will serve them and the world in a good stead. We notice in a recent number of the "Index" a special commendation given to a new "Association of Moralists" just now in process of incubation at Hannibal, Missouri. The one great aim of this new organization is "to show the world that liberalism does not mean lawlessness or immorality, but, on the contrary, it is conducive to the highest type of morality and the best interest of society." These moralists have a "form of admission to membership," one clause of which reads as follows: "Do you faithfully promise that, if received into this brotherhood, you will strive to live a just and honorable life, that no reproach may ever come upon our cause through any act or word of yours?" And the good "Index" adds: "A society organized on such a basis ought not to fail of success." The other "affirmation" which this society offers is to effect that it will "make an earnest effort to promote the religion of humanity."
Have we now in this illustration exhausted the "affirmation" of Free Religion? We should not, we suppose, get credit for being serious if we referred to the zeal of the "Index" against the circulation of "obscene literature," or to its unabated demand for the suppression of that "Twin relic of barbarism" in the far-away territory of Utah. Though both of these attitudes must be described as highly moral, they are neither of them so unlike the popular clamor as to entitle them to rank among the Free Religious "affirmations." There remains, then, simply the summary of the Simon-pure "moralists" of Hannibal with which to furnish forth the marriage table of Free Religion and the newest civilization. And to what a feast are the anhungered guests bidden! The centre of this world-round table is set apart for a wide-spreading dish, on which, gently simmering in a bluish, aesthetic flame, lies the "Religion of Humanity." Side dishes circle about, each laden with some one of the prevailing moralities. A solemn, decorous hush pervades the room, as the assembled guests draw nigh and swear in subdued speech to "strive to live a just and honorable life, that no reproach may ever come upon our cause through any act or word of ours."
And what is to be the upshot of this new consecrated union? What shall issue forth from this civilization of Free Religious moralists?
Celebrate the event, O "Index!" but tell us what new affirmative moral truth shall come to stand as a pillar of humanity on the earth upholding the heavens.
Seriously, so far as we can observe, Free Religion has no courage, no faith, no purpose, — no courage to face the world and proclaim the necessity of new moral relations in the great practical world of industry; on every issue of this nature it sides with the old, upholding landlords, money-kinds, and monopolists: no faith in human nature as equal to its destiny of freedom; but sides with the oppressor in placing Liberty always on the debatable ground of expediency: no purpose beyond that of a drifting tub, catching only what the elegant swash of the times tosses to its embrace.
Take its own excuse for being, — a devotion to freedom. How free is Free Religion? The last half-dozen years have been given in great part to a crusade against "individualism" and "private judgment," and for the restraining influence that comes of "organization." Nearly all of its distinguished leaders have proclaimed that the era of the individual is at an end. Henceforth, there must be the "consesus of the competent;" in other words, private judgment must be held in abeyance or set aside in deference to the concurrent judgment of what practically might as well be called "the church" as by any other name. "Consensus of the competent" is merely the new Free Religious invention for Mother Church and Papal authority.
True, Free Religionists, as a class, have hardly realized this abridgment of Liberty, and will doubtless dispute the fact. No more did Unitarians perceive they had surrendered Liberty when they proclaimed Lordship of Christ. But those who abandoned the old Christian despotism saw it, and determined to have their religion "free." No one doubts the sincerity of those free religious protestants when they began their crusade for Liberty. And now they are free enough on the purely theological issues; but, just where their religion becomes involved in the practical moral issues of the day, where it is afforded a chance to become truly the "Religion of Humanity," there it shrinks back; free discussion is disliked, if not thrust wholly out in the cold; there the "consensus of the competent" looms up to settle and hush the disquieting reformers. This is the cue to the new effort of the Hannibal "moralists." They wish to "show the world that liberalism does not mean lawlessness and immorality." (The italics are Liberty's) In other words, they accept what that world they fear calls "law" as law, and what is deems "moral" they, too, swear is moral. And they are very anxious, too, that, after the fashion of the world, they may appear as representing the "highest type of morality and the best interests of society."
Think of it!
Liberty says of all such "liberalism," it has gone to seed.
Take now the attitude of Free Religionists towards the great labor movement that had arrived at such proportions in every intelligent country on the face of the earth. Scarcely ever touching the subject, and, when it does, with one or two exceptions, never touching it but to bolster up in some way the pretensions of capitalists. Industrial freedom has no niche in its new temple. Its new president, having some rather crude, yet sympathetic, word to utter in behalf of the claims of labor, preached to the deaf ears of the freedom-loving capitalists who have been warming themselves around that live-coal on the altar Parker set up. But, plainly, all they knew was, Parker put it there. When Adler tried to say what he though it meant, capital had no ears to hear, for he was "avowing agrarian doctrines." A Christian weekly says that "Webster, in his later years, was in bond to the bankers, manufacturers, and merchants." is Free Religion in like bond of servitude?
Liberty so thinks.
And Liberty proposed to take up the great issues of practical affirmative morality, not in fear of the world, not in deference to any prevailing opinion or party not potent in the land, but in obedience only to those "unwritten laws" of Justice, Equity, and Liberty which are fundamental in human nature, the only guarantees of universal prosperity and ennobling peace.
But let it be understood that we by no means gain-say the fact that the disciples of Free Religion make a point of morality. Equally with their Christian brethren of the present day, they come boldly to the front, vindicating the standard moral code. They are opposed to theft, lying, adultery, - indeed, they reaffirm the ten moral rules of the decalogue with as much unction as the most devout Biblical sect. We do not criticise this; we refer to it merely to say that there is nothing new or especially "affirmative" in it. It is the old, old story again, the same rehearsed in the Episcopal service for lo, these many centuries, with its "Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners." But how far this reiteration of the Jewish commandments will go in shaping the new civilization is a matter of speculation. Some may think, as doubtless our Free Religion friends do, that, in the absence of their yet-to-be-developed scientific religion, a good stiff emphasis on the old-time moral dogmas will serve them and the world in a good stead. We notice in a recent number of the "Index" a special commendation given to a new "Association of Moralists" just now in process of incubation at Hannibal, Missouri. The one great aim of this new organization is "to show the world that liberalism does not mean lawlessness or immorality, but, on the contrary, it is conducive to the highest type of morality and the best interest of society." These moralists have a "form of admission to membership," one clause of which reads as follows: "Do you faithfully promise that, if received into this brotherhood, you will strive to live a just and honorable life, that no reproach may ever come upon our cause through any act or word of yours?" And the good "Index" adds: "A society organized on such a basis ought not to fail of success." The other "affirmation" which this society offers is to effect that it will "make an earnest effort to promote the religion of humanity."
Have we now in this illustration exhausted the "affirmation" of Free Religion? We should not, we suppose, get credit for being serious if we referred to the zeal of the "Index" against the circulation of "obscene literature," or to its unabated demand for the suppression of that "Twin relic of barbarism" in the far-away territory of Utah. Though both of these attitudes must be described as highly moral, they are neither of them so unlike the popular clamor as to entitle them to rank among the Free Religious "affirmations." There remains, then, simply the summary of the Simon-pure "moralists" of Hannibal with which to furnish forth the marriage table of Free Religion and the newest civilization. And to what a feast are the anhungered guests bidden! The centre of this world-round table is set apart for a wide-spreading dish, on which, gently simmering in a bluish, aesthetic flame, lies the "Religion of Humanity." Side dishes circle about, each laden with some one of the prevailing moralities. A solemn, decorous hush pervades the room, as the assembled guests draw nigh and swear in subdued speech to "strive to live a just and honorable life, that no reproach may ever come upon our cause through any act or word of ours."
And what is to be the upshot of this new consecrated union? What shall issue forth from this civilization of Free Religious moralists?
Celebrate the event, O "Index!" but tell us what new affirmative moral truth shall come to stand as a pillar of humanity on the earth upholding the heavens.
Seriously, so far as we can observe, Free Religion has no courage, no faith, no purpose, — no courage to face the world and proclaim the necessity of new moral relations in the great practical world of industry; on every issue of this nature it sides with the old, upholding landlords, money-kinds, and monopolists: no faith in human nature as equal to its destiny of freedom; but sides with the oppressor in placing Liberty always on the debatable ground of expediency: no purpose beyond that of a drifting tub, catching only what the elegant swash of the times tosses to its embrace.
Take its own excuse for being, — a devotion to freedom. How free is Free Religion? The last half-dozen years have been given in great part to a crusade against "individualism" and "private judgment," and for the restraining influence that comes of "organization." Nearly all of its distinguished leaders have proclaimed that the era of the individual is at an end. Henceforth, there must be the "consesus of the competent;" in other words, private judgment must be held in abeyance or set aside in deference to the concurrent judgment of what practically might as well be called "the church" as by any other name. "Consensus of the competent" is merely the new Free Religious invention for Mother Church and Papal authority.
True, Free Religionists, as a class, have hardly realized this abridgment of Liberty, and will doubtless dispute the fact. No more did Unitarians perceive they had surrendered Liberty when they proclaimed Lordship of Christ. But those who abandoned the old Christian despotism saw it, and determined to have their religion "free." No one doubts the sincerity of those free religious protestants when they began their crusade for Liberty. And now they are free enough on the purely theological issues; but, just where their religion becomes involved in the practical moral issues of the day, where it is afforded a chance to become truly the "Religion of Humanity," there it shrinks back; free discussion is disliked, if not thrust wholly out in the cold; there the "consensus of the competent" looms up to settle and hush the disquieting reformers. This is the cue to the new effort of the Hannibal "moralists." They wish to "show the world that liberalism does not mean lawlessness and immorality." (The italics are Liberty's) In other words, they accept what that world they fear calls "law" as law, and what is deems "moral" they, too, swear is moral. And they are very anxious, too, that, after the fashion of the world, they may appear as representing the "highest type of morality and the best interests of society."
Think of it!
Liberty says of all such "liberalism," it has gone to seed.
Take now the attitude of Free Religionists towards the great labor movement that had arrived at such proportions in every intelligent country on the face of the earth. Scarcely ever touching the subject, and, when it does, with one or two exceptions, never touching it but to bolster up in some way the pretensions of capitalists. Industrial freedom has no niche in its new temple. Its new president, having some rather crude, yet sympathetic, word to utter in behalf of the claims of labor, preached to the deaf ears of the freedom-loving capitalists who have been warming themselves around that live-coal on the altar Parker set up. But, plainly, all they knew was, Parker put it there. When Adler tried to say what he though it meant, capital had no ears to hear, for he was "avowing agrarian doctrines." A Christian weekly says that "Webster, in his later years, was in bond to the bankers, manufacturers, and merchants." is Free Religion in like bond of servitude?
Liberty so thinks.
And Liberty proposed to take up the great issues of practical affirmative morality, not in fear of the world, not in deference to any prevailing opinion or party not potent in the land, but in obedience only to those "unwritten laws" of Justice, Equity, and Liberty which are fundamental in human nature, the only guarantees of universal prosperity and ennobling peace.
Do Liberals Know Themselves?
Liberty not unfrequently receives the compliment of being considered the most radical and revolutionary sheet ever published in this country. So startling has seemed the project of abolishing the State to not a few radicals in the other reform spheres that they have hesitated to entertain this paper in their family circles and places of business, lest they might be ticketed by Mrs. Grundy and "good society" as Nihilists, enemies of law and order, and dangerous citizens generally.
Yet, after all, what is any radical, whose protest means anything, but a person who is attempting to abolish the State? Bear in mind that the State typifies any organized machine which attempts to enforce its measures and methods by other means than persuasion and consent and at other than its own cost. Messrs. Seaver and Mendum of the Boston "Investigator" are materialists. They see in the way of progress and organized machine presided over by ecclesiastic hierarchs. It attempts to saddle its theological constitution upon those who never subscribed to it. It's dogmas are crammed down the throats of the unthinking and gullible through authoritative posting of certain theological maxims. It erects an omnipotent God to suit its own despotic purposes, and saddles the expense of supporting him and his hierarchical retinue upon those who do not acknowledge allegiance.
Now, the thing that Messrs. Seaver and Mendum are endeavoring to abolish is this theological State, which, if they examine it is almost the exact counterpart of the political State, or, rather, is one phase of it. So true is this that to attempt to abolish the theological State without abolishing the political is as impossible as ridiculous. It is strange that religious liberals do not see this at a glance.
Take, again, the Free Religionists, with their famous "demands of liberalism." Many of their leading demands were simply attempts to abolish certain despotic appendages of the State. Those who initiated the movement, in calling it Free Religion, asked for the abolition of the State to that extent that they conceived the State to be the antipodes of Liberty. The movement promised well, and might accomplish much if it had sufficient sagacity and bravery in its constituency to pursue the State versus Free Religion far enough to see that the main purpose of the State is to deny freedom, whether in religion, morals, trade, or industry. The Free Religionists unfortunately have achieved little more than an exchange of the orthodox God for enforced "culture," "morality," "purity," and other undefined fictions - thus becoming more offensively bigoted in the eyes of true liberals than the Orthodox themselves.
