Would that we could command the satire of Voltaire and the invective of William Cobbett to flay the hypocritical bigots whose virtuous indignation is stirred at the existence of polygamy in this pious nation!
A Simon-pure, honest, square monogamist is a man who “keeps” one woman, and only one, whom he calls his wife. So long as the “keeping” of this woman is voluntary and mutual, it is nobody’s business, even though some clergyman may score a five-dollar fee out of it.
But the king of pious fraud whose holy indignation is stirred at the lustful Mormon is not a square, openhanded monogamist, he keeps two, three, or five women. On of these, whom he deceives and betrays and over whose liberty he wields absolute despotism, is known as his wife. This fellow is a polygamist at heart, but in the place of the openhanded, above-board transaction of the Mormon, he substitutes “nest-hiding,” fraud, cowardice, and hypocrisy.
It is unnecessary to say that Liberty, though opposed to the whole “keeping” system as the degradation of a passion that should be pure and noble, denies the right of the State to say to any man whether he shall “keep” one, two, five twenty, or one hundred women, or to any woman whether she shall “keep” corresponding numbers of man. Our pious legislators would be the very worst sufferers by such a law, even if it were possible to execute it. But even those who are honestly free from the practice of polygamy are committing an unmitigated piece of impudence and despotism when they attempt to deny to any man the right to “keep” just as many women as he pleases with his own money, and at his and their sole cost.
But the lecherous politicians of Washington, the lawyers and usurers who waste the people’s wealth on women and wine,— these make up the holy conclave that proposes to visit the Mormon households and destroy their homes.
Luckily, the Mormons have hit upon a spike game. They have been carefully canvassing the number of practical polygamists among the Washington congressmen. When pushed to the wall, they propose to publish the results of their investigations to the American public, and deliver sealed copies to the accredited wives of these virtuous political saints. Ten to one that the Mormons have already effectively spiked the enemy’s gang! The monogamists and polygamists threaten to become terribly mixed, and we hope that in the confusion all will conclude to mind their own business.
Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, then it could be had for fifty cents a year - Now only a click away.
2/27/18
A Glorious Meeting.
The mass meeting of trades unions in Cooper Union, New York, on January 30, was the most significant and gratifying move that has been made since the so-called Irish land war began.
The Irish race, by nature of their organism, are easily ridden by superstition. The Pope has always sat in the Irish saddle with greater assurance than in any other. Blood-sucking priests have always found the Irish skin the thinnest to prey upon. With such a people — sympathetic, domestic, and deeply endeared to their traditions — the nationality craze easily finds a lodgment, and short-sighted, designing politicians are ever ready to make use of it in order to divert the attention of the people from the bottom causes of universal industrial slavery.
But this meeting stood on a thoroughly broad and de-nationalizing basis. As the splendid resolutions put it, the Irish cause was “humanity cause;” it was “Labor’s Cause.” Germans, Russians, Americans, Scotch, English, and Irish,— all clasped the brotherly hand in the grand resolve that the curse of landlordism was not local and national, but universal and human (or rather inhuman), and a part of the great scheme of usury against which Labor is everywhere called upon to wage an uncompromising war of extermination.
In asking the Irish to de-nationalize, as far as possible, their grand struggle, we would by no means look lightly upon their exceptional persecutions as a nation. But were these persecutions simply political and national, the Irish would have no especial claim to the co-operation of other nationalities. Since, however, the curse which afflicts them is one which threatens, and actually afflicts, more or less, the working masses of every other nation, they simply assert a just demand when they call upon working people everywhere to stand by them.
To attempt to argue down a superstition is the slowest process. Here and there a level-headed Irishman has sense enough to brush aside the ridiculous nonsense of expecting an “Irish republic” to do better by those who labor than does the ruling British machine. But these men are exceptions, and their voices is easily rub-a-dubbed down by the blatant nationalists.
It is useless to remind these rub-a-dub-dub, Irish republic, national flag enthusiasts that this American republic is severer on the tenant class, under its laws, than is England; but perhaps we can put it in another form with more effect. Place the Irish landlord class of America beside the Irish rent-paying class. Is the former any less merciless to its tenants than is the English landlord in Ireland? If the Irish landlord in this American republic is usurious-blood-hound, would he be anything less in an Irish republic? No, it is the system that must be crushed, and the system thrives just as audaciously under one form of government as another. The fact is that the State, without monopoly and usury as its main pillars, ceases to be the State.
It will take long to get these bottom facts into the heads of the masses, but such meetings as the one in Cooper Union are most gratifying helps in that direction. The masterly genius which moves the “Irish World” was never displayed to greater credit than on that occasion, and Liberty shouts thrice, Bravo! upon the whole affair.
The Irish race, by nature of their organism, are easily ridden by superstition. The Pope has always sat in the Irish saddle with greater assurance than in any other. Blood-sucking priests have always found the Irish skin the thinnest to prey upon. With such a people — sympathetic, domestic, and deeply endeared to their traditions — the nationality craze easily finds a lodgment, and short-sighted, designing politicians are ever ready to make use of it in order to divert the attention of the people from the bottom causes of universal industrial slavery.
But this meeting stood on a thoroughly broad and de-nationalizing basis. As the splendid resolutions put it, the Irish cause was “humanity cause;” it was “Labor’s Cause.” Germans, Russians, Americans, Scotch, English, and Irish,— all clasped the brotherly hand in the grand resolve that the curse of landlordism was not local and national, but universal and human (or rather inhuman), and a part of the great scheme of usury against which Labor is everywhere called upon to wage an uncompromising war of extermination.
In asking the Irish to de-nationalize, as far as possible, their grand struggle, we would by no means look lightly upon their exceptional persecutions as a nation. But were these persecutions simply political and national, the Irish would have no especial claim to the co-operation of other nationalities. Since, however, the curse which afflicts them is one which threatens, and actually afflicts, more or less, the working masses of every other nation, they simply assert a just demand when they call upon working people everywhere to stand by them.
To attempt to argue down a superstition is the slowest process. Here and there a level-headed Irishman has sense enough to brush aside the ridiculous nonsense of expecting an “Irish republic” to do better by those who labor than does the ruling British machine. But these men are exceptions, and their voices is easily rub-a-dubbed down by the blatant nationalists.
It is useless to remind these rub-a-dub-dub, Irish republic, national flag enthusiasts that this American republic is severer on the tenant class, under its laws, than is England; but perhaps we can put it in another form with more effect. Place the Irish landlord class of America beside the Irish rent-paying class. Is the former any less merciless to its tenants than is the English landlord in Ireland? If the Irish landlord in this American republic is usurious-blood-hound, would he be anything less in an Irish republic? No, it is the system that must be crushed, and the system thrives just as audaciously under one form of government as another. The fact is that the State, without monopoly and usury as its main pillars, ceases to be the State.
It will take long to get these bottom facts into the heads of the masses, but such meetings as the one in Cooper Union are most gratifying helps in that direction. The masterly genius which moves the “Irish World” was never displayed to greater credit than on that occasion, and Liberty shouts thrice, Bravo! upon the whole affair.
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