A pious lady of Providence, who had been a long sufferer from asthma, and had been taking faith as a remedy and calling upon divine aid as a sure cure, lately became discouraged, and sent for a physician. His remedies soon afforded relief, and one day, after a season of thought, as he was about to go, she exclaimed:
"Doctor, I have been calling on God for fifteen years. Finding no relief from that source, and concluding that he either did not mean to help me, or else was getting old and hard of hearing, I called on you. You have helped me, and in the future I shall bet on you every time."
"Ah, madam," responded the doctor, "you labor under misapprehension. God has become homeopath, and of late years answers no allopathic calls."
"Hurrah!" shouted the happy lady, as the doctor closed the door; "even God himself begins to quicken under the impulses of modern progress. There is yet hope for afflicted humanity."
Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, then it could be had for fifty cents a year - Now only a click away.
3/22/12
A Welcome and a Warning.
DEAR MR. TUCKER, - I am very much obliged with Liberty. I can give it no higher praise than to say it is as good, and no better than, I expected from you. Barring the doctrine it teaches, - some of them, - I have not a criticism to make nor an improvement to suggest. The "heading" - a point about which I claim to be a judge - is striking and artistic, and you are quite right in calling it "a real work of art." I am glad you have chosen the word "L i b e r t y" - with every letter standing alone - for your title; it is decidedly suggestive of "individual sovereignty." By the way, one criticism: why have you connected the letters of the word at the head of the second page? You ought not to be inconsistent. You believe that every man - and woman too - can stand alone, and that he or she ought to be let to stand alone. You don't want any social ties or guarantees. Though I should think that the very pronouns "he" and "she" ought to convince you that the two sexes cannot stand alone. And if the two sexes cannot be independent of each other, much less can they, individually or collectively, be independent of that large entity we call "society."
I welcome your paper with congratulations and sincerity. At last we have a frank, honest, outspoken, and aggressive advocate of egoistic liberty. Now we shall know what "An-archism" (with or without the hyphen, and in the truest sense of the word) means. You have thrown down your gauntlet in the face of society, including Mrs. Grundy and Mr. Grundy and all the little Grundys. And you have thrown it down especially in the face of the Socialists. That is good. We shall not be slow in taking it up. Socialists of all kinds - and you know there are many kinds - will go for you. They will neither ask nor give quarter. It is true, we have a common enemy. Our great battle is not with each other, but with the gross tyranny called - falsely - "society" to-day. But I recognize that we have to whip you, "body, soul, and breeches," before we shall be fairly ready to show an unbroken front to our and your more powerful enemy.
In your first number you have defined the State. You have made of it a great Tyrant. We will show you an individual that is composed of all individuals; an individual that is indivisible, immortal, and supreme.
But I must stop. You have hoisted the banner of Egoistic Liberty. You spell the word with disconnected letters. It means An-archy.
We will meet you with the flag of "Freedom," and we will write the word with a running hand. It will be Social Freedom - Society.
Au revoir W.G.H. SMART
Mattapan, Mass., Aug. 9, 1881.
I welcome your paper with congratulations and sincerity. At last we have a frank, honest, outspoken, and aggressive advocate of egoistic liberty. Now we shall know what "An-archism" (with or without the hyphen, and in the truest sense of the word) means. You have thrown down your gauntlet in the face of society, including Mrs. Grundy and Mr. Grundy and all the little Grundys. And you have thrown it down especially in the face of the Socialists. That is good. We shall not be slow in taking it up. Socialists of all kinds - and you know there are many kinds - will go for you. They will neither ask nor give quarter. It is true, we have a common enemy. Our great battle is not with each other, but with the gross tyranny called - falsely - "society" to-day. But I recognize that we have to whip you, "body, soul, and breeches," before we shall be fairly ready to show an unbroken front to our and your more powerful enemy.
In your first number you have defined the State. You have made of it a great Tyrant. We will show you an individual that is composed of all individuals; an individual that is indivisible, immortal, and supreme.
But I must stop. You have hoisted the banner of Egoistic Liberty. You spell the word with disconnected letters. It means An-archy.
We will meet you with the flag of "Freedom," and we will write the word with a running hand. It will be Social Freedom - Society.
Au revoir W.G.H. SMART
Mattapan, Mass., Aug. 9, 1881.
Communism versus Commercialism.
The only society in which the rights of individuals will be respected will be a communistic society, in which the partnership will always be voluntary. Where the right to secede is not recognized - in a family, a state, or a federation of states - there exists subjection, slavery.
All the frenzied babble about the right of majorities to govern other than themselves must cease. Between kingcraft and communism there is no logical or permanent abiding-place. The rights of all individuals must be recognized as equal, or, sooner or later, we must submit to the "divine rights of kings" - supreme thieves.
Already, in these States, we have an upper ten and an upper ten thousand - virtually ten kings and ten thousand peers of the realm - whose wealth is stolen from the people by the vilest monopolies, usurpations, usuries; and this devilish aristocracy is not despised, but admired. To-day this aristocracy is more powerful and vicious than that of Britain, and the vox populi is now really less effective in the United States than it is in the United Kingdom.
Commercialism is organized discord. Communism is organized harmony. Commercialism is compulsory conflict. Communism is voluntary concrete.
WM. HARRISON HILEY.
All the frenzied babble about the right of majorities to govern other than themselves must cease. Between kingcraft and communism there is no logical or permanent abiding-place. The rights of all individuals must be recognized as equal, or, sooner or later, we must submit to the "divine rights of kings" - supreme thieves.
Already, in these States, we have an upper ten and an upper ten thousand - virtually ten kings and ten thousand peers of the realm - whose wealth is stolen from the people by the vilest monopolies, usurpations, usuries; and this devilish aristocracy