But all religious liberals, to the extent that they institute effective protests against a real enemy, will find, upon knowing themselves better, that that enemy is the State in some of its allied forms, and that they are engaged in a movement to abolish it. There is a theological State, a social State, an industrial State. The pernicious element of them all is that species of organization which is based on compulsion and authority rather than upon reason and consent. Though our attitudes towards Spiritualism is a skeptical one, we nevertheless accord to its friends the credit of being, in one respect, the most sagacious body of liberals in the world, in that they largely discard organization and leave a wide latitude to individuality. The result is seen in the rapid and wonderful growth of their numbers.
The State is simply a mammoth organization, held together by usurpation and force. All minor organizations in society are modeled after it. Of this type of organization Liberty is the avowed enemy. It violated individual right. It is unscientific. It is the universal foe of progress. It must go. Curiously enough, some of our liberal friends, who, in all they effectively do for growth and emancipation, are fighting that same foe, have yet to learn the logic of their own dissent. But they, too, like the benighted bigots whose servility they deplore, are still bound in the shackles of custom and revered named. They, however, providentially persist in acting better than they know, and all we can do is invite them to patiently follow our method and logic till they know themselves better.
Yet, after all, what is any radical, whose protest means anything, but a person who is attempting to abolish the State? Bear in mind that the State typifies any organized machine which attempts to enforce its measures and methods by other means than persuasion and consent and at other than its own cost. Messrs. Seaver and Mendum of the Boston "Investigator" are materialists. They see in the way of progress and organized machine presided over by ecclesiastic hierarchs. It attempts to saddle its theological constitution upon those who never subscribed to it. It's dogmas are crammed down the throats of the unthinking and gullible through authoritative posting of certain theological maxims. It erects an omnipotent God to suit its own despotic purposes, and saddles the expense of supporting him and his hierarchical retinue upon those who do not acknowledge allegiance.
Now, the thing that Messrs. Seaver and Mendum are endeavoring to abolish is this theological State, which, if they examine it is almost the exact counterpart of the political State, or, rather, is one phase of it. So true is this that to attempt to abolish the theological State without abolishing the political is as impossible as ridiculous. It is strange that religious liberals do not see this at a glance.
Take, again, the Free Religionists, with their famous "demands of liberalism." Many of their leading demands were simply attempts to abolish certain despotic appendages of the State. Those who initiated the movement, in calling it Free Religion, asked for the abolition of the State to that extent that they conceived the State to be the antipodes of Liberty. The movement promised well, and might accomplish much if it had sufficient sagacity and bravery in its constituency to pursue the State versus Free Religion far enough to see that the main purpose of the State is to deny freedom, whether in religion, morals, trade, or industry. The Free Religionists unfortunately have achieved little more than an exchange of the orthodox God for enforced "culture," "morality," "purity," and other undefined fictions - thus becoming more offensively bigoted in the eyes of true liberals than the Orthodox themselves.
But all religious liberals, to the extent that they institute effective protests against a real enemy, will find, upon knowing themselves better, that that enemy is the State in some of its allied forms, and that they are engaged in a movement to abolish it. There is a theological State, a social State, an industrial State. The pernicious element of them all is that species of organization which is based on compulsion and authority rather than upon reason and consent. Though our attitudes towards Spiritualism is a skeptical one, we nevertheless accord to its friends the credit of being, in one respect, the most sagacious body of liberals in the world, in that they largely discard organization and leave a wide latitude to individuality. The result is seen in the rapid and wonderful growth of their numbers.
The State is simply a mammoth organization, held together by usurpation and force. All minor organizations in society are modeled after it. Of this type of organization Liberty is the avowed enemy. It violated individual right. It is unscientific. It is the universal foe of progress. It must go. Curiously enough, some of our liberal friends, who, in all they effectively do for growth and emancipation, are fighting that same foe, have yet to learn the logic of their own dissent. But they, too, like the benighted bigots whose servility they deplore, are still bound in the shackles of custom and revered named. They, however, providentially persist in acting better than they know, and all we can do is invite them to patiently follow our method and logic till they know themselves better.
On Picket Duty.
An East Indian paper says that a number of Italian builders have gone to Mandalay, where King Thebaw is ambitious of having a chapel erected which shall be similar to St. Peter's at Rome. The heathen monarch evidently deems himself "a biger man" than the pope.
Cyrus W. Field, whose fears of communism are said to cause him much loss of sleep, announces, through his new organ, the "Mail and Express," the discovery of forty thousand socialists in the city of New York who are waiting an opportunity to seize his property and upset all the plans of further robbery which he and Jay Gould have concocted. Lets us hope he is right.
The "Banner of Light" has always been an interesting well-conducted paper, but, since its enlargement to twelve pages, which has enabled it to present new and attractive features, it may certainly claim to stand at the head of spiritualistic journalism. It has the advantage of being managed by skilled and experienced journalists, who, moreover, are liberal-minded men, showing little or no trace of the spirit of bigotry that narrows the influence and injures the tone of many of its competitors. Its columns afford from week to week an exhaustive history of the progress of the movement of which it is an organ, as well as intelligent discussion of the same, and are especially valuable to those desirous of investigating the subject. Liberty takes very little interest in the "summer-land," but many of her friends support take a great deal. To all such we recommend the "Banner," which costs but three dollars a year. Address, "Isaac B. Rich, Banner of Light Publishing House, Boston."
Mrs. Lucy Stone and her wing of the woman suffragists have put themselves on record in opposition to the admission to Congress of George Q. Cannon of Utah, on the ground that "he is living in open violation of the laws of United States." If Mr. Cannon were enough of a hypocrite and a sneak to be willing to follow the example of the majority of his fellow-congressmen, who live in a secret violation of the laws which they make, the virtuous Lucy and her martinet of a husband would probably hold up both hands in favor of admitting him. But their attitude in the matter will make no difference either way, for the report that Mormon emissaries have been engaged in investigating the daily (and nightly) habits of our national legislators has put a sudden damper on the enthusiasm of the anti-Mormon movement in Congress. A revelation of the "true inwardness" of congressmen's lives would make "mighty interesting reading," and the salacious are already chuckling at the prospect of its forthcoming. "Sunset" Cox, with his usual wit, squarely hit the mark the other day, when, in answering a Kansas member who had shown a conspicuous anxiety concerning Mr. Cannon's morals, he remarked: "Why, if Solomon, with his wisdom and his plural wives, were to come here elected to a seat, the gentleman from Kansas would cry out about a scarlet-robed woman; and had that gentleman been present when it was said, 'Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone,' the gentleman would doubtless have reached for a bowlder of the glacial period and mashed the poor woman flat."
The "Index" delights to say fine things about the Nihilists in Russia, but regards as vagarists and and fanatics that class of radicals in America with whose principles and objects the Nihilists are most in sympathy. We suspect that the "Index" knows so little of those principles and objects that it is unable to identify their supporters. The extreme tyranny practiced by the czar has made it fashionable in "cultured" circles to sympathize with a movement which these circles know only as a protect against it, and the "Index" floats with the current thus created. Once let it be recognized that Nihilism is a phase of the great labor battle now spreading over the world, and it will be frowned upon by the "Index" with the same severity that that journal now bestows upon all the other phases.
Representative Crapo has raised his bid for the Massachusetts governorship. Not satisfied with asking, as chronicled in our last issue, a twenty years' extension of the national banks' privilege to steal, he now proposes to move (so the Washington dispatches say) to strengthen their privilege by allowing them to issue currency to the amount of ninety per cent. of their bonds. Mr. Crapo is proving true to the trust which capital has placed in him. It will exhibit fresh proof of its well-known ingratitude if, in answer to his prayer for political advancement, it does not say to him: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
There seems to be no limit to the petty outrages to which that most contemptible of creatures, Anthony Comstock, is willing and able to resort for the gratification of his spite and the annoyance of his enemies. For years he has been trying to injure in all possible ways Dr. E. B. Foote and his son, of New York, publishers of the "Health Monthly" and two of the most upright of men, and we supposed that he had exhausted his resources in that direction. But no! Only a few weeks ago he induced the post-office department to deny mail facilities to a regular and respectable weekly newspaper. "House and Home," simply for printing an advertisement of Dr. Foote's "Hand-Book of Health Hints and Ready Recipes," a perfectly clean and valuable work. Dr. Foote at once procured counsel, who soon convinced the postal authorities that they had gone too far, and consequently the order was rescinded, but not before the entire edition of "House and Home" had been held back one week, to the great annoyance of the subscribers and damage of the publishers. And so great is the terror inspired, even in the most powerful quarters, by the acts of this Comstock, that Dr. Foote was actually unable, pending the decision, to get a simple recital of the facts into the columns of the New York dailies as a paid advertisement. But, after all, is there anything to wonder at in this? Comstock is a true child of the State, of which nearly everybody is mortally afraid. The State is, by necessity, a breeder of sneaks and spies. It cannot live without them. Therefore all liberals who oppose the work of Comstock from any other platform than that of the abolition of the State are wasting good ammunition. By some fortunate chance they may succeed in displacing the man himself, but Comstockism will live after him, and will fall only with the State, its creator and sustainer.
The following deserved rebuke, administered by the Boston "Globe," indicated a desire for fair play in that journal which is not shared to the extent that it should be by any large portion of the daily press: "It was charged recently by the Chicago 'Herald' that Justus Schwab was expelled from the Socialistic-Labor party for appropriating party funds. Schwab at once addressed a note to the editor, denying the charge and saying that he and his friends were expelled for 'disregarding the dictates of the would-be authorities of the party.' In this note Schwab, who is a foreigner, was so unfortunate as to spell the word principle thus: 'prinziple.' The 'Herald' printed the note, but made no answer to it except to ridicule the misspelling at length. The 'Globe' does not champion Mr. Schwab for his theories. For aught it knows, the latter may be the devil's own invention, and the former Beelzbub disguised, but it cherishes a decided conviction that the day when the enemies of the devil cannot answer his arguments except by ridiculing his inability to spell correctly any other than his native tongue will prove a cold day for the saints."
John Bright says the he justifies Irish coercion policy on the same ground that he would justify the suppression of the mutiny by putting the mutineers in irons. But would he always justify such suppression of a mutiny? Suppose Mr. Bright were first mate of a vessel, and for months had witnessed the intermittent flogging and persistent starvation, by order of the captain, of a crew well-disposed when well treated; suppose, further, that this regime having become intolerable, certain sailor were to lift their voices in earnest protest, and advise the others to do no more work until the captain should cease his cruelty; suppose, finally, that the captain were to put these ringleaders in irons, — what would Mr. Bright consider his line of duty, not as first mate, but as a man? Judging by his past, he would resign his office, side with the crew, and advise them to throw overboard, or at least depose, so tyrannical and cruel a captain. But, judging by his present, he would support the captain in his infamy. For that is just what he had done in the case of Ireland. Instead of withdrawing, as he should have done, from Gladstone's cabinet, he has aided and abetted Gladstone and Forster in putting into prison men whose worst offence consists in advising their countrymen to pursue policy of passive resistance towards the tyrants who, for centuries, have kept them in a state of semi-barbarism. Mr. Bright's parallel is an unhappy one, and tells decidedly against him. He further says that he favors "such a degree of freedom as will give security to freedom, but not such a degree as would destroy it." What nonsense! When will our political philosophers learn that violations of freedom, noyl trace them back far enough, always result from other violations of freedom, and that the more freedom there is, the better, in the long run, it is secured?
Cyrus W. Field, whose fears of communism are said to cause him much loss of sleep, announces, through his new organ, the "Mail and Express," the discovery of forty thousand socialists in the city of New York who are waiting an opportunity to seize his property and upset all the plans of further robbery which he and Jay Gould have concocted. Lets us hope he is right.
The "Banner of Light" has always been an interesting well-conducted paper, but, since its enlargement to twelve pages, which has enabled it to present new and attractive features, it may certainly claim to stand at the head of spiritualistic journalism. It has the advantage of being managed by skilled and experienced journalists, who, moreover, are liberal-minded men, showing little or no trace of the spirit of bigotry that narrows the influence and injures the tone of many of its competitors. Its columns afford from week to week an exhaustive history of the progress of the movement of which it is an organ, as well as intelligent discussion of the same, and are especially valuable to those desirous of investigating the subject. Liberty takes very little interest in the "summer-land," but many of her friends support take a great deal. To all such we recommend the "Banner," which costs but three dollars a year. Address, "Isaac B. Rich, Banner of Light Publishing House, Boston."
