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.
Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, then it could be had for fifty cents a year - Now only a click away.
Showing posts with label First Article. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Article. Show all posts
10/28/13
8/5/13
Ireland's New Saviour.
We admit that the spectacle of reformers fighting each other is not a very flattering one. While the great army of oppressors remains as numerous and audacious that our limited space permits us hardly to touch the outposts in details, it is no very enviable duty to have to turn our scanty ammunition upon the thin ranks of reformers. Sentimentally speaking, the slender forces to which the poverty and ostracism of liberals restrict them ought all to be directed against the flanks of the enemy.
Yet, howsoever good the intentions of a fellow-reformer, he is liable to become a greater misfortune to progress, if his premises and methods are radically wrong, than a whole brigade of the enemy outside our camp. The author of "Progress and Poverty" is said to be a man of no airs, — quiet, plain, unpretending, modest, democratic, — a veritable man grown out of the common people. He has shown the title-labelled numskulls of colleges and other monopolizing haunts of authoritative wisdom that a workingman can write a book which, in spite of their contempt, exictes the wonders and interest of thinkers all over the world.
Mr. George's pen-picture of the "persistence of poverty" amidst ever-increasing wealth and plenty does him immense credit as a literary giant, and his book, in demolishing the Malthusian humbug and setting the old school of economic quacks aright on many important points, is worthy of all the admiration which his friends have bestowed upon it.
Against Mr. George as a man, and against the many able and original points in his book, we have nought to say. But against Mr. George as a writer totally ignorant of the vital problems of Liberty, which overshadows all merely economic considerations, we have something very serious to say, and shall say it without stint. That he would willfully side with despotism it would be ungenerous to surmise, and that man of his acute powers of thinking should season his whole thought with the very essence of tyranny can only be accounted for on the score of absolute ignorance of the governmental problem.
Upon looking into the nature Mr. George discovers that she everywhere furnishes increase not measured by labor. Two men start in to cultivate soil. They have equal capacity, and devote exactly the same labor, each to his field. But one field, being by nature far less fertile than the other, simply furnishes the bare necessities of life to the cultivator, while the other furnishes a surplus. This margin, represents the varying productiveness of different portions of soil, says Mr. George, makes rent possible and natural, and persons wishing to purchase opportunities to secure nature's will be willing to pay rent in proportion to the ratio of increase which the soil is furnishing to the existing holders. Rent, then, is natural and just.
By an analogous process of reasoning Mr. George justified interest, profits, and the whole range of usury, and proceeds to explain the laws which govern their adjustment. Had his work been confined solely to the chapters on usury, it would have simply been a poor rehash of sophistries which were demolished centuries ago and which the masterly hand of Proudhon scattered into everlasting chaos beyond the shadow of resurrection.
But the master strike of George is left for the last. Usury is just. Nature pays usury. Paraphrased into the "Irish World's" theological terminology: "Our beneficent Creator gave it to all His children as their inalienable inheritance." Since, then, nature gave usury to all men, and since rent represents land-usury, George would let landlordism execute its useful functions; but, when the landlords have gathered up the harvest of land-usury, he would send that sublime bully, the State, among them to confiscate it and distribute it among the whole people. There shall be no "hold the harvest" for them.
It is utterly astonishing, however, that Mr. George fails to see that, by the same reasoning, he is morally bound not to stop with rent, but to pursue the governmental raid into the banks, and confiscate their money-usury. Nor must he stop even there. He must go into the market-places, stores, and manufactories, and confiscate their surplus earnings. Yea, by the inevitable logic of his system the government is bound to seize upon the pay of all wage-laborers and confiscate the margin of increase corresponding to that which represents rent. In short, the enormity of the which Mr. George lays out is only exceeded by its ridiculousness and utter atrocity.
All this insane bosh has its source in ignorance of the rational domain of yours and mine, which is at the bottom of the economic problem. If a piece of land belongs to a man in natural equity because he personally cultivates and occupies it, then the increase which it affords through his labor is his as against all the world. If, on his own merits and independent of governmental coercion, his fellow-men choose to tolerate him in the ownership of land which he does not cultivate and occupy, the rent they may pay him is his, and no combination of men outside of him, under any pretext, have a right to confiscate what his fellow-men have freely and voluntarily given him. The fact is, however, that, in natural equity, his fellow-men would not tolerate it, and rent would become impossible. The State alone creates rent by fortifying the landlord in his ownership of what he does not occupy and improve. Mr. George's State is a double damnation to Liberty, since it first justifies the theft and supplies its machinery and then confiscates the very increase which it has declared unnatural and just. The fact is that the writer is a governmental socialist, and, along with the rest of those deluded into dangerous foes of Liberty, has taken exactly the moral ground of the Dark Ages in assuming that the Socialistic State can do no wrong, even though it wantonly violate its own standard of justice as applied to individuals: for, with the Socialists, as with the old school Statocrats, individuals have no right which their despotic governmental bully, the Socialistic State, is bound to respect.
Twenty of editions of Liberty would not cover one-half of the ridiculous and abominable absurdities which gather at every step around the logic of Henry George's Book. That this dangerous craze should have seized upon so steadfast and sturdy a foe of usury as Patrick Ford should serve as a reminder to the friends of Liberty that, however gentle, modest, and devoted Mr. George may be as a man, it is their imperative duty to fight down his influence in dead earnest at every opportunity. If this insinuating craze is able to capture such papers as the "Irish World" and the New York "Sun" and "Truth," its power for evil is incalculable. The "Sun" and "Truth" are comparatively little consequence, but we earnestly hope that Patrick Ford will ponder long and well before fatally committing the "Irish World" to a system whose logic, carried for its natural outcome, would not only neutralize that journal's splendid work in the past, but would build up a despotism compared with which all that Ireland has ever suffered sinks into insignificance. We are curious to hear how George's New Ireland will look after his prescriptions are sent to the "Irish World," but more curious to know whether Patrick Ford can be seduced into throwing overboard his wits and trimmings his sails for this economic gulf of perdition.