Mrs. Lucy Stone and her wing of the woman suffragists have put themselves on record in opposition to the admission to Congress of George Q. Cannon of Utah, on the ground that "he is living in open violation of the laws of United States." If Mr. Cannon were enough of a hypocrite and a sneak to be willing to follow the example of the majority of his fellow-congressmen, who live in a secret violation of the laws which they make, the virtuous Lucy and her martinet of a husband would probably hold up both hands in favor of admitting him. But their attitude in the matter will make no difference either way, for the report that Mormon emissaries have been engaged in investigating the daily (and nightly) habits of our national legislators has put a sudden damper on the enthusiasm of the anti-Mormon movement in Congress. A revelation of the "true inwardness" of congressmen's lives would make "mighty interesting reading," and the salacious are already chuckling at the prospect of its forthcoming. "Sunset" Cox, with his usual wit, squarely hit the mark the other day, when, in answering a Kansas member who had shown a conspicuous anxiety concerning Mr. Cannon's morals, he remarked: "Why, if Solomon, with his wisdom and his plural wives, were to come here elected to a seat, the gentleman from Kansas would cry out about a scarlet-robed woman; and had that gentleman been present when it was said, 'Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone,' the gentleman would doubtless have reached for a bowlder of the glacial period and mashed the poor woman flat."
The "Index" delights to say fine things about the Nihilists in Russia, but regards as vagarists and and fanatics that class of radicals in America with whose principles and objects the Nihilists are most in sympathy. We suspect that the "Index" knows so little of those principles and objects that it is unable to identify their supporters. The extreme tyranny practiced by the czar has made it fashionable in "cultured" circles to sympathize with a movement which these circles know only as a protect against it, and the "Index" floats with the current thus created. Once let it be recognized that Nihilism is a phase of the great labor battle now spreading over the world, and it will be frowned upon by the "Index" with the same severity that that journal now bestows upon all the other phases.
Representative Crapo has raised his bid for the Massachusetts governorship. Not satisfied with asking, as chronicled in our last issue, a twenty years' extension of the national banks' privilege to steal, he now proposes to move (so the Washington dispatches say) to strengthen their privilege by allowing them to issue currency to the amount of ninety per cent. of their bonds. Mr. Crapo is proving true to the trust which capital has placed in him. It will exhibit fresh proof of its well-known ingratitude if, in answer to his prayer for political advancement, it does not say to him: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
There seems to be no limit to the petty outrages to which that most contemptible of creatures, Anthony Comstock, is willing and able to resort for the gratification of his spite and the annoyance of his enemies. For years he has been trying to injure in all possible ways Dr. E. B. Foote and his son, of New York, publishers of the "Health Monthly" and two of the most upright of men, and we supposed that he had exhausted his resources in that direction. But no! Only a few weeks ago he induced the post-office department to deny mail facilities to a regular and respectable weekly newspaper. "House and Home," simply for printing an advertisement of Dr. Foote's "Hand-Book of Health Hints and Ready Recipes," a perfectly clean and valuable work. Dr. Foote at once procured counsel, who soon convinced the postal authorities that they had gone too far, and consequently the order was rescinded, but not before the entire edition of "House and Home" had been held back one week, to the great annoyance of the subscribers and damage of the publishers. And so great is the terror inspired, even in the most powerful quarters, by the acts of this Comstock, that Dr. Foote was actually unable, pending the decision, to get a simple recital of the facts into the columns of the New York dailies as a paid advertisement. But, after all, is there anything to wonder at in this? Comstock is a true child of the State, of which nearly everybody is mortally afraid. The State is, by necessity, a breeder of sneaks and spies. It cannot live without them. Therefore all liberals who oppose the work of Comstock from any other platform than that of the abolition of the State are wasting good ammunition. By some fortunate chance they may succeed in displacing the man himself, but Comstockism will live after him, and will fall only with the State, its creator and sustainer.
The following deserved rebuke, administered by the Boston "Globe," indicated a desire for fair play in that journal which is not shared to the extent that it should be by any large portion of the daily press: "It was charged recently by the Chicago 'Herald' that Justus Schwab was expelled from the Socialistic-Labor party for appropriating party funds. Schwab at once addressed a note to the editor, denying the charge and saying that he and his friends were expelled for 'disregarding the dictates of the would-be authorities of the party.' In this note Schwab, who is a foreigner, was so unfortunate as to spell the word principle thus: 'prinziple.' The 'Herald' printed the note, but made no answer to it except to ridicule the misspelling at length. The 'Globe' does not champion Mr. Schwab for his theories. For aught it knows, the latter may be the devil's own invention, and the former Beelzbub disguised, but it cherishes a decided conviction that the day when the enemies of the devil cannot answer his arguments except by ridiculing his inability to spell correctly any other than his native tongue will prove a cold day for the saints."
John Bright says the he justifies Irish coercion policy on the same ground that he would justify the suppression of the mutiny by putting the mutineers in irons. But would he always justify such suppression of a mutiny? Suppose Mr. Bright were first mate of a vessel, and for months had witnessed the intermittent flogging and persistent starvation, by order of the captain, of a crew well-disposed when well treated; suppose, further, that this regime having become intolerable, certain sailor were to lift their voices in earnest protest, and advise the others to do no more work until the captain should cease his cruelty; suppose, finally, that the captain were to put these ringleaders in irons, — what would Mr. Bright consider his line of duty, not as first mate, but as a man? Judging by his past, he would resign his office, side with the crew, and advise them to throw overboard, or at least depose, so tyrannical and cruel a captain. But, judging by his present, he would support the captain in his infamy. For that is just what he had done in the case of Ireland. Instead of withdrawing, as he should have done, from Gladstone's cabinet, he has aided and abetted Gladstone and Forster in putting into prison men whose worst offence consists in advising their countrymen to pursue policy of passive resistance towards the tyrants who, for centuries, have kept them in a state of semi-barbarism. Mr. Bright's parallel is an unhappy one, and tells decidedly against him. He further says that he favors "such a degree of freedom as will give security to freedom, but not such a degree as would destroy it." What nonsense! When will our political philosophers learn that violations of freedom, noyl trace them back far enough, always result from other violations of freedom, and that the more freedom there is, the better, in the long run, it is secured?
9/18/13
A Word to "Basis."
MY DEAR SIR: — I cannot consider what you say, for you ignore about everything I say.
Your statements are superficial, and, as I see them, false. We must have facts for a basis. You talk of personal economy; I am consider public economy, — quite another thing.
I will give one statement of fact that proves about all you say to be other than correct.
In the State of Indiana, in one year, ending May, 1880, the farmers' mortgage debts increases over *fourteen millions* of dollars.
Please consider this, and you will be forced to give up your primitive notions.
My dear sir, the sun does not go around the earth every twenty-four hours, although all primitive people think it does.
APEX.
Your statements are superficial, and, as I see them, false. We must have facts for a basis. You talk of personal economy; I am consider public economy, — quite another thing.
I will give one statement of fact that proves about all you say to be other than correct.
In the State of Indiana, in one year, ending May, 1880, the farmers' mortgage debts increases over *fourteen millions* of dollars.
Please consider this, and you will be forced to give up your primitive notions.
My dear sir, the sun does not go around the earth every twenty-four hours, although all primitive people think it does.
APEX.
Congratulations from Europe.
Liberty is in receipt of the following hearty letters of congratulation, fro European co-workers, on the action of the Chicago socialistic-revolutionary congress:
FELLOW COMRADE: — The fact that we have just now for the first time received information of the holding of your Congress, which took place in Chicago, is the cause of this delayed communication on our part.
Our comrades in America have given evidence that they are conscious not only of their own unhappy class antagonisms and their causes, — the existing social institutions, — but also of the means and methods for the liberation of the enslaved proletariat.
They have further shown that they are determined to continue as formerly, with energy and zeal, in the only way toward liberation of the laboring classes which is possible to-day, — that of social revolution.
The refusal to participate in elections and the recommendation of armed organizations are clear signs of intelligent advance of our American comrades, to whom we hereby express our warmest sympathy and recognition.
The Congress held in Chicago indicates, moreover,a further mighty step forward in the labor movement in America: and, if our comrades there march bravely on in the direction which they have taken, the day of liberation from the yoke of capital, of social and political slavery, is for the working people no longer distant.
Hail to the Social Revolution!
In behalf of the Communistischen Arbeiter-Bildungs-Verein, 6 Rose Street, Soho Square.
PER ORDER.
LONDON, W., ENGLAND, November 28, 1881.
FELLOW COMRADE: — The fact that we have just now for the first time received information of the holding of your Congress, which took place in Chicago, is the cause of this delayed communication on our part.
Our comrades in America have given evidence that they are conscious not only of their own unhappy class antagonisms and their causes, — the existing social institutions, — but also of the means and methods for the liberation of the enslaved proletariat.
They have further shown that they are determined to continue as formerly, with energy and zeal, in the only way toward liberation of the laboring classes which is possible to-day, — that of social revolution.
The refusal to participate in elections and the recommendation of armed organizations are clear signs of intelligent advance of our American comrades, to whom we hereby express our warmest sympathy and recognition.
The Congress held in Chicago indicates, moreover,a further mighty step forward in the labor movement in America: and, if our comrades there march bravely on in the direction which they have taken, the day of liberation from the yoke of capital, of social and political slavery, is for the working people no longer distant.
Hail to the Social Revolution!
In behalf of the Communistischen Arbeiter-Bildungs-Verein, 6 Rose Street, Soho Square.
PER ORDER.
LONDON, W., ENGLAND, November 28, 1881.
Harvard College.
Colleges and universities where necessities in the middle ages in the absence of the printing press to diffuse ideas broadcast as the sun diffuses light. Now, however, it is not necessary to go to Harvard College in order to become intelligent in any language, art, science, or system of reflective thought. Harvard College is a resort of the sons of wealthy people, — speculators in mining stocks, railroad stocks, oil stocks, iron, wheat, hay, cotton, etc., — of the songs of mill-owners, railroad managers, and manufacturing bosses. The final cause of Harvard college now seems to be boating and athletics. Its students are largely snobs, over-dressed, over-fed, over-wined, over-heered, over-theatred, and in the state of animalism and sensualism which a life of luxury and needless wealth means. A real student, who means business, can acquire a better literature, scientific, and philosophic education in a remote rural abode well stocked with books than he can at Harvard University. a university like Harvard is a case of atrophy, of useless survival. Ideas, thoughts, knowledge now sow the very winds, so that we almost inhale them with the very atmosphere. A college of university now is not only useless, — is, in the case of such centers of gifted youth and snobbish rowdyism as Harvard, positively pernicious. All our American colleges are run in the interest of defunct theologies and orthodoxies. To be a president of professor one must be a conformist to some list of articles or faith, - in other words, must have his brain locked and battened down under hatches, away from the light and air of current though, truth, and knowledge. The only college which New Hampshire has within its limits — vis., Dartmouth — is ran under the supervision of a sort of Calvinistic inquisitor, who hates science and modern thought, to use a vulgar illustration, worse than an elephant hates tobacco. An attempt was recently made to oust him by some New York friends and patrons of the college in the interest of the institution, but piety was victorious. This college, like the railroads of New Hampshire, is supported by the people of other States. Meantime, its theological incubus still broods over it, diffusing such a pungent odor of Calvinism that students are beginning to give it a wide berth. Before closing, let me say that one of the pleasures of European travel for a dweller in these parts is due to the fact that a foreign trip takes him beyond the sight, sound, and smell of Harvard College and the "Atlantic Monthly" with its editorial and contributional clique of literary confectioners and syllabub fictionists, who occasionally pose at the Brunswick Hotel as the Shahs and Grand Moguls of the American mind.
B.
B.
Mr. Babcock Once More.
FRIEND TUCKER: — I am inclined to think that I did not see Mr. Babcock's "first statement;" else I should not have misunderstood him. No matter, — I see the point now.
"Is the plough-lender entitled to pay for the use of the plough?"
Now then, understanding that said pay for the use of the plough means something for the privilege of its use over and above the just cost of the plough, I answer most emphatically, No!
"If not, why not?"
First, the sale of a privilege is the taking of some thing of value for no thing of value.
This truth does not appear at first glance, I grant; nevertheless, it is a truth.
All men may have hats, and all hat yet be valuable; but, if all men have the same privilege, that privilege is not a thing of value. You cannot sell it.
Again, — all honest trade implies an exchange of labor. Therefore, the plough-maker is entitled to full and just compensation for his labor, and nothing more.
The loaning of anything for an increase — increase without labor — is usury. And usury is the great source of avarice. The history, the philosophy, and the arithmetic of usury prove that its first cause is monopoly and its final cause robbery.
Lending money or goods for increase is impossible of perpetuity. The debts of the world can never be paid. The sale of privilege is the highwayman's method of getting a living without work. You may change the form, but the same vile characteristics remain. The plough-maker may sell his plough in one trade or ten, but he shall take no advantage of the farmer's necessity. The advantages of labor-saving tools belong to all men. That there is a profit or advantage in trade, I grant, but it belongs to no one nor to a class.
Under a condition of freedom — that is, a condition where free competition prevails — that profit will be distributed among all classes.
As thing are now, all advantages of trade, and also the advantages of improved machinery, go to the idle class, — the money-lenders, the land-renters, the plough-lenders, etc.
And the result is, as J. S. Mill puts it: more machinery, more profit, less wages; until the lenders have bought all the goods they want. The workers are destitute and cannot buy. So trade stops, the factories stop, and the would-be producers produce no more, — are out of work and compelled to take the streets as tramps. Is the picture correct? Does Mr. Babcock like it?
Yours for honest trade, goods for goods, labor for labor, but not one cent for privilege.
APEX.
"Is the plough-lender entitled to pay for the use of the plough?"
Now then, understanding that said pay for the use of the plough means something for the privilege of its use over and above the just cost of the plough, I answer most emphatically, No!
"If not, why not?"
First, the sale of a privilege is the taking of some thing of value for no thing of value.
This truth does not appear at first glance, I grant; nevertheless, it is a truth.
All men may have hats, and all hat yet be valuable; but, if all men have the same privilege, that privilege is not a thing of value. You cannot sell it.
Again, — all honest trade implies an exchange of labor. Therefore, the plough-maker is entitled to full and just compensation for his labor, and nothing more.
The loaning of anything for an increase — increase without labor — is usury. And usury is the great source of avarice. The history, the philosophy, and the arithmetic of usury prove that its first cause is monopoly and its final cause robbery.
Lending money or goods for increase is impossible of perpetuity. The debts of the world can never be paid. The sale of privilege is the highwayman's method of getting a living without work. You may change the form, but the same vile characteristics remain. The plough-maker may sell his plough in one trade or ten, but he shall take no advantage of the farmer's necessity. The advantages of labor-saving tools belong to all men. That there is a profit or advantage in trade, I grant, but it belongs to no one nor to a class.
Under a condition of freedom — that is, a condition where free competition prevails — that profit will be distributed among all classes.
As thing are now, all advantages of trade, and also the advantages of improved machinery, go to the idle class, — the money-lenders, the land-renters, the plough-lenders, etc.
And the result is, as J. S. Mill puts it: more machinery, more profit, less wages; until the lenders have bought all the goods they want. The workers are destitute and cannot buy. So trade stops, the factories stop, and the would-be producers produce no more, — are out of work and compelled to take the streets as tramps. Is the picture correct? Does Mr. Babcock like it?
Yours for honest trade, goods for goods, labor for labor, but not one cent for privilege.
APEX.
The Evolution of Liberty.
For centuries there has been a ceaseless struggle for freedom. In the strife for individual sovereignty against subservience to aristocracy, kings, and nations the proudest empires of time have been rocked to their foundations and the scepters of demised monarchs shaken from their grasp and trampled in the dust at their feet.
From the ancient idea of freedom, when the interest of the State was supreme and that of the individual secondary, has grown, or unfolded, an enlarged conception of Liberty, which has energized its champions to acts of exalted heroism and sublime self-endurance, immortalizing a long catalog of heroes who have lived, suffered, and died for Liberty.
Look to-day in whichever direction you will, there is strife, ambition, aspiration, struggle, discontent, and disorder. The soul cries out from it's enslavement of past ages for broader, higher, greater Liberty, for complete moral, physical, and political freedom, not only in its aspirations, but in its limitless capabilities of thought and power. In every direction the force which is to break down the barriers of the past is gathering.
The impending change is not superficial, but affects the very foundations of social and political systems. The German government sees the danger of cheap grain to its landed interests, - the effect of American prosperity. England's ten thousand landlords think more of theft and opulence than they do of the property, independence, and happiness of five million Irishmen. Russia rejoices in exercising brute force against intelligence and skill. Lamartine has said: "It is the destiny of every government which outrages humanity to fall." Watch, and await the issue! Which will win?
The growth of individual Liberty is encroaching on the domain of law. Law-books filled with new laws by the thousand may be made and multiplied by the million, and so may courts of justice (?), but the doom of both is sealed.
In the evolution of Liberty man's old, barbaric, inefficient laws are driven back as effectually as steam drivers out hand-power. The principle which will prevail in the determination of law in the future will be the Preponderance of Right. Justice will be Justice, the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right. Precedent will lose its grip, and Reason be enthroned. Wealth which enthralls and powers which debases will give place to wealth which ennobles and power which subdues. Decisions will not then be made in conformity to a law which declares its authority to be above and independent of the people, but with the thought in mind that law is but an agent, a servant, and that the good of the people is first.
Mighty agencies are at work all about us. Chaos, disorder, call it what you will, — it means but one thing, Revolution! And then comes Liberty! the talismanic word is echoed from shore to shore throughout the world. For all ages the impress of freedom has been irrevocably stamped upon humanity from its birth. It is the star of hope which guides us onward and upward, never forsaking us while life lasts. It is the uncharted prerogative of humanhood. Deprived of freedom, man is not man. A soul fails to be a soul in proportion as it is lacking in intelligence and freedom. Liberty! the one great universal idea of every soul!
Easier were it
To hurl the rooted mountain from its base
Than force the yoke of slavery upon men
Determined to be free.
Above the din of conflict and the tread of war-horses of despotism is borne in clarion notes the cry for freedom. From the distant snow-clad hills of Russia we hear its echoes, coming as a wall of anguish from the chained gangs of Russian serfs toiling in Siberian mines. From the bogs of Ireland, from the homeless peasants of Italy, from the starving and suffering everywhere the same appeal goes up. All nature takes up the refrain, giving ever-swelling voice to the people's cry for Liberty.
E.L.-D. Louie.
From the ancient idea of freedom, when the interest of the State was supreme and that of the individual secondary, has grown, or unfolded, an enlarged conception of Liberty, which has energized its champions to acts of exalted heroism and sublime self-endurance, immortalizing a long catalog of heroes who have lived, suffered, and died for Liberty.
Look to-day in whichever direction you will, there is strife, ambition, aspiration, struggle, discontent, and disorder. The soul cries out from it's enslavement of past ages for broader, higher, greater Liberty, for complete moral, physical, and political freedom, not only in its aspirations, but in its limitless capabilities of thought and power. In every direction the force which is to break down the barriers of the past is gathering.
The impending change is not superficial, but affects the very foundations of social and political systems. The German government sees the danger of cheap grain to its landed interests, - the effect of American prosperity. England's ten thousand landlords think more of theft and opulence than they do of the property, independence, and happiness of five million Irishmen. Russia rejoices in exercising brute force against intelligence and skill. Lamartine has said: "It is the destiny of every government which outrages humanity to fall." Watch, and await the issue! Which will win?
The growth of individual Liberty is encroaching on the domain of law. Law-books filled with new laws by the thousand may be made and multiplied by the million, and so may courts of justice (?), but the doom of both is sealed.
In the evolution of Liberty man's old, barbaric, inefficient laws are driven back as effectually as steam drivers out hand-power. The principle which will prevail in the determination of law in the future will be the Preponderance of Right. Justice will be Justice, the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right. Precedent will lose its grip, and Reason be enthroned. Wealth which enthralls and powers which debases will give place to wealth which ennobles and power which subdues. Decisions will not then be made in conformity to a law which declares its authority to be above and independent of the people, but with the thought in mind that law is but an agent, a servant, and that the good of the people is first.
Mighty agencies are at work all about us. Chaos, disorder, call it what you will, — it means but one thing, Revolution! And then comes Liberty! the talismanic word is echoed from shore to shore throughout the world. For all ages the impress of freedom has been irrevocably stamped upon humanity from its birth. It is the star of hope which guides us onward and upward, never forsaking us while life lasts. It is the uncharted prerogative of humanhood. Deprived of freedom, man is not man. A soul fails to be a soul in proportion as it is lacking in intelligence and freedom. Liberty! the one great universal idea of every soul!
Easier were it
To hurl the rooted mountain from its base
Than force the yoke of slavery upon men
Determined to be free.
Above the din of conflict and the tread of war-horses of despotism is borne in clarion notes the cry for freedom. From the distant snow-clad hills of Russia we hear its echoes, coming as a wall of anguish from the chained gangs of Russian serfs toiling in Siberian mines. From the bogs of Ireland, from the homeless peasants of Italy, from the starving and suffering everywhere the same appeal goes up. All nature takes up the refrain, giving ever-swelling voice to the people's cry for Liberty.
E.L.-D. Louie.
Editorials
Mr. W. G. H. Smart desires to make a correction. Referring to his last issue, he writes: "After 'Do you not see my meaning?' I should have said, and meant to say, 'That,' besides its natural inherent productivity, 'the productive property or potentially possessed by any material substances,' &c., 'is invested in it precisely as it is invested in a man's brain, and is of precisely the same kind. It is capital,' &c." Mr. Smart gently chides us for not noticing and repairing his omission of the first of the foregoing italicized phrases; from which it appears that he expects us, who confess the we cannot understand even what he does say, to understand also all that he does not say. His correction disposes of but one of several errors which we pointed out and which still stand as such. His present communication we have not space to print in full, but, lest he may attribute our failure to do so to a disinclination to see his withering words in print, we give the following precious bit: "I might take exception to the closing part of your letter on the ground of some degree of discourtesy, but perhaps dogmatism and — may I say conceit — are among the sacred prerogatives of Liberty. At all events I forbear. I can well afford to be pronounced ignorant on the same place of paper and by the same man that calls Herbert Spencer a fool." We forbear, too, except to add that we have never called Herbert Spencer a fool. Our words were that on one occasion he "made a complete fool of himself." There is an important distinction between a man who is, or is made a fool, and one who temporarily makes a fool of himself. This distinction Mr. Smart forcibly illustrates in his own person. He is no fool, but he frequently makes a fool of himself; for instance, when he tried to show the other day in the Boston "Herald" that Bismark is a socialist bent on accomplishing the ends of socialism. Comparatively few persons are fools, but nearly all sometimes make fools of themselves. The editor of Liberty has not "conceit" enough to claim exemption from this rule.
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Another priest has lifted his voice against the Land League, Bishop McQuaid of Rochester, who virtually prohibits Catholics under his care from connection with that organization. The advice of Bishop McQuaid, like that of any other man, should be carefully weighed, and taken at its intrinsic value; but, when this would-be mental slave-driver gives his advice in the tone of command, he should be met with contemptuous defiance. If Ireland would cast off the chains that bind her industrially and politically, the first insurrection of her people must be against the spiritual bondage of the Roman Catholic church, — an insurrection which many begin, as well as anywhere, with the throttling of the tyrannical overseer who rules the Rochester plantation with the double-thonged lash of excommunication in this world and damnation in the next.
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The interpreters of Mr. Frothingham are becoming bewilderingly numerous. The latest addition to the list is M. J. Savage, who claims to speak under Mr. Frothingham's sanction; but, his interpretation of the latter's views widely differing from the original "Evening Post" interview, which Mr. Frothingham has pronounced substantially correct, those interested are getting pretty well mixed and Mr. Frothingham pretty well advertised. Indeed, the cynical might fairly be pardoned a suspicion that the whole affair is but a shrewd scheme to increase the sales of the forthcoming "Life of George Ripley." Mr. Frothingham, presumably, is incapable of entertaining such a design, but he could not have carried it out more successfully had he deliberately set about it.
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There is no better definition of anarchy than Proudhon's: "The dissolution of government in the economic organism."
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Another priest has lifted his voice against the Land League, Bishop McQuaid of Rochester, who virtually prohibits Catholics under his care from connection with that organization. The advice of Bishop McQuaid, like that of any other man, should be carefully weighed, and taken at its intrinsic value; but, when this would-be mental slave-driver gives his advice in the tone of command, he should be met with contemptuous defiance. If Ireland would cast off the chains that bind her industrially and politically, the first insurrection of her people must be against the spiritual bondage of the Roman Catholic church, — an insurrection which many begin, as well as anywhere, with the throttling of the tyrannical overseer who rules the Rochester plantation with the double-thonged lash of excommunication in this world and damnation in the next.
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The interpreters of Mr. Frothingham are becoming bewilderingly numerous. The latest addition to the list is M. J. Savage, who claims to speak under Mr. Frothingham's sanction; but, his interpretation of the latter's views widely differing from the original "Evening Post" interview, which Mr. Frothingham has pronounced substantially correct, those interested are getting pretty well mixed and Mr. Frothingham pretty well advertised. Indeed, the cynical might fairly be pardoned a suspicion that the whole affair is but a shrewd scheme to increase the sales of the forthcoming "Life of George Ripley." Mr. Frothingham, presumably, is incapable of entertaining such a design, but he could not have carried it out more successfully had he deliberately set about it.
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There is no better definition of anarchy than Proudhon's: "The dissolution of government in the economic organism."
Guiteau's Wit.
Guiteau is proving himself so bright and sharp, that his enemies
infer that he is not insane now, and probably was not on the second of
July. They appear to have forgotten that,
And the same has been true of so many persons, of high nervous temperaments, and brilliant intellects, that if they had committed any clearly irrational or heinous acts, it would have been set down to insanity as a matter of course. And the more heinous, or irrational, the act, the stronger would have been considered the proof that it was committed under an insane impulse or delusion.
It is contrary to nature that sane men, of brilliant minds, should do grossly absurd and irrational acts. The more proof, therefore, that is brought now, to show that Guiteau was ever a sane and rational man, the more proof we have that, when he did a thoroughly irrational act, he was not in possession of his ordinary reason.