Yet, howsoever good the intentions of a fellow-reformer, he is liable to become a greater misfortune to progress, if his premises and methods are radically wrong, than a whole brigade of the enemy outside our camp. The author of "Progress and Poverty" is said to be a man of no airs, — quiet, plain, unpretending, modest, democratic, — a veritable man grown out of the common people. He has shown the title-labelled numskulls of colleges and other monopolizing haunts of authoritative wisdom that a workingman can write a book which, in spite of their contempt, exictes the wonders and interest of thinkers all over the world.
Mr. George's pen-picture of the "persistence of poverty" amidst ever-increasing wealth and plenty does him immense credit as a literary giant, and his book, in demolishing the Malthusian humbug and setting the old school of economic quacks aright on many important points, is worthy of all the admiration which his friends have bestowed upon it.
Against Mr. George as a man, and against the many able and original points in his book, we have nought to say. But against Mr. George as a writer totally ignorant of the vital problems of Liberty, which overshadows all merely economic considerations, we have something very serious to say, and shall say it without stint. That he would willfully side with despotism it would be ungenerous to surmise, and that man of his acute powers of thinking should season his whole thought with the very essence of tyranny can only be accounted for on the score of absolute ignorance of the governmental problem.
Upon looking into the nature Mr. George discovers that she everywhere furnishes increase not measured by labor. Two men start in to cultivate soil. They have equal capacity, and devote exactly the same labor, each to his field. But one field, being by nature far less fertile than the other, simply furnishes the bare necessities of life to the cultivator, while the other furnishes a surplus. This margin, represents the varying productiveness of different portions of soil, says Mr. George, makes rent possible and natural, and persons wishing to purchase opportunities to secure nature's will be willing to pay rent in proportion to the ratio of increase which the soil is furnishing to the existing holders. Rent, then, is natural and just.
By an analogous process of reasoning Mr. George justified interest, profits, and the whole range of usury, and proceeds to explain the laws which govern their adjustment. Had his work been confined solely to the chapters on usury, it would have simply been a poor rehash of sophistries which were demolished centuries ago and which the masterly hand of Proudhon scattered into everlasting chaos beyond the shadow of resurrection.
But the master strike of George is left for the last. Usury is just. Nature pays usury. Paraphrased into the "Irish World's" theological terminology: "Our beneficent Creator gave it to all His children as their inalienable inheritance." Since, then, nature gave usury to all men, and since rent represents land-usury, George would let landlordism execute its useful functions; but, when the landlords have gathered up the harvest of land-usury, he would send that sublime bully, the State, among them to confiscate it and distribute it among the whole people. There shall be no "hold the harvest" for them.
It is utterly astonishing, however, that Mr. George fails to see that, by the same reasoning, he is morally bound not to stop with rent, but to pursue the governmental raid into the banks, and confiscate their money-usury. Nor must he stop even there. He must go into the market-places, stores, and manufactories, and confiscate their surplus earnings. Yea, by the inevitable logic of his system the government is bound to seize upon the pay of all wage-laborers and confiscate the margin of increase corresponding to that which represents rent. In short, the enormity of the which Mr. George lays out is only exceeded by its ridiculousness and utter atrocity.
All this insane bosh has its source in ignorance of the rational domain of yours and mine, which is at the bottom of the economic problem. If a piece of land belongs to a man in natural equity because he personally cultivates and occupies it, then the increase which it affords through his labor is his as against all the world. If, on his own merits and independent of governmental coercion, his fellow-men choose to tolerate him in the ownership of land which he does not cultivate and occupy, the rent they may pay him is his, and no combination of men outside of him, under any pretext, have a right to confiscate what his fellow-men have freely and voluntarily given him. The fact is, however, that, in natural equity, his fellow-men would not tolerate it, and rent would become impossible. The State alone creates rent by fortifying the landlord in his ownership of what he does not occupy and improve. Mr. George's State is a double damnation to Liberty, since it first justifies the theft and supplies its machinery and then confiscates the very increase which it has declared unnatural and just. The fact is that the writer is a governmental socialist, and, along with the rest of those deluded into dangerous foes of Liberty, has taken exactly the moral ground of the Dark Ages in assuming that the Socialistic State can do no wrong, even though it wantonly violate its own standard of justice as applied to individuals: for, with the Socialists, as with the old school Statocrats, individuals have no right which their despotic governmental bully, the Socialistic State, is bound to respect.
Twenty of editions of Liberty would not cover one-half of the ridiculous and abominable absurdities which gather at every step around the logic of Henry George's Book. That this dangerous craze should have seized upon so steadfast and sturdy a foe of usury as Patrick Ford should serve as a reminder to the friends of Liberty that, however gentle, modest, and devoted Mr. George may be as a man, it is their imperative duty to fight down his influence in dead earnest at every opportunity. If this insinuating craze is able to capture such papers as the "Irish World" and the New York "Sun" and "Truth," its power for evil is incalculable. The "Sun" and "Truth" are comparatively little consequence, but we earnestly hope that Patrick Ford will ponder long and well before fatally committing the "Irish World" to a system whose logic, carried for its natural outcome, would not only neutralize that journal's splendid work in the past, but would build up a despotism compared with which all that Ireland has ever suffered sinks into insignificance. We are curious to hear how George's New Ireland will look after his prescriptions are sent to the "Irish World," but more curious to know whether Patrick Ford can be seduced into throwing overboard his wits and trimmings his sails for this economic gulf of perdition.