If an insane act--an act for which no rational motive can be discovered — be not, of itself, the best proof of insanity, what better proof can we have?
Guiteau is proving, every day, and every hour — apparently to the satisfaction of every body — that he has a very high nervous temperament, and a badly balanced, or rather unbalanced, mind; and that, if he is not absolutely insane, he is on the very verge of insanity; that he is in that condition where any great and unusual excitement would, for the time, upset him. When, therefore, he had done an utterly irrational act, the only rational interpretation of it is that he was insane.
- Great wit to madness near is allied
- And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
And the same has been true of so many persons, of high nervous temperaments, and brilliant intellects, that if they had committed any clearly irrational or heinous acts, it would have been set down to insanity as a matter of course. And the more heinous, or irrational, the act, the stronger would have been considered the proof that it was committed under an insane impulse or delusion.
It is contrary to nature that sane men, of brilliant minds, should do grossly absurd and irrational acts. The more proof, therefore, that is brought now, to show that Guiteau was ever a sane and rational man, the more proof we have that, when he did a thoroughly irrational act, he was not in possession of his ordinary reason.
If an insane act--an act for which no rational motive can be discovered — be not, of itself, the best proof of insanity, what better proof can we have?
Guiteau is proving, every day, and every hour — apparently to the satisfaction of every body — that he has a very high nervous temperament, and a badly balanced, or rather unbalanced, mind; and that, if he is not absolutely insane, he is on the very verge of insanity; that he is in that condition where any great and unusual excitement would, for the time, upset him. When, therefore, he had done an utterly irrational act, the only rational interpretation of it is that he was insane.
Organization at Chicago.
The late Irish National Convention at Chicago was an assemblage of something like one thousand delegates, who had come together to transact a little plain business. All that was accomplished could have been accomplished in less than two hours on business principles. But the convention lasted three days, and two days out of the three were consumed in effecting what is called "permanent organization," — that is, in appointing a committee on credentials, a committee on rule of order, and a committee on permanent organization. We propose to indulge in a little plain talk on what this "permanent organization" business meant, which may possibly open the eyes of the Irishmen as to what the whole swindle known as organization is intended to effect.
In the first place, a large number of credentials were bogus. The New York delegation — the largest present — was chiefly recruited from the war clubs of New York city, and its members were sent to serve the vile purpose of Tammany Hall. the boon allies of John Kelly's gang were a clique of Chicago politicians, who also cooked up a good supply of bogus credentials. Now, in order to cover up this fraud, it was necessary to so "fix" the committee on credentials as to make the job a success. And it was a sucess, even to the extent of "firing out" almost the only honest organization in Chicago, the "Spread the Light Club," consisting of active workingmen whose only crime was that they could not be bought up and bullied by the Chicago political ring.
The committee on rules of order also wasted a whole day, but the Reverend chairmen knew the main rule of order well, without the assistance of the committee. It was simply to recognize the political bosses, and to feed the machine as had been previously arranged by the leading rogues who were so scrupulous about organization. A most unblushing outrage was committed in the face of these rules of order, - that of ignoring point blank such as had decency enough to protest against the exclusion of the "Spread the Light" men.
To sum up the whole swindle, the purpose of organization at the Chicago convention was in keeping with its purpose almost everywhere. It was to cheat the bulk of honest men who had come there out of fulfilling the very purpose for which they had come. So near did John Kelly's gang come to gobbling up the whole Land League business and making it the property of Tammany Hall that the escape was only due to an accidental and unanticipated alliance of the Ford and Collins parties, aided by the co-operation of the priests.
The organization craze is the chief enemy of progress. It is made the instrument of a conspiracy of the few against the many. The State is simply an organization on a large scale. The professional politician is always great on organization. Organization debauched the Chicago convention, and it will debauch Irish liberty if the Irishmen do not sometime learn that political anarchy is the only road to any national independence that is worth recognizing or laboring for.
In the first place, a large number of credentials were bogus. The New York delegation — the largest present — was chiefly recruited from the war clubs of New York city, and its members were sent to serve the vile purpose of Tammany Hall. the boon allies of John Kelly's gang were a clique of Chicago politicians, who also cooked up a good supply of bogus credentials. Now, in order to cover up this fraud, it was necessary to so "fix" the committee on credentials as to make the job a success. And it was a sucess, even to the extent of "firing out" almost the only honest organization in Chicago, the "Spread the Light Club," consisting of active workingmen whose only crime was that they could not be bought up and bullied by the Chicago political ring.
The committee on rules of order also wasted a whole day, but the Reverend chairmen knew the main rule of order well, without the assistance of the committee. It was simply to recognize the political bosses, and to feed the machine as had been previously arranged by the leading rogues who were so scrupulous about organization. A most unblushing outrage was committed in the face of these rules of order, - that of ignoring point blank such as had decency enough to protest against the exclusion of the "Spread the Light" men.
To sum up the whole swindle, the purpose of organization at the Chicago convention was in keeping with its purpose almost everywhere. It was to cheat the bulk of honest men who had come there out of fulfilling the very purpose for which they had come. So near did John Kelly's gang come to gobbling up the whole Land League business and making it the property of Tammany Hall that the escape was only due to an accidental and unanticipated alliance of the Ford and Collins parties, aided by the co-operation of the priests.
The organization craze is the chief enemy of progress. It is made the instrument of a conspiracy of the few against the many. The State is simply an organization on a large scale. The professional politician is always great on organization. Organization debauched the Chicago convention, and it will debauch Irish liberty if the Irishmen do not sometime learn that political anarchy is the only road to any national independence that is worth recognizing or laboring for.
Guiteau's "Devilish Depravity."
Some of those sainted spirits, those God-anointed souls, who edit our political papers, and who evidently came down from a higher sphere, to shed the light of their holiness, for a brief period, upon this dark and wicked world; and who know, by their spiritual intuitions, that there is nothing, this side of heaven, so sacred in itself, or so important to mankind, as the government of the United States, have apparently exhausted their illuminating powers, in the effort to make us see and realize the indescribable wickedness of killing a president. To their minds, there has not been, on this planet, another crime so atrocious, or at least eighteen hundred years. The horror, which men anciently felt at the killing of a king, a God-anointed king, was hardly exceeded, or even equaled, by that which these angelic spirits feel at the killing of a president. To describe the act by the simple name of murder, as in the case of common mortals, conveys no idea of its intense wickedness. To speak of it simply as the act of an insane man, exasperates them to fury. It seems to make maniacs of them. That anybody has a right to be so insane as to kill a president, is what they cannot comprehend, and will not listen to. Their ethereal natures seem to realize that if, after they have come down from heaven to earth, to assist and guide in the election of a president, and have succeeded in converting a piece of common clay into a sort of earthly god, and given him power to reward the righteous, who voted for him, and punish the wicked, who voted against him, he can be killed like any common mortal, all their labor in electing him is lost, their plans for governing the world frustrated, their sacred system of rewards and punishment unceremoniously demolished, their own vocation on earth at an end, and they themselves necessitated to return, in disappointment and disgust, to that higher sphere, from which they ought never to have descended.
It does not assuage, but only aggravate, their sorrow, to assure them that presidents are not only mortal, but vulnerable; that nature made them so, and there is no help for it; that the system of rewards and punishments, which they are appointed to administer, is likely to make enemies of friends; that kings - the immediate predecessors of the presidents, and whose duties and powers, with little qualification, have been devolved upon the presidents - have, as a rule, been a very bad set - the robbers, oppressors, and destroyers of mankind; that the presidents have not yet proved, beyond controversy, that they are very much better than the kings; or that they hold their power by a tenure less bloody than did the kings; or that, whether good or bad, they are necessity to the well-being of the world. It serves no purpose to assure them that presidents are neither the fathers nor mothers of the people whom they attempt to govern; that, whether this one, or that one, lives or dies, the sun will still rise and set; that summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, will succeed each other as before; and that we shall, no doubt, have very much left to enjoy, and, if pious, to be thankful for.
All such philosophy as this is wasted upon these consolable editors; and, in fact, upon all others who had expected offices or rewards at the hands of the late president.
One would think that, like reasonable beings, finding that neither their sorrow, nor their anger, could avail to bring back their idol, they would be content, like the ancients, to simply deify him, or demi-deify him; to place him in their political pantheon, and tell their posterity what he was, and what he did.
One might even think that the experience of the last twenty years, and even the last ninety years, with all the blood, and poverty, and misery, with which they have been filled, might lead these serene and philosophic souls to enquire whether our system of governing men by editors , congresses, and presidents, does not cause ten thousand times as much bloodshed and misery as it prevents; and whether something better cannot be devised.
And, finally, one might imagine these angelic spirits, would try to be at least reasonable and just, if they could not be merciful, to the one who took the late president's life; that they would not call so frantically for vengeance, until it was proved that he was a fit subject for it.
But of all this moderation and reason, they seem to be incapable. In the cases of the ordinary homicides, of which they inform their readers, they do not indulge in any violent demonstration of surprise, grief, or anger. They evidently consider them merely common human occurrences, such as are to be expected of weak, or wicked human nature. And they wait very patiently and coolly until courts and juries shall have given their verdicts as to the moral responsibility of the actors.
But, for Guiteau, they have none of this mercy or justice. They have apparently exhausted their vocabularies in the vain attempt to describe the moral nature of the man, who could kill a president. To call him a madman, fanatic, a man mentally diseased, or congenitally malformed, does not satisfy, or even soften their rage. They are not content with describing him by such terms as wretch, monster, assassin; for they see that neither wretch, monster, nor assassin fitly describes a man, who, in open day, before a hundred people, kills another, towards whom he had no personal ill will, and form whose death he could reasonable expect to derive no benefit from whatever.
Puzzled to account for an act, for which they can assign no rational motive, they seem at last to have hit upon a term that describes their general sentiments, by attributing Guiteau's act to his "devilish depravity."
We confess that we may not fully understand the legal meaning of this term. It is associated, in our minds, with certain theological ideas, that are now somewhat stale, if not entirely obsolete. It seems to imply that there is, somewhere in the universe, such a being as a devil, and that he has power to deprave weak human beings, who, but for him, might have been quite innocent, and worthy persons.
If this solution of the mystery is to be accepted as the true one - that is, if there really be a devil, and if he has succeeded in "depraving" Guiteau to the extent supposed - it is evident that Guiteau is one of the most unfortunate and pitiable of the human race; and that all this rage against him is misdirected. We believe that the most dreadful of all theologians, who have believed in a devil, ad in his power to "deprave" mortals, have had some pity on those, upon whom he has laid his spell. We believe that, at least, Edwards and Hopkins, and perhaps John Calvin himself, would have been gratified to know that a man, depraved by the power of the devil, would not be held to the sol responsibility of his acts. But our divinely appointed political editors seems to have less mercy for sins committed, under the instigation of the devil, against a successful political, than Edwards, or Hopkins, or Calvin had for sings committed, under similar instigation, against God.
We would mercifully advise these heaven-sent editors, before they return to their celestial abodes, to recall their senses, if they have any, and listen to reason; to reflect that even though their special mission on earth may have proved a failure, the world may, perhaps, get on without them; that if presidents should occasionally be killed by lunatics or others, we have plenty of material of which to make more; that even the government of the United States may continue to stand for quite as much as it is worth and quite as long as it ought to, in spite of all the Guiteaus by whom it may be assailed. A government that is afraid of Guiteau, is not long for this world.
And, finally, let us whisper, in the ears of these editors, that they themselves, and such as they, are doing more to destroy this government and to prove that it ought to be destroyed, than all the Guiteaus they will ever see.
But this is no new occupation with them. Ever since they came on the earth, they have been trying to prove that the government of the United States ought to be destroyed; and, with the aid of presidents, congress, etc., they will doubtless succeed, unless they can be induced to go back to the skies.
It does not assuage, but only aggravate, their sorrow, to assure them that presidents are not only mortal, but vulnerable; that nature made them so, and there is no help for it; that the system of rewards and punishments, which they are appointed to administer, is likely to make enemies of friends; that kings - the immediate predecessors of the presidents, and whose duties and powers, with little qualification, have been devolved upon the presidents - have, as a rule, been a very bad set - the robbers, oppressors, and destroyers of mankind; that the presidents have not yet proved, beyond controversy, that they are very much better than the kings; or that they hold their power by a tenure less bloody than did the kings; or that, whether good or bad, they are necessity to the well-being of the world. It serves no purpose to assure them that presidents are neither the fathers nor mothers of the people whom they attempt to govern; that, whether this one, or that one, lives or dies, the sun will still rise and set; that summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, will succeed each other as before; and that we shall, no doubt, have very much left to enjoy, and, if pious, to be thankful for.
All such philosophy as this is wasted upon these consolable editors; and, in fact, upon all others who had expected offices or rewards at the hands of the late president.
One would think that, like reasonable beings, finding that neither their sorrow, nor their anger, could avail to bring back their idol, they would be content, like the ancients, to simply deify him, or demi-deify him; to place him in their political pantheon, and tell their posterity what he was, and what he did.