4/9/12
Free Religion: Then, and Now.
Our faith comes in moments, our vice is habitual. -Emerson
The editor of the "Free Religious Index," returning to his post after a protracted vacation, has heard of a late criticism of the Free Religious Association, which is that said Association "retains so few of the speakers whom people were accustomed and delighted to hear at its early conventions." He thinks this will "balance" the criticism that was made earlier in its history, "namely, that the same old stagers were brought out on the platform every year." But, fearing lest it will not, he asks if the last critic does not "set up a standard altogether too severe." He knows of "no society which holds the secret of remedy against the ravages of age, disease, and death among its speakers. Fourteen years have brought their inevitable changes on the platform of the Association." An "especially encouraging feature in the Association is that younger men and women, with fresh zeal and ability, are coming forward to take the place of the departed and disabled."
As Liberty has a suspicion that the "Index" editor has ventured to peruse it columns, and has therein discovered the criticism he refers to, we will say a word or two that we think will be to the point.
True, Liberty did speak of the absence from the Free Religion Association's platform of the illustrious men who gave to "Free Religion," as it was called, its early and only claim to recognition. But not without a due understanding of the fact that, in good part, "age, disease, and death" had been the causes. It was not alone this fact of their non-appearance in Free Religious assemblages at the present time that aroused our attention; it was the far more significant fact that their "successors" are men and women of a different mould. The short and the long of it is, - the Free Religious Association has run very quickly the race all organized religions run; it has dropped down from the high region of ideas to the low wheelbarrow plane of propagandism. It says to itself to-day, "Now, we have got OUR IDEA; let us get money and 'younger men and women with fresh zeal and ability' to put it through." That is, it has thus early struck its limitation. Just like the old Unitarian movement out of whose loins it was born, it has lost its "moment of faith", and lives now only to exemplify "vice," which Emerson says is "habitual." Doubtless it will trundle along with its wheelbarrow-load of "good works" for a certain season, but the world will not note the act, when here is that Corliss' Engine of a Church, the Roman Catholic, covering the earth with its vast array of god-like machinery, not to mention the "vice" vehicles of the whole Protestant world. But that early movement when faith in ideas had sway was all the contribution of human elevation it will ever get credit for. For out of it came inspiration, visions, and ideal strength, which, to the soul is, "meat and drink." But to-day what do these "younger men and women" offer the unheeding world? How do they propose to arrest attention? Why, they are at the old miserable trick of formulating "Catechisms for the Young." Heaven save the mark! — if it can; earth can't. That, and similarly depraved work. The child shall no more itself be an "ideal voyager," but shall sit down like a good little child in some Free Religion meeting-house, and be fed on these "younger men and women with zeal" have "formulated." Yes, it is a fact; they are busy enough preparing Free Religion beans for the little ones: beans and bread; bread they themselves have browned, and there may be no mistake, and the little ones be saved Error's indigestion. Ah! think of it. This is the "especially encouraging feature."
From John Weiss to this!
From Faith to Vice.
Faith would believe in the child, and inspire it with its own Liberty to range in the upper region of ideas, ever looking with its own eyes into the vastness of its own being.
Vice prepares a dose, and gives it.
That is Free Religion's mission to-day, as confessed by its "organizers."
For our part, we confess that the "old stagers on its platform" were far more interesting.
It is the difference between spontaneity and humdrums; life and a slow-death; joyful health, and the "enthusiasm" of the religious disease; yea, between the world's Faith, and the world's Vice.
The editor of the "Free Religious Index," returning to his post after a protracted vacation, has heard of a late criticism of the Free Religious Association, which is that said Association "retains so few of the speakers whom people were accustomed and delighted to hear at its early conventions." He thinks this will "balance" the criticism that was made earlier in its history, "namely, that the same old stagers were brought out on the platform every year." But, fearing lest it will not, he asks if the last critic does not "set up a standard altogether too severe." He knows of "no society which holds the secret of remedy against the ravages of age, disease, and death among its speakers. Fourteen years have brought their inevitable changes on the platform of the Association." An "especially encouraging feature in the Association is that younger men and women, with fresh zeal and ability, are coming forward to take the place of the departed and disabled."
As Liberty has a suspicion that the "Index" editor has ventured to peruse it columns, and has therein discovered the criticism he refers to, we will say a word or two that we think will be to the point.
True, Liberty did speak of the absence from the Free Religion Association's platform of the illustrious men who gave to "Free Religion," as it was called, its early and only claim to recognition. But not without a due understanding of the fact that, in good part, "age, disease, and death" had been the causes. It was not alone this fact of their non-appearance in Free Religious assemblages at the present time that aroused our attention; it was the far more significant fact that their "successors" are men and women of a different mould. The short and the long of it is, - the Free Religious Association has run very quickly the race all organized religions run; it has dropped down from the high region of ideas to the low wheelbarrow plane of propagandism. It says to itself to-day, "Now, we have got OUR IDEA; let us get money and 'younger men and women with fresh zeal and ability' to put it through." That is, it has thus early struck its limitation. Just like the old Unitarian movement out of whose loins it was born, it has lost its "moment of faith", and lives now only to exemplify "vice," which Emerson says is "habitual." Doubtless it will trundle along with its wheelbarrow-load of "good works" for a certain season, but the world will not note the act, when here is that Corliss' Engine of a Church, the Roman Catholic, covering the earth with its vast array of god-like machinery, not to mention the "vice" vehicles of the whole Protestant world. But that early movement when faith in ideas had sway was all the contribution of human elevation it will ever get credit for. For out of it came inspiration, visions, and ideal strength, which, to the soul is, "meat and drink." But to-day what do these "younger men and women" offer the unheeding world? How do they propose to arrest attention? Why, they are at the old miserable trick of formulating "Catechisms for the Young." Heaven save the mark! — if it can; earth can't. That, and similarly depraved work. The child shall no more itself be an "ideal voyager," but shall sit down like a good little child in some Free Religion meeting-house, and be fed on these "younger men and women with zeal" have "formulated." Yes, it is a fact; they are busy enough preparing Free Religion beans for the little ones: beans and bread; bread they themselves have browned, and there may be no mistake, and the little ones be saved Error's indigestion. Ah! think of it. This is the "especially encouraging feature."
From John Weiss to this!
From Faith to Vice.
Faith would believe in the child, and inspire it with its own Liberty to range in the upper region of ideas, ever looking with its own eyes into the vastness of its own being.
Vice prepares a dose, and gives it.
That is Free Religion's mission to-day, as confessed by its "organizers."
For our part, we confess that the "old stagers on its platform" were far more interesting.
It is the difference between spontaneity and humdrums; life and a slow-death; joyful health, and the "enthusiasm" of the religious disease; yea, between the world's Faith, and the world's Vice.
4/3/12
Sinister Sorrow.
Dead or alive, all's one to me, with mischievous persons; but alas! how very grievously all's two to me, when they are helpful and noble ones. -John Ruskins
No person of proper human feeling would insult a sincere mourner standing at a grave. Doubtless there are many mourners in this hour of what is called "the nation's sorrow" who, however mistaken, are honest in their grief. This article is not for them. Indeed, to a certain extent we share their sorrow. Garfield died manfully after weeks of patient suffering, as many another man dies every day. With all of these victims we have sympathy in their suffering, for all of them respect in their fortitude; with and for Garfield as much as the rest, and no more. Nor to those deluded persons who are led to shed dutiful tears by an idolatrous worship of rulers and government have we a word to say to-day. True, it is Liberty's main purpose to sooner or later convict them of their error; but, cherishing the error honestly, let them respect its forms.
Our indignant denunciation is of the heartless scoundrels whose tool Garfield has been, who, with sinister purpose, have put in operation all this machinery of woe, hoping thereby to intimidate or bribe the late president's successors into following his example. Garfield died manfully, we said above. Did he live manfully? That is the main question. He appears to have been a amiable friend, a good husband and father, and a hard though rather superficial student. But his was not the stuff of human grandeur. A man who, at twenty-five or thirty, writes sophomoric poetry, preaches, prays, and sings pennyroyal hymns in Christian conventicles, and who, in his maturer years, consorts largely and lovingly with priests and indulges in their religious gush, is not the kind of man that is apt to do much helping the world onward. In the composition of such men putty is a large ingredient; and so it was with Garfield. All his later life he has been led by the nose by designing villains, schemers against the people's product. He has helped them, more or less innocently, more or less guiltily, yielding to their preferred temptations and sometimes betraying the people's trust. A very convenient man for our purposes, think the schemers. His place must not be left vacant. Other must be tempted into it. So, taking advantage of undue respect for the office which he chanced to hold, at their bidding word goes forth.
Toll the bells! Fire the minute-guns! Bestow riches on his family. Bear his body through the country with funeral pomp and circumstance! Hang upon the outer walls the gloomy trapping of woe! And all is promptly done. The commercial world responds in a spirit of rivalry, each member of it trying to advertise his interests by surpassing his neighbor in the ostentation of sorrow. Preachers fill the air with lamentations, and poets sing the martyr's praises for a price. Messages of condolence and grief pass back and forth under the ocean between the crowned heads of Europe and uncrowned despots of America, Victoria, William, and Alexander recognize instinctively that, in the death of a president no less than in that of a king, a fellow tyrant falls. The kindred of oppressors feel for each other. And by this manufactured manifestation a public sentiment is created to shield them a little longer in their grinding of the oppressed. How long shall this thing last? Let the victims abandon their prayers, wipe away the blinding tears, and look with undiminished eyes straight into the nature of these plots and plotters. A clear vision is all that's needed. The rest will follow.
No person of proper human feeling would insult a sincere mourner standing at a grave. Doubtless there are many mourners in this hour of what is called "the nation's sorrow" who, however mistaken, are honest in their grief. This article is not for them. Indeed, to a certain extent we share their sorrow. Garfield died manfully after weeks of patient suffering, as many another man dies every day. With all of these victims we have sympathy in their suffering, for all of them respect in their fortitude; with and for Garfield as much as the rest, and no more. Nor to those deluded persons who are led to shed dutiful tears by an idolatrous worship of rulers and government have we a word to say to-day. True, it is Liberty's main purpose to sooner or later convict them of their error; but, cherishing the error honestly, let them respect its forms.
Our indignant denunciation is of the heartless scoundrels whose tool Garfield has been, who, with sinister purpose, have put in operation all this machinery of woe, hoping thereby to intimidate or bribe the late president's successors into following his example. Garfield died manfully, we said above. Did he live manfully? That is the main question. He appears to have been a amiable friend, a good husband and father, and a hard though rather superficial student. But his was not the stuff of human grandeur. A man who, at twenty-five or thirty, writes sophomoric poetry, preaches, prays, and sings pennyroyal hymns in Christian conventicles, and who, in his maturer years, consorts largely and lovingly with priests and indulges in their religious gush, is not the kind of man that is apt to do much helping the world onward. In the composition of such men putty is a large ingredient; and so it was with Garfield. All his later life he has been led by the nose by designing villains, schemers against the people's product. He has helped them, more or less innocently, more or less guiltily, yielding to their preferred temptations and sometimes betraying the people's trust. A very convenient man for our purposes, think the schemers. His place must not be left vacant. Other must be tempted into it. So, taking advantage of undue respect for the office which he chanced to hold, at their bidding word goes forth.