One might even think that the experience of the last twenty years, and even the last ninety years, with all the blood, and poverty, and misery, with which they have been filled, might lead these serene and philosophic souls to enquire whether our system of governing men by editors , congresses, and presidents, does not cause ten thousand times as much bloodshed and misery as it prevents; and whether something better cannot be devised.
And, finally, one might imagine these angelic spirits, would try to be at least reasonable and just, if they could not be merciful, to the one who took the late president's life; that they would not call so frantically for vengeance, until it was proved that he was a fit subject for it.
But of all this moderation and reason, they seem to be incapable. In the cases of the ordinary homicides, of which they inform their readers, they do not indulge in any violent demonstration of surprise, grief, or anger. They evidently consider them merely common human occurrences, such as are to be expected of weak, or wicked human nature. And they wait very patiently and coolly until courts and juries shall have given their verdicts as to the moral responsibility of the actors.
But, for Guiteau, they have none of this mercy or justice. They have apparently exhausted their vocabularies in the vain attempt to describe the moral nature of the man, who could kill a president. To call him a madman, fanatic, a man mentally diseased, or congenitally malformed, does not satisfy, or even soften their rage. They are not content with describing him by such terms as wretch, monster, assassin; for they see that neither wretch, monster, nor assassin fitly describes a man, who, in open day, before a hundred people, kills another, towards whom he had no personal ill will, and form whose death he could reasonable expect to derive no benefit from whatever.
Puzzled to account for an act, for which they can assign no rational motive, they seem at last to have hit upon a term that describes their general sentiments, by attributing Guiteau's act to his "devilish depravity."
We confess that we may not fully understand the legal meaning of this term. It is associated, in our minds, with certain theological ideas, that are now somewhat stale, if not entirely obsolete. It seems to imply that there is, somewhere in the universe, such a being as a devil, and that he has power to deprave weak human beings, who, but for him, might have been quite innocent, and worthy persons.
If this solution of the mystery is to be accepted as the true one - that is, if there really be a devil, and if he has succeeded in "depraving" Guiteau to the extent supposed - it is evident that Guiteau is one of the most unfortunate and pitiable of the human race; and that all this rage against him is misdirected. We believe that the most dreadful of all theologians, who have believed in a devil, ad in his power to "deprave" mortals, have had some pity on those, upon whom he has laid his spell. We believe that, at least, Edwards and Hopkins, and perhaps John Calvin himself, would have been gratified to know that a man, depraved by the power of the devil, would not be held to the sol responsibility of his acts. But our divinely appointed political editors seems to have less mercy for sins committed, under the instigation of the devil, against a successful political, than Edwards, or Hopkins, or Calvin had for sings committed, under similar instigation, against God.
We would mercifully advise these heaven-sent editors, before they return to their celestial abodes, to recall their senses, if they have any, and listen to reason; to reflect that even though their special mission on earth may have proved a failure, the world may, perhaps, get on without them; that if presidents should occasionally be killed by lunatics or others, we have plenty of material of which to make more; that even the government of the United States may continue to stand for quite as much as it is worth and quite as long as it ought to, in spite of all the Guiteaus by whom it may be assailed. A government that is afraid of Guiteau, is not long for this world.
And, finally, let us whisper, in the ears of these editors, that they themselves, and such as they, are doing more to destroy this government and to prove that it ought to be destroyed, than all the Guiteaus they will ever see.
But this is no new occupation with them. Ever since they came on the earth, they have been trying to prove that the government of the United States ought to be destroyed; and, with the aid of presidents, congress, etc., they will doubtless succeed, unless they can be induced to go back to the skies.
About Progressive People.
The wife of Karl Marx, after a long and severe illness, died about three weeks ago.
Prince Kropotkine has arrived in London, where he will remain through the winter and possibly longer.
Mr. Parnell is to receive an elder-down quilt in white satin that has been manufactured in Cork to the order of a London lady. The monogram of Mr. Parnell is worked in the center in gold lace.
Mrs. Annie Basent announces the publication of "God's Views on Marriage as Revealed in the Old Testament," specially intended for the enlightenment of the Bishop of Manchester, who has condemned her previous work on the subject.
Proudhon, who sprang from a family of peasants, has many relatives among the agricultural population of the French village of Chasuans. One of his cousins there, a girl of fourteen, was recently burned to death in a building that caught fire while she was asleep therein.
Capt. Trelawny has a rooted dislike of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and left directions in his will that his body should be burned. Accordingly it was taken to Gotha, and, after it has been cremated there, the ashes were inclosed in an urn and sent to Rome, where they were placed beside those of Keats and Shelley.
Carlo Cafiero, the Italian revolutionary lately arrested and imprisoned by the Swiss police on suspicion of being concerned in a plot of assassination of King Humbert, has been released in the absence if proof. Fears are entertained, however, lest the mercenary cowards and tyrants composing the Federal Council of Switzerland may expel him from Swiss territory as they did Kropotkine.
It will be remembered that the French government not long since menaced with expulsion Mlle. Paule Minck, a Polish lady resident of France and active in the revolutionary movement, and that she declared her intention, in reply, to marry a Frenchmen in order to baffle the government's design. She has lately put her project into execution by becoming the wife of M. Negro, a machinist in Lyons.
In one of the last letters George Elliot ever wrote occur these sentences: "I am very happy. We [Mr. Cross and herself] are sitting on a balcony overlooking the river. The scene is striking and impressive. Dark clouds are rising as if for a storm, yet everything is peaceful in the calm twilight. We are very happy. All that we long for is the impossible. We wish that George Lowes was with us." To appreciate the significance of these words it is necessary to recall that George Lowes was the novelist's dead lover and Mr. Cross her living husband.
John Ruskin has changed his plans with respect to the museum he has founded at Sheffield, and it is his intention to devote the remainder of his life to making it about the most complete institution of the kind in the world. He has decided to send there his unique and almost priceless library from Brentwood, and a portion of the books and plates have already arrived. Plans for the extension of the buildings have been prepared, and a publish subscription, which the Duke of Albany has promised to head, will shortly be opened to defray the coat of the enlargement. In the museum will be hung the large painting of St. Mark's, Venice, for which Mr. Ruskin agreed to pay the artist, John Binney, $2,000. The bust of Mr. Ruskin, subscribed for by his friends in the University of Oxford and to be placed in the Ruskin School of Art connected with that institution, was formally presented to the University on a recent Saturday afternoon, which occasion gave Dr. Aciaed an opportunity to say that, inasmuch as Mr. Ruskin had founded a school as Oxford, "henceforth the pure love of mature, the technical interpretation of it, and their relation to mind and to religion would be taught to all coming generations through the wide foundations he has laid.
Prince Kropotkine has arrived in London, where he will remain through the winter and possibly longer.
Mr. Parnell is to receive an elder-down quilt in white satin that has been manufactured in Cork to the order of a London lady. The monogram of Mr. Parnell is worked in the center in gold lace.
Mrs. Annie Basent announces the publication of "God's Views on Marriage as Revealed in the Old Testament," specially intended for the enlightenment of the Bishop of Manchester, who has condemned her previous work on the subject.
Proudhon, who sprang from a family of peasants, has many relatives among the agricultural population of the French village of Chasuans. One of his cousins there, a girl of fourteen, was recently burned to death in a building that caught fire while she was asleep therein.
Capt. Trelawny has a rooted dislike of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and left directions in his will that his body should be burned. Accordingly it was taken to Gotha, and, after it has been cremated there, the ashes were inclosed in an urn and sent to Rome, where they were placed beside those of Keats and Shelley.
Carlo Cafiero, the Italian revolutionary lately arrested and imprisoned by the Swiss police on suspicion of being concerned in a plot of assassination of King Humbert, has been released in the absence if proof. Fears are entertained, however, lest the mercenary cowards and tyrants composing the Federal Council of Switzerland may expel him from Swiss territory as they did Kropotkine.
It will be remembered that the French government not long since menaced with expulsion Mlle. Paule Minck, a Polish lady resident of France and active in the revolutionary movement, and that she declared her intention, in reply, to marry a Frenchmen in order to baffle the government's design. She has lately put her project into execution by becoming the wife of M. Negro, a machinist in Lyons.
In one of the last letters George Elliot ever wrote occur these sentences: "I am very happy. We [Mr. Cross and herself] are sitting on a balcony overlooking the river. The scene is striking and impressive. Dark clouds are rising as if for a storm, yet everything is peaceful in the calm twilight. We are very happy. All that we long for is the impossible. We wish that George Lowes was with us." To appreciate the significance of these words it is necessary to recall that George Lowes was the novelist's dead lover and Mr. Cross her living husband.
John Ruskin has changed his plans with respect to the museum he has founded at Sheffield, and it is his intention to devote the remainder of his life to making it about the most complete institution of the kind in the world. He has decided to send there his unique and almost priceless library from Brentwood, and a portion of the books and plates have already arrived. Plans for the extension of the buildings have been prepared, and a publish subscription, which the Duke of Albany has promised to head, will shortly be opened to defray the coat of the enlargement. In the museum will be hung the large painting of St. Mark's, Venice, for which Mr. Ruskin agreed to pay the artist, John Binney, $2,000. The bust of Mr. Ruskin, subscribed for by his friends in the University of Oxford and to be placed in the Ruskin School of Art connected with that institution, was formally presented to the University on a recent Saturday afternoon, which occasion gave Dr. Aciaed an opportunity to say that, inasmuch as Mr. Ruskin had founded a school as Oxford, "henceforth the pure love of mature, the technical interpretation of it, and their relation to mind and to religion would be taught to all coming generations through the wide foundations he has laid.
On Picket Duty.
It is not surprising to hear that Henry George regards Liberty as "cranky." All the defenders of despotism do.
Since European socialists began to circulate their revolutionary literature in hermetically-sealed cans of condensed milk, that heretofore mild and inoffensive commodity has become a greater terror to the "effete monarchies" than dynamics.
"Irish landlordism," says Nasby, "is condensed villainy." So it is. And landlordism of whatever nationality is villainy also, however diluted or rarefied or tempered. The land question is a universal question, and it is confusing to discuss universal questions from national standpoints.
What must the cultured editors who rave about Guiteau think of Walter Savage Landor, more highly cultured than they, who once told N.P. Willis that he had "a purse of five hundred sovereigns always ready to bestow on any one who will rid the earth of a tyrant - even an American president"?
A good illustration of the wantonness with which States spend their subjects money is seen in Queen Victoria's expenditures of $75,000 in sending special missions to Madrid and Dresden to invest the Kings of Spain and Saxony with the Garter. How long do working people intend to pay tribute to an institution which consumes their earnings thus?
The following is the number of socialists expelled from three important towns in Germany: Berlin, 155; Hamburg and environs, 195; Leipzig, 70; total, 420. Most of these have wives, children, and relations dependent upon them for bread. The majority have emigrated to England or America. Four had been previously members of parliament. Their names are Messrs, Fritzeche, Vahlteich, Reimer, and Hasselmann.
Stephen Pearl Andrews, after comparing us to a "drunken man," complains of our discourtesy in calling him God Almighty, - a title, by the way, which we never applied to him. As Dickens's barber says, we must "draw the line somewhere." Mr. Andrews, it would seem, in the matter of opprobrious epithets, draws the line beyond drunkard and this side of God. It is well to be given some idea, in advance, of the stand and of the courtesy to which members of the Pantarchy will be expected to conform.
Liberty, during its brief young life, has received many compliments, from sources high and low, of which it may well be proud; but nothing has pleased us more than the following simple, but significant words from the letter of a lady who has been procuring subscribers in the mines of Pennsylvania. Sending a fresh list of names, she adds: "More miners promise to subscribe, but they have not had steady work this month and are all poor. The paper is a bomb in the mines. Each fortnight for three months I have had the paper read aloud to the men, and it is beginning to tell, as it always will when it and its like reach the people for whom they are written." News like this is of the most cheery sort. When the common people, as our faithful co-worker truly says, begin to appreciate the principles which Liberty stands for, the welcome Social Revolution is at hand. The coming day, all hail!
Force is seldom justifiable as a method of reform, but the impetuous revolutionists who believe in and uses it is much less vitally in error than the wicked hypocrite who pretends to see no distinction between force used in vindication of rights and force used in their violation.
Only one daily paper within our knowledge, the Virginia City "Chronicle," has told the plain truth about the recent Irish convention. These are its words: "The Irish national convention at Chicago did but one thing worthy of notice, or of benefit to Ireland. It subscribed several thousands dollars for the Irish Land League. The resolutions adopted were tame, commonplace, and - not to put to fine a point on it - cowardly. Designedly silent, as the press of the country is, as a whole, on the subject, and timid as was the Chicago convention, the world will soon have to recognize that fact that Ireland is engaged in a struggled to do away with private ownership of the soil."