Toll the bells! Fire the minute-guns! Bestow riches on his family. Bear his body through the country with funeral pomp and circumstance! Hang upon the outer walls the gloomy trapping of woe! And all is promptly done. The commercial world responds in a spirit of rivalry, each member of it trying to advertise his interests by surpassing his neighbor in the ostentation of sorrow. Preachers fill the air with lamentations, and poets sing the martyr's praises for a price. Messages of condolence and grief pass back and forth under the ocean between the crowned heads of Europe and uncrowned despots of America, Victoria, William, and Alexander recognize instinctively that, in the death of a president no less than in that of a king, a fellow tyrant falls. The kindred of oppressors feel for each other. And by this manufactured manifestation a public sentiment is created to shield them a little longer in their grinding of the oppressed. How long shall this thing last? Let the victims abandon their prayers, wipe away the blinding tears, and look with undiminished eyes straight into the nature of these plots and plotters. A clear vision is all that's needed. The rest will follow.
3/28/12
Doctrine of Assent.
At a recent convention of social philosophers the air, as is usual on such occasions, was full of protest and lamentation over the despotic manner in which majorities ride over the will of minorities. More especially, however, were the heated protestations directed against despotic minorities, who, armed with coercive legislation and artillery, contrive to enslave whole peoples without their consent, yea, against their universal dissent and protest. Russia was cited, where one irresponsible autocrat rides rough-shod over eighty millions of people without their assent. Ireland was especially quoted as a down-trodden country, where three million tenants are made virtual slaves comparative handful of land monopolists in the face of protest bordering on revolt. In short, all the prominent reforms were represented as hinging upon a state of things where people are being ruled without their assent.
Hearing this representation of the case constantly reiterated, one of the philosophers arose and expressed his utter astonishment that thinking people should suppose that any of these classes and peoples are ruled without their assent. On the contrary, these classes and peoples not only assent to despotism in every case, but they invite it, take off the hat to it, and make the most elaborate arrangements to receive and welcome it. For how, he maintained, could one man oppose eighty million without their consent and affectionate assent, and how could two though absentee landlords enslave three million of people unless the latter cordially assented to it?
It is not necessary to enter into a philosophical analysis of what is embodied in the term assent to see that the statement of this latter philosopher is perfectly true. With perhaps the exception of the Nihilists, the people of Russia assent to the domination of the czar. The convincing proof that the elephant really assents to being tormented by a troublesome and persistent flea on his eyelid is that he does not brush the flea off. If it be alleged that dissent would be of no avail, with his huge trunk chained to his legs, the question naturally suggests itself: How came he to allow a weak mortal biped to chain him, when one gentle sarge of his great body would have ground his master to jelly? Ah! The answer comes unbidden, - his ignorance and superstitious reverence for the office of his keeper makes him a slave. And that is what makes the people of Russia slaves, the people of Ireland slaves, the women slaves, and humanity in general servile.
The writer was once an eye-witness of an incident which bears very significantly on this matter of assent as it pertains to Ireland's degradation and oppression. A rude Irishman had been long pestered by a burly priest for not attending mass and contributing to the usury-box. One day, as he was swaggering along the street, half intoxicated, and savagely bidding for a knock-down fight, he was accosted by his priest, who berated him severely for his shortcomings. His answer not exactly suiting the ecclesiastical functionary, the latter suddenly lifted a huge cane which he carried and felled the man to the ground with one blow. Half stunned, and with blood streaming down his face, he arose to his feet, his fists clenched, and inwardly boiling with rage. He partly raised his arms to retort on his brutal antagonist, but one look from that priestly visage dearmed him, and, with a burning pang, he exclaimed: "Ah, yer riverence, I'll not strike ye; but, by the holy virgin, remimber it's only yer holy office that proticts yo!"
Yes, and it is this reverence for office, holy and unholy, that has kept Ireland in chains all these centuries,and still nurtures that foul ulcer, the czardom, on the face of humanity, which the Nihilists alone are ready to tear out by the root and bury it out of sight forever. Success to the Nihilists! They are the only men and women in Russia who do not assent. Liberty honors their deeds and their memories, without fear and without equivocation.
But we by no means would have it inferred that ecclesiastical office is the deadliest bane of progress. The whole tribe of priests are simply the left wing of despotism. They are adjuncts and co-partners in the game of social fraud, along with emperors, kings, presidents, diplomats, and other uniformed and titled operators who perpetuate all the studied tricks on the bill. Behind all despotism, whatever it may be, there is some underlying superstition which inveigles the masses into passive assent. This superstition find its expression in an office of some kind; the office perverts men's wits and consciences, and forestalls revolt.
It is the purpose of Liberty to get to the bottom of all things, except the bottom of its purse. Government is a machine invented by a few designing schemers to excite discord and war, and profit by the spoils. The main trick by which conspiracy is perpetuated lies in keeping up superstitious reverence for authority by cunningly decorating it with official insignia. This induces the masses to give practical assent to that which persecutes and enslaves them. Once get the lever of Liberty under the keystone of superstition, and the arch of despotism will tumble into ruins.
Hearing this representation of the case constantly reiterated, one of the philosophers arose and expressed his utter astonishment that thinking people should suppose that any of these classes and peoples are ruled without their assent. On the contrary, these classes and peoples not only assent to despotism in every case, but they invite it, take off the hat to it, and make the most elaborate arrangements to receive and welcome it. For how, he maintained, could one man oppose eighty million without their consent and affectionate assent, and how could two though absentee landlords enslave three million of people unless the latter cordially assented to it?