The mountebank Talmage, preaching against profanity, soberly told his congregation last Sunday of a man who indulged in it while walking on a railroad track. Suddenly a train came along and killed him. The body, when picked up, exhibited neither bruise or scar, death having resulted solely from the cutting out of the man's tongue by the locomotive. How many members of Talmage's church believe this yarn? How many of them believe that Talmage believes it himself? If any, are they not fools? Are not the others hypocrites? On this showing, is not the Tabernacle congregation made up solely of knaves and idiots? Does its moral and intellectual quality differ from those of other Orthodox congregations otherwise than in degree?
It will be remembered that our discussion with Mr. Babcock on the rightfulness of usury led a friend to suspect that Liberty was willing to deny herself by advocating anti-usury law. A subsequent editorial distinguishing between usury as a civil right and usury as a moral right quieted his fears. The same editorial, however, has led another critic to accuse us of abandoning our anti-usury ground and making legality the standard of morality. Strangely enough, the ideas entertained by this critic on political and economic questions are substantially identical with Liberty's. The sole trouble with him is that, having accustomed himself to write the English language viciously, he is no longer able to understand it when written well. But may we say to him, once for all, that a man has a civil right to take usury from another, provided he can get it with the other's consent in the face of free competition, but that he has no moral right to take it as a commercial transaction in which he pretends to be governed by the true principles of commercial equity; and, consequently, that wealth acquired by usury under a voluntary regime IS the holder's in the sense that no one is entitles to dispossess him of it, but IS NOT the holder's in the sense that he has acquired it, as the usurer now pretends, by giving him an equivalent for it. It is to be hoped that this language will prove intelligible to our critics, but, if it does not, he may continue his criticism without further attention from us.
Since European socialists began to circulate their revolutionary literature in hermetically-sealed cans of condensed milk, that heretofore mild and inoffensive commodity has become a greater terror to the "effete monarchies" than dynamics.
"Irish landlordism," says Nasby, "is condensed villainy." So it is. And landlordism of whatever nationality is villainy also, however diluted or rarefied or tempered. The land question is a universal question, and it is confusing to discuss universal questions from national standpoints.
What must the cultured editors who rave about Guiteau think of Walter Savage Landor, more highly cultured than they, who once told N.P. Willis that he had "a purse of five hundred sovereigns always ready to bestow on any one who will rid the earth of a tyrant - even an American president"?
A good illustration of the wantonness with which States spend their subjects money is seen in Queen Victoria's expenditures of $75,000 in sending special missions to Madrid and Dresden to invest the Kings of Spain and Saxony with the Garter. How long do working people intend to pay tribute to an institution which consumes their earnings thus?
The following is the number of socialists expelled from three important towns in Germany: Berlin, 155; Hamburg and environs, 195; Leipzig, 70; total, 420. Most of these have wives, children, and relations dependent upon them for bread. The majority have emigrated to England or America. Four had been previously members of parliament. Their names are Messrs, Fritzeche, Vahlteich, Reimer, and Hasselmann.
Stephen Pearl Andrews, after comparing us to a "drunken man," complains of our discourtesy in calling him God Almighty, - a title, by the way, which we never applied to him. As Dickens's barber says, we must "draw the line somewhere." Mr. Andrews, it would seem, in the matter of opprobrious epithets, draws the line beyond drunkard and this side of God. It is well to be given some idea, in advance, of the stand and of the courtesy to which members of the Pantarchy will be expected to conform.
Liberty, during its brief young life, has received many compliments, from sources high and low, of which it may well be proud; but nothing has pleased us more than the following simple, but significant words from the letter of a lady who has been procuring subscribers in the mines of Pennsylvania. Sending a fresh list of names, she adds: "More miners promise to subscribe, but they have not had steady work this month and are all poor. The paper is a bomb in the mines. Each fortnight for three months I have had the paper read aloud to the men, and it is beginning to tell, as it always will when it and its like reach the people for whom they are written." News like this is of the most cheery sort. When the common people, as our faithful co-worker truly says, begin to appreciate the principles which Liberty stands for, the welcome Social Revolution is at hand. The coming day, all hail!
Force is seldom justifiable as a method of reform, but the impetuous revolutionists who believe in and uses it is much less vitally in error than the wicked hypocrite who pretends to see no distinction between force used in vindication of rights and force used in their violation.
Only one daily paper within our knowledge, the Virginia City "Chronicle," has told the plain truth about the recent Irish convention. These are its words: "The Irish national convention at Chicago did but one thing worthy of notice, or of benefit to Ireland. It subscribed several thousands dollars for the Irish Land League. The resolutions adopted were tame, commonplace, and - not to put to fine a point on it - cowardly. Designedly silent, as the press of the country is, as a whole, on the subject, and timid as was the Chicago convention, the world will soon have to recognize that fact that Ireland is engaged in a struggled to do away with private ownership of the soil."
The mountebank Talmage, preaching against profanity, soberly told his congregation last Sunday of a man who indulged in it while walking on a railroad track. Suddenly a train came along and killed him. The body, when picked up, exhibited neither bruise or scar, death having resulted solely from the cutting out of the man's tongue by the locomotive. How many members of Talmage's church believe this yarn? How many of them believe that Talmage believes it himself? If any, are they not fools? Are not the others hypocrites? On this showing, is not the Tabernacle congregation made up solely of knaves and idiots? Does its moral and intellectual quality differ from those of other Orthodox congregations otherwise than in degree?
It will be remembered that our discussion with Mr. Babcock on the rightfulness of usury led a friend to suspect that Liberty was willing to deny herself by advocating anti-usury law. A subsequent editorial distinguishing between usury as a civil right and usury as a moral right quieted his fears. The same editorial, however, has led another critic to accuse us of abandoning our anti-usury ground and making legality the standard of morality. Strangely enough, the ideas entertained by this critic on political and economic questions are substantially identical with Liberty's. The sole trouble with him is that, having accustomed himself to write the English language viciously, he is no longer able to understand it when written well. But may we say to him, once for all, that a man has a civil right to take usury from another, provided he can get it with the other's consent in the face of free competition, but that he has no moral right to take it as a commercial transaction in which he pretends to be governed by the true principles of commercial equity; and, consequently, that wealth acquired by usury under a voluntary regime IS the holder's in the sense that no one is entitles to dispossess him of it, but IS NOT the holder's in the sense that he has acquired it, as the usurer now pretends, by giving him an equivalent for it. It is to be hoped that this language will prove intelligible to our critics, but, if it does not, he may continue his criticism without further attention from us.
8/6/13
The Chicago Congress.
[REPORTED FOR LIBERY BY HER OWN DELEGATE.]
In accordance with the call initiated by the groups which sent delegates from the United States to the congress of the International Working People's Association recently held in London, for a National Socialistic Congress to meet at Chicago, Oct. 21, 22, 23, and in which socialistic groups and sections of all shades, weary of compromise and desirous of accomplishing the social revolution by other means than political action, were invited to participate, I was duly appointed to represent Liberty, and now offer the following report. I arrived at Chicago in time to be present at the afternoon session of Friday, the opening day. The convention had been called to order at 10 A.M., at the North Side Turner Hall, but, after appointing a committee on credentials reported the names of twenty delegates entitles to seats and representing New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Jersey City, Hoboken, St. Louis, Milwaukee and other socialistic strongholds. The following preamble and resolution was then offered by A. Spies of Chicago, and adopted.
Whereas, The British Government has most outrageously, and in opposition to the usage and customs of that country, as well as in opposition to the spirit of our age, incarcerated and persecuted men who were manly enough to expose the wrongs and robbery committed by that government upon the poor and destitute Irish people; and
Whereas, The British Government thereby sanctions and advocates the perpetuation of the wholesale robbery of the Irish people by unscrupulous and monstrous landlords, and recognize the monopoly and ownership of the resources of life, such as land and means of labor, in possession of a privileged few, while on the other hand depriving the masses of their houses, liberty, and bread; and
Whereas, the ownership of land and means of labor is legal theft, which causes serfdom, destitution, and misery, and which for the universal benefit of mankind should by all means be abolished; and
Whereas, By the recent steps of the British Government, free speech, the expression of deep-felt grievances of the people of Ireland has been suppressed; be it therefore
Resolved, That we, now assembled in congress, hereby condemn and denounce the British Government for the arrest of the Irish land agitators, and that we express our deep-felt sympathy with the Irish people who are now struggling against the oppressive and unnatural system of land ownership and capitalism.
A communication from radical socialists of Boston favoring reorganizing of the socialists of the United States, abandonment of political party methods, total destruction of existing economic institutions, non-use of force where no force is used to prevent free propagation of socialistic ideas, and objecting to the resolution of the London congress so far as they do not agree with the foregoing, but fully endorsing the resolution to make all possible efforts to spread the revolutionary idea and the spirit of revolt among the masses who do not yet take part in the movement, was, with others from various groups, read and placed on file. The roll was then called, in order to learn what instructions had been given to the delegates. One or two besides Liberty's representatives had none, but were entrusted with absolute freedom. After a brief discussion of various plans of organization, the congress went into executive session. During the session committees on platform, organizations, etc., were appointed, and at 7 o'clock a motion to adjourn until half-past 9 Saturday morning was agreed to.
In the evening the committees were able to finish their labor, and adjourned to 9 A.M. Saturday, at which time your delegate was on hand, but was obliged to wait until after 10 o'clock for all members to appear. The committees occupying the rest of the morning, no session of the congress was held until 3 o'clock P.M., when the committee on platform and principles, of which your delegate was a member, presented a majority report, signed by Justus H. Schwab, Aug. Spins, and A. R. Parsons. P. Peterson, not agreeing to the resolution on independent political action, did not join in the report, although others of the committee equally objected to this plank. Liberty's delegate, after aiding in the preparation of the majority report, dew up a partial report of his own (the limited time not allowing for its completion), which be offered to the congress. As section after section of the majority report was voted, he moved to substitute a section of his own, giving his reasons therefor. The majority platform, as finally adopted, reads as follows:
Whereas, We have certain desires and necessities, upon the satisfaction of which life and happiness depend, and that all means for such satisfaction exist in nature, to wit: air, land, water, and all else exists, as well as all benefits that grow out of nature; association of men: therefore, we declare that any seizure of these great necessities by one or more persons excludes others from their equal use, and, though sanctioned by law and custom, is robbery - and invasion of the inalienable rights of man, resistance to which is the highest virtue.
Whereas, the natural resources and means of production have been and are being converted into private property, by which the working classes are held in dependence and wage slavery, it becomes the right and duty of the despoiled to recover their natural inheritance by every possible means.
The Congress of Socialists assembled at Chicago, Oct. 21 and 22, 1881, recommend:
1. The organization of workingmen and woman (being foremost interested in the solution of the social problem) into local, national, and international associations for the purpose of educating themselves as to the cause and circumstances which led to their enslavement, and to learn the remedies by which the evil may be abolished.
2. The organizations of the revolutionary propaganda and preparation for aggressive warfare to be waged against the system, supports and upholders of exploitation of man by man, and to introduce in its stead free social and industrial cooperation.
The rejected platform offered by Liberty's delegate, which was in my respects similar to the foregoing, read as follows:
Whereas, All humans being have desires and necessities upon the satisfaction of which their life and happiness depend and for the gratification of which the means are supplied in nature, viz., air, land, water, and all else not produced by man, including the natural forced by the discovery and utilization of which through associative effort progress has been and is along possible, we declare that free access to and free use of these means of life are the inalienable right of every human being, and that any seizure of these great necessities by one person, or by any class of persons, that excludes others from equal opportunities, though sanctioned by law and custom, is robbery, — an invasion of these inalienable rights of man, resistance to which is the highest virtue; and
Whereas, These great necessities have been and are being seized and held by some as as to exclude others from equal participation in the use of them, it is the right and duty of the despoiled to gain their natural inheritance, from which they have hitherto been debarred, by every possible means: therefore
We recommend, as the most economic programme of resistance and revolution, the organization of the friends of human right into local, national, and international groups upon the following bases:
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES: individual sovereignty; no government of man by man; anarchy.
POLITICAL METHODS: organized abstention from polls; resistance to taxation; free speech.
SOCIAL PRINCIPLES: cost the limit of price, no exploitation of man by man; equity.
SOCIAL METHODS: organization of credit and exchange; creation of mutual banks; free trade.
A plank in the majority report recommending "independent political action wherever such may be deemed advisable for the purpose of demonstrating to the workingmen the utter wrongfulness and inefficiency of our political institutions and the so-called free-ballot remedy." gave right to a long contest between the Chicago delegates, who urged that its adoption was absolutely necessary to the preservation of the party in Chicago, and the visiting delegates, who, with few exceptions, strenuously opposed it. It was rejected, but at the last session a substitute recognizing independence of each group in politic was adopted. The considerations of the above occupied the afternoon and evening of Saturday.
Sunday forenoon the report of the committee on organizations and resolution, presented by the chairman, Adolph Herben of Jersey City, was adopted.