It is not necessary to enter into a philosophical analysis of what is embodied in the term assent to see that the statement of this latter philosopher is perfectly true. With perhaps the exception of the Nihilists, the people of Russia assent to the domination of the czar. The convincing proof that the elephant really assents to being tormented by a troublesome and persistent flea on his eyelid is that he does not brush the flea off. If it be alleged that dissent would be of no avail, with his huge trunk chained to his legs, the question naturally suggests itself: How came he to allow a weak mortal biped to chain him, when one gentle sarge of his great body would have ground his master to jelly? Ah! The answer comes unbidden, - his ignorance and superstitious reverence for the office of his keeper makes him a slave. And that is what makes the people of Russia slaves, the people of Ireland slaves, the women slaves, and humanity in general servile.
The writer was once an eye-witness of an incident which bears very significantly on this matter of assent as it pertains to Ireland's degradation and oppression. A rude Irishman had been long pestered by a burly priest for not attending mass and contributing to the usury-box. One day, as he was swaggering along the street, half intoxicated, and savagely bidding for a knock-down fight, he was accosted by his priest, who berated him severely for his shortcomings. His answer not exactly suiting the ecclesiastical functionary, the latter suddenly lifted a huge cane which he carried and felled the man to the ground with one blow. Half stunned, and with blood streaming down his face, he arose to his feet, his fists clenched, and inwardly boiling with rage. He partly raised his arms to retort on his brutal antagonist, but one look from that priestly visage dearmed him, and, with a burning pang, he exclaimed: "Ah, yer riverence, I'll not strike ye; but, by the holy virgin, remimber it's only yer holy office that proticts yo!"
Yes, and it is this reverence for office, holy and unholy, that has kept Ireland in chains all these centuries,and still nurtures that foul ulcer, the czardom, on the face of humanity, which the Nihilists alone are ready to tear out by the root and bury it out of sight forever. Success to the Nihilists! They are the only men and women in Russia who do not assent. Liberty honors their deeds and their memories, without fear and without equivocation.
But we by no means would have it inferred that ecclesiastical office is the deadliest bane of progress. The whole tribe of priests are simply the left wing of despotism. They are adjuncts and co-partners in the game of social fraud, along with emperors, kings, presidents, diplomats, and other uniformed and titled operators who perpetuate all the studied tricks on the bill. Behind all despotism, whatever it may be, there is some underlying superstition which inveigles the masses into passive assent. This superstition find its expression in an office of some kind; the office perverts men's wits and consciences, and forestalls revolt.
It is the purpose of Liberty to get to the bottom of all things, except the bottom of its purse. Government is a machine invented by a few designing schemers to excite discord and war, and profit by the spoils. The main trick by which conspiracy is perpetuated lies in keeping up superstitious reverence for authority by cunningly decorating it with official insignia. This induces the masses to give practical assent to that which persecutes and enslaves them. Once get the lever of Liberty under the keystone of superstition, and the arch of despotism will tumble into ruins.
3/20/12
Land and Liberty.
Within the past two years the above heading probably has decorated every public bulletin-board in this country and Great Britain. Yet probably owes its prominence to the mere accidental alliteration, and has no rational significance to the average mind.
What has land to with liberty, or liberty with land? Certainly, if political liberty is meant, the Land Leaguers are strangely adrift, for in the very country to-day where savage despotism reigns and liberty is almost unknown, the people possess, occupy, and enjoy the soil with a liberality equaled by no other, while in that country said to have the most liberal, popular, and truly representative constitution on earth, the people are practically cut off from free and equitable enjoyment of the soil. Russia is as far ahead of Great Britain in the matter of popular enjoyment of the land as Great Britain is in advance of Russia in political liberty. Again, in Switzerland and the United States, both republics, we find in the former a most liberal and equitable distribution of land, while in the latter land monopoly is scarcely less formidable, and vastly more threatening for the future, than in Great Britain.
The sense in which are friends are prompted to associate land with liberty probably arises from the very natural feeling that, were the land more widely distributed, the rent-tax now levied upon the mass of farmers in Ireland would be lifted from their shoulders, and they would attain to greater liberty in the sense that any other animal acquires greater liberty through a lessening or removal of its load. A very elementary idea of liberty this, but logical as far as it goes.
But since the rent-tax is only one form of profit-theft, why land and liberty any more than every other article of commerce, and liberty? For it is by no means certain that land-monopoly is the chief source of profit-theft. It is the original (temporal) source, and a very good basis upon which to attack profit-theft; but it is, after all, only one source. Behind the wide range of profit-plunder lies the concrete embodiment of the whole iniquity - usury.
The problem, then, upon closer analysis, reduces itself to this affirmation: Destroy usury, and you attain liberty. The greatest of all powers for good now working on this planet for the emancipation of oppressed humanity, the "Irish World," has got so far with the problem. "Usury is Theft!" it cries out to 100,000 profit-ridden slaves every week, and it means by usury every species of something-for-nothing tribute, whether it be in the form of rent, interest, or ordinary profits in the realm of trade.
But the "Irish World," glorious as is its work and mission, has yet one more stage in the problem to conquer. Who is responsible for usury? Who sustains it? Who backs it with artillery? Usury, left to its merits as a voluntary social arrangement, could not stand for a day. As Patrick Ford well knows, the insignificant banditti known as landlords, who enslave Ireland, would run for their lives, or sink to their knees like cur whining for merey, were not a police force of 100,000 men kept at their backs against the protest of 5,000,000 people.
The State, then, is the author and defender of usury, as it to-day holds its murderous grasp at the throat of Ireland. And who is the State? The landlords, as the "Irish World" has reiterated a hundred times. Why, then, not abolish the State, and get down to the hard-pan of the whole problem?
Ah! But we touch delicate ground. The "Irish World" will never reach that third and last stage of the problem of liberty. It is with a feeling of deep regret that now indulge in a little plain talk, but duty will not permit us to talk otherwise, if we talk at all, and the silence would be a crime against liberty. The moment the "Irish World" attacks the State, it attacks the popes, the bishops, the priests, and the whole tribe of spiritual userers, who knew their art well before the first temporal landlord was born.
Spiritual Usurers! Yea, these are the worst abominations in the whole series. "The monopolizing of natural wealth," cries the "Irish World," "Is the bottom crime!" But we have natural wealth spiritual and natural wealth temporal. We have landlords spiritual and landlords temporal. Yea, and the landlords spiritual are the creators, abettors, supporters, and defenders of landlords temporal. The very Christian God to whom the "Irish World" appeals every week is the Father of usury, and his agents, the ecclesiastics, from the pope down to the pettiest priest who demands an admission-fee at the church-door for the supposed benefit of enjoying the sacraments, are spiritual landlords' bailiffs. These so-called sacraments - what are they but spiritual natural wealth monopolized by these mitred and surpliced thieves, and rented out for profit? If there is any power for good in this world that it pains us to criticize, it is Patrick Ford's great "Industrial Liberator." But a more pitiable plight never fell to the lot of a beneficent organ of light and truth. It has reached the second stage of solution in the problem of liberty, but can never get any further so long as it remains the "Irish World" with that phallic symbol, the cross, at the top.
The State is the immediate supporter and defender of usury. Behind the civil state is the spiritual state. Both have one common cause, the enslavement of the masses. Behind the whole is God, the author and finisher of usury and every other enslaving device that paves the way for man's inhumanity to man. Liberty aims to abolish them all, and all superstitious reverence for their unholy offices. Liberty alone has mastered the third stage of the problem of emancipation, and proposes to stand upon the logic of it without fear or favor. Come with us, good friends, and then you will not only know what "Land and Liberty" mean, but, in solving the whole problem of liberty, all these other good things will be added unto you.
What has land to with liberty, or liberty with land? Certainly, if political liberty is meant, the Land Leaguers are strangely adrift, for in the very country to-day where savage despotism reigns and liberty is almost unknown, the people possess, occupy, and enjoy the soil with a liberality equaled by no other, while in that country said to have the most liberal, popular, and truly representative constitution on earth, the people are practically cut off from free and equitable enjoyment of the soil. Russia is as far ahead of Great Britain in the matter of popular enjoyment of the land as Great Britain is in advance of Russia in political liberty. Again, in Switzerland and the United States, both republics, we find in the former a most liberal and equitable distribution of land, while in the latter land monopoly is scarcely less formidable, and vastly more threatening for the future, than in Great Britain.
The sense in which are friends are prompted to associate land with liberty probably arises from the very natural feeling that, were the land more widely distributed, the rent-tax now levied upon the mass of farmers in Ireland would be lifted from their shoulders, and they would attain to greater liberty in the sense that any other animal acquires greater liberty through a lessening or removal of its load. A very elementary idea of liberty this, but logical as far as it goes.
But since the rent-tax is only one form of profit-theft, why land and liberty any more than every other article of commerce, and liberty? For it is by no means certain that land-monopoly is the chief source of profit-theft. It is the original (temporal) source, and a very good basis upon which to attack profit-theft; but it is, after all, only one source. Behind the wide range of profit-plunder lies the concrete embodiment of the whole iniquity - usury.
The problem, then, upon closer analysis, reduces itself to this affirmation: Destroy usury, and you attain liberty. The greatest of all powers for good now working on this planet for the emancipation of oppressed humanity, the "Irish World," has got so far with the problem. "Usury is Theft!" it cries out to 100,000 profit-ridden slaves every week, and it means by usury every species of something-for-nothing tribute, whether it be in the form of rent, interest, or ordinary profits in the realm of trade.
But the "Irish World," glorious as is its work and mission, has yet one more stage in the problem to conquer. Who is responsible for usury? Who sustains it? Who backs it with artillery? Usury, left to its merits as a voluntary social arrangement, could not stand for a day. As Patrick Ford well knows, the insignificant banditti known as landlords, who enslave Ireland, would run for their lives, or sink to their knees like cur whining for merey, were not a police force of 100,000 men kept at their backs against the protest of 5,000,000 people.
The State, then, is the author and defender of usury, as it to-day holds its murderous grasp at the throat of Ireland. And who is the State? The landlords, as the "Irish World" has reiterated a hundred times. Why, then, not abolish the State, and get down to the hard-pan of the whole problem?
Ah! But we touch delicate ground. The "Irish World" will never reach that third and last stage of the problem of liberty. It is with a feeling of deep regret that now indulge in a little plain talk, but duty will not permit us to talk otherwise, if we talk at all, and the silence would be a crime against liberty. The moment the "Irish World" attacks the State, it attacks the popes, the bishops, the priests, and the whole tribe of spiritual userers, who knew their art well before the first temporal landlord was born.
Spiritual Usurers! Yea, these are the worst abominations in the whole series. "The monopolizing of natural wealth," cries the "Irish World," "Is the bottom crime!" But we have natural wealth spiritual and natural wealth temporal. We have landlords spiritual and landlords temporal. Yea, and the landlords spiritual are the creators, abettors, supporters, and defenders of landlords temporal. The very Christian God to whom the "Irish World" appeals every week is the Father of usury, and his agents, the ecclesiastics, from the pope down to the pettiest priest who demands an admission-fee at the church-door for the supposed benefit of enjoying the sacraments, are spiritual landlords' bailiffs. These so-called sacraments - what are they but spiritual natural wealth monopolized by these mitred and surpliced thieves, and rented out for profit? If there is any power for good in this world that it pains us to criticize, it is Patrick Ford's great "Industrial Liberator." But a more pitiable plight never fell to the lot of a beneficent organ of light and truth. It has reached the second stage of solution in the problem of liberty, but can never get any further so long as it remains the "Irish World" with that phallic symbol, the cross, at the top.