The name "International Working People's Association" was offered by P. Peterson as a substitute for the name reported by the committee, and was supported by Schwab and Swain. This was one of the hardest contests of the session, your delegate resisting the majority with all resources at his command. The full report on organization, as adopted, reads thus:
This party shall be called the Revolutionary Socialistic party.
It shall be composed of all organized groups recognizing the revolutionary principles adopted by this Congress.
Each groups shall enjoy entire autonomy, and shall judge for itself the right and proper way of propaganda suitable to its locality, provided it be consistent with the platform and resolution of the party.
Each group is advised to call itself after the name of the city in which it is located.
Five members shall be deemed sufficient to form a group.
A bureau of information shall be established in Chicago, composed of a secretary for each principle language spoken, and one for French correspondence; its duty shall be the recording of all existing groups, or organizations, and those hereafter organized; to keep up a correspondence with the secretaries of groups and exchange information; and to correspond with all organized groups of the Old West recognizing the revolutionary principles contained in our platform.
Groups wishing to be recorded must have the endorsement of an existing group near its locality, and must give its membership.
Ten groups shall have the right to call a National Convention.
Applicants for membership shall sign a pledge declaring their conviction in the party principles.
The following resolutions, reported by the same committee, were adopted also:
Resolved, That we hereby ratify the action of the Congress of the International Working People's Association, recently held in London, and, acting upon its advice, we have organized ourselves in the United States in conformity with the conditions and circumstances surrounding us.
Resolved, That we hereby extend, on behalf of the defenders of liberty everywhere, our heartfelt thanks to the Socialists of Russia for their unrelenting warfare upon the evils of Czarism, and they have our unqualified support in employing any and all means to extirpate such monsters from among men.
Resolved, That the Congress assembled recognize the armed organizations of workingmen who stand ready with the gun to resist the encroachment upon their rights, and recommend the forming of like organizations all over the States.
Resolved, That under no circumstances our members are allowed to vote for any person or with any party which does not absolutely approve our platform.
On motion, a committee was appointed to revise the proceeding and prepare them for publication in pamphlet form, after which President O'Meara made a few closing remarks, and at 4 P.M. declared the congress adjourned sine die.
A reception tendered the delegates in the evening at North Side Turner Hall was attended by about three hundred men, women, and children. After the performances of the Socialist Mannerchor and the German Typographical Mannerchor, and a zither performance by Miss Dethmanu and Messrs. Krutse and Cobelli, Justus Shwab, read congratulatory messages from the socialists of New York and Philadelphia, and exhorted friends of the revolutionary cause to remain steadfast, working to their utmost to disseminate the "doctrines of Liberty." He congratulated the delegates that the labors of the congress had been successful enough to warrant all in entertaining the most sanguine ideas of the work in the near future. He further recited a poem in German, about a contest between King of Money and Hunger, in which the later managed to win the prize — Liberty. The formal programme closed with the "Marseillaise," after which dancing began, continuing till a late hour.
In writing this report your delegate has relied largely on his memory. Interesting matter has been omitted, and doubtless some inaccuracies will be made apparent by the revised report when issued. It was the general opinion that no congress of the kind was ever so harmonious, being unmarred by personalities or bitterness. Liberty's delegate, standing alone on the floor as the advocate of American socialism, Josiah Warren's Sovereignty of the Individual, and Proudhon's Anarchy, is glad to acknowledge his cordial reception by his brother socialists, and to testify to their uniform courtesy and patience during the sessions of congress, the time of which he used to no small degree in the presentation of his views. A strong disposition was shown to extend the circulation of Liberty, and it was selected as the English organ of the new party. Evidence was not wanting to show that the socialistic party has developed great strength in Chicago, — in fact, that it is a power not to be ignored or ridden over rough-shod by the industrial kings and barons of to-day.
Whereas, The British Government has most outrageously, and in opposition to the usage and customs of that country, as well as in opposition to the spirit of our age, incarcerated and persecuted men who were manly enough to expose the wrongs and robbery committed by that government upon the poor and destitute Irish people; and
Whereas, The British Government thereby sanctions and advocates the perpetuation of the wholesale robbery of the Irish people by unscrupulous and monstrous landlords, and recognize the monopoly and ownership of the resources of life, such as land and means of labor, in possession of a privileged few, while on the other hand depriving the masses of their houses, liberty, and bread; and
Whereas, the ownership of land and means of labor is legal theft, which causes serfdom, destitution, and misery, and which for the universal benefit of mankind should by all means be abolished; and
Whereas, By the recent steps of the British Government, free speech, the expression of deep-felt grievances of the people of Ireland has been suppressed; be it therefore
Resolved, That we, now assembled in congress, hereby condemn and denounce the British Government for the arrest of the Irish land agitators, and that we express our deep-felt sympathy with the Irish people who are now struggling against the oppressive and unnatural system of land ownership and capitalism.
A communication from radical socialists of Boston favoring reorganizing of the socialists of the United States, abandonment of political party methods, total destruction of existing economic institutions, non-use of force where no force is used to prevent free propagation of socialistic ideas, and objecting to the resolution of the London congress so far as they do not agree with the foregoing, but fully endorsing the resolution to make all possible efforts to spread the revolutionary idea and the spirit of revolt among the masses who do not yet take part in the movement, was, with others from various groups, read and placed on file. The roll was then called, in order to learn what instructions had been given to the delegates. One or two besides Liberty's representatives had none, but were entrusted with absolute freedom. After a brief discussion of various plans of organization, the congress went into executive session. During the session committees on platform, organizations, etc., were appointed, and at 7 o'clock a motion to adjourn until half-past 9 Saturday morning was agreed to.
In the evening the committees were able to finish their labor, and adjourned to 9 A.M. Saturday, at which time your delegate was on hand, but was obliged to wait until after 10 o'clock for all members to appear. The committees occupying the rest of the morning, no session of the congress was held until 3 o'clock P.M., when the committee on platform and principles, of which your delegate was a member, presented a majority report, signed by Justus H. Schwab, Aug. Spins, and A. R. Parsons. P. Peterson, not agreeing to the resolution on independent political action, did not join in the report, although others of the committee equally objected to this plank. Liberty's delegate, after aiding in the preparation of the majority report, dew up a partial report of his own (the limited time not allowing for its completion), which be offered to the congress. As section after section of the majority report was voted, he moved to substitute a section of his own, giving his reasons therefor. The majority platform, as finally adopted, reads as follows:
Whereas, We have certain desires and necessities, upon the satisfaction of which life and happiness depend, and that all means for such satisfaction exist in nature, to wit: air, land, water, and all else exists, as well as all benefits that grow out of nature; association of men: therefore, we declare that any seizure of these great necessities by one or more persons excludes others from their equal use, and, though sanctioned by law and custom, is robbery - and invasion of the inalienable rights of man, resistance to which is the highest virtue.
Whereas, the natural resources and means of production have been and are being converted into private property, by which the working classes are held in dependence and wage slavery, it becomes the right and duty of the despoiled to recover their natural inheritance by every possible means.
The Congress of Socialists assembled at Chicago, Oct. 21 and 22, 1881, recommend:
1. The organization of workingmen and woman (being foremost interested in the solution of the social problem) into local, national, and international associations for the purpose of educating themselves as to the cause and circumstances which led to their enslavement, and to learn the remedies by which the evil may be abolished.
2. The organizations of the revolutionary propaganda and preparation for aggressive warfare to be waged against the system, supports and upholders of exploitation of man by man, and to introduce in its stead free social and industrial cooperation.
The rejected platform offered by Liberty's delegate, which was in my respects similar to the foregoing, read as follows:
Whereas, All humans being have desires and necessities upon the satisfaction of which their life and happiness depend and for the gratification of which the means are supplied in nature, viz., air, land, water, and all else not produced by man, including the natural forced by the discovery and utilization of which through associative effort progress has been and is along possible, we declare that free access to and free use of these means of life are the inalienable right of every human being, and that any seizure of these great necessities by one person, or by any class of persons, that excludes others from equal opportunities, though sanctioned by law and custom, is robbery, — an invasion of these inalienable rights of man, resistance to which is the highest virtue; and
Whereas, These great necessities have been and are being seized and held by some as as to exclude others from equal participation in the use of them, it is the right and duty of the despoiled to gain their natural inheritance, from which they have hitherto been debarred, by every possible means: therefore
We recommend, as the most economic programme of resistance and revolution, the organization of the friends of human right into local, national, and international groups upon the following bases:
POLITICAL PRINCIPLES: individual sovereignty; no government of man by man; anarchy.
POLITICAL METHODS: organized abstention from polls; resistance to taxation; free speech.
SOCIAL PRINCIPLES: cost the limit of price, no exploitation of man by man; equity.
SOCIAL METHODS: organization of credit and exchange; creation of mutual banks; free trade.
A plank in the majority report recommending "independent political action wherever such may be deemed advisable for the purpose of demonstrating to the workingmen the utter wrongfulness and inefficiency of our political institutions and the so-called free-ballot remedy." gave right to a long contest between the Chicago delegates, who urged that its adoption was absolutely necessary to the preservation of the party in Chicago, and the visiting delegates, who, with few exceptions, strenuously opposed it. It was rejected, but at the last session a substitute recognizing independence of each group in politic was adopted. The considerations of the above occupied the afternoon and evening of Saturday.
Sunday forenoon the report of the committee on organizations and resolution, presented by the chairman, Adolph Herben of Jersey City, was adopted.
The name "International Working People's Association" was offered by P. Peterson as a substitute for the name reported by the committee, and was supported by Schwab and Swain. This was one of the hardest contests of the session, your delegate resisting the majority with all resources at his command. The full report on organization, as adopted, reads thus:
This party shall be called the Revolutionary Socialistic party.
It shall be composed of all organized groups recognizing the revolutionary principles adopted by this Congress.
Each groups shall enjoy entire autonomy, and shall judge for itself the right and proper way of propaganda suitable to its locality, provided it be consistent with the platform and resolution of the party.
Each group is advised to call itself after the name of the city in which it is located.
Five members shall be deemed sufficient to form a group.
A bureau of information shall be established in Chicago, composed of a secretary for each principle language spoken, and one for French correspondence; its duty shall be the recording of all existing groups, or organizations, and those hereafter organized; to keep up a correspondence with the secretaries of groups and exchange information; and to correspond with all organized groups of the Old West recognizing the revolutionary principles contained in our platform.
Groups wishing to be recorded must have the endorsement of an existing group near its locality, and must give its membership.
Ten groups shall have the right to call a National Convention.
Applicants for membership shall sign a pledge declaring their conviction in the party principles.
The following resolutions, reported by the same committee, were adopted also:
Resolved, That we hereby ratify the action of the Congress of the International Working People's Association, recently held in London, and, acting upon its advice, we have organized ourselves in the United States in conformity with the conditions and circumstances surrounding us.
Resolved, That we hereby extend, on behalf of the defenders of liberty everywhere, our heartfelt thanks to the Socialists of Russia for their unrelenting warfare upon the evils of Czarism, and they have our unqualified support in employing any and all means to extirpate such monsters from among men.
Resolved, That the Congress assembled recognize the armed organizations of workingmen who stand ready with the gun to resist the encroachment upon their rights, and recommend the forming of like organizations all over the States.
Resolved, That under no circumstances our members are allowed to vote for any person or with any party which does not absolutely approve our platform.
On motion, a committee was appointed to revise the proceeding and prepare them for publication in pamphlet form, after which President O'Meara made a few closing remarks, and at 4 P.M. declared the congress adjourned sine die.
A reception tendered the delegates in the evening at North Side Turner Hall was attended by about three hundred men, women, and children. After the performances of the Socialist Mannerchor and the German Typographical Mannerchor, and a zither performance by Miss Dethmanu and Messrs. Krutse and Cobelli, Justus Shwab, read congratulatory messages from the socialists of New York and Philadelphia, and exhorted friends of the revolutionary cause to remain steadfast, working to their utmost to disseminate the "doctrines of Liberty." He congratulated the delegates that the labors of the congress had been successful enough to warrant all in entertaining the most sanguine ideas of the work in the near future. He further recited a poem in German, about a contest between King of Money and Hunger, in which the later managed to win the prize — Liberty. The formal programme closed with the "Marseillaise," after which dancing began, continuing till a late hour.
In writing this report your delegate has relied largely on his memory. Interesting matter has been omitted, and doubtless some inaccuracies will be made apparent by the revised report when issued. It was the general opinion that no congress of the kind was ever so harmonious, being unmarred by personalities or bitterness. Liberty's delegate, standing alone on the floor as the advocate of American socialism, Josiah Warren's Sovereignty of the Individual, and Proudhon's Anarchy, is glad to acknowledge his cordial reception by his brother socialists, and to testify to their uniform courtesy and patience during the sessions of congress, the time of which he used to no small degree in the presentation of his views. A strong disposition was shown to extend the circulation of Liberty, and it was selected as the English organ of the new party. Evidence was not wanting to show that the socialistic party has developed great strength in Chicago, — in fact, that it is a power not to be ignored or ridden over rough-shod by the industrial kings and barons of to-day.
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