The State is the immediate supporter and defender of usury. Behind the civil state is the spiritual state. Both have one common cause, the enslavement of the masses. Behind the whole is God, the author and finisher of usury and every other enslaving device that paves the way for man's inhumanity to man. Liberty aims to abolish them all, and all superstitious reverence for their unholy offices. Liberty alone has mastered the third stage of the problem of emancipation, and proposes to stand upon the logic of it without fear or favor. Come with us, good friends, and then you will not only know what "Land and Liberty" mean, but, in solving the whole problem of liberty, all these other good things will be added unto you.
3/12/12
Vive l'Association Internationale!
The late Col. William B. Greene, then whom no keener philosopher has yet been produced in America, speaking in 1873, in a pamphlet, of the International Working-People's Association, of which he was a member, said: "No man can claim the merit of having made it; it came of itself. No man can destroy it. It may dissolve a hundred time; but, every time it dissolves, it will crystallize anew. Its soul is immortal, and its body can never be annihilated: it is fore-ordained that it shall live under a thousand successive names. Multitudes of labor-organizations which never heard of it, and of which it never heard, are natural, integral parts of it. It is vital in every member, and will live forever, or, at the least, until the wrongs of man upon this earth are righted."
The truth of these memorable words was proved afresh on the 16th of July this year, when the Revolutionary Congress, then in session in London, revived the famous International, which had then for some years lain dorment. To this momentous event, which marks an epoch in the progress of the great labor movement, and to the proceedings of the body entitled to the credit of it, Liberty, in the present issue, devotes a large portion of her space. From the letter of our correspondent, who was a delegate to the Congress, and whom we have engaged to write regularly to Liberty from Europe, and from additional information gleaned from "Le Révolté," a tolerably accurate idea may be formed of what was done in London. Beyond the meagre and unsatisfactory cable dispatches received at the time, ours is the first report, we believe, to be published in America, and will be read with more interest on that account.
A significant feature of this re-establishment of the International is the thorough accordance of its new plan of organization with strictly anarchistic principles. Every precaution has been taken to avoid even the show of authority and to secure the largest liberty to the component parts of the association. Good! In Liberty there is strength. Henceforth the International is secure against destruction from within by ambition or from without by malevolence.
Only the future can determine how far the Congress, was wise in subordinating propagandism by voice and pen to what it calls "propagandism by fact." It will not do, as Wendell Phillips says, to judge the methods on reformers 3,000 miles away. And yet we must affirm our conviction that no question is ever finally settled until it is settled peaceably and by consent. A revolution, to be permanent, must first be mental. Almost the only excuse for the use of force is the suppression of mental life, and its only legitimate function to remove, where absolutely necessary, the obstacles to peaceful agitation. That such a removal has become necessary in Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy we have little or no doubt; that it may be avoided in France, Belgium, and Switzerland is still within the limits of possibility; that a comparatively peaceful solution will be effected without it in Great Britain and the United States is more than probable.
But, however this may be, all friends of labor must rejoice at seeing the most effective instrumentality ever in existence, for the advancement of labor's claims, once more in full operation, taking up its work of justice where it was compelled to drop it several years ago. We hail its revival with delight and renewed hope. We predict for it a future even more glorious than its past. We trust that it has experienced its last dissolution, and wish that Col. Greene were here to shout with us: Vive l'Association Internationale!
The truth of these memorable words was proved afresh on the 16th of July this year, when the Revolutionary Congress, then in session in London, revived the famous International, which had then for some years lain dorment. To this momentous event, which marks an epoch in the progress of the great labor movement, and to the proceedings of the body entitled to the credit of it, Liberty, in the present issue, devotes a large portion of her space. From the letter of our correspondent, who was a delegate to the Congress, and whom we have engaged to write regularly to Liberty from Europe, and from additional information gleaned from "Le Révolté," a tolerably accurate idea may be formed of what was done in London. Beyond the meagre and unsatisfactory cable dispatches received at the time, ours is the first report, we believe, to be published in America, and will be read with more interest on that account.
A significant feature of this re-establishment of the International is the thorough accordance of its new plan of organization with strictly anarchistic principles. Every precaution has been taken to avoid even the show of authority and to secure the largest liberty to the component parts of the association. Good! In Liberty there is strength. Henceforth the International is secure against destruction from within by ambition or from without by malevolence.
Only the future can determine how far the Congress, was wise in subordinating propagandism by voice and pen to what it calls "propagandism by fact." It will not do, as Wendell Phillips says, to judge the methods on reformers 3,000 miles away. And yet we must affirm our conviction that no question is ever finally settled until it is settled peaceably and by consent. A revolution, to be permanent, must first be mental. Almost the only excuse for the use of force is the suppression of mental life, and its only legitimate function to remove, where absolutely necessary, the obstacles to peaceful agitation. That such a removal has become necessary in Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy we have little or no doubt; that it may be avoided in France, Belgium, and Switzerland is still within the limits of possibility; that a comparatively peaceful solution will be effected without it in Great Britain and the United States is more than probable.
But, however this may be, all friends of labor must rejoice at seeing the most effective instrumentality ever in existence, for the advancement of labor's claims, once more in full operation, taking up its work of justice where it was compelled to drop it several years ago. We hail its revival with delight and renewed hope. We predict for it a future even more glorious than its past. We trust that it has experienced its last dissolution, and wish that Col. Greene were here to shout with us: Vive l'Association Internationale!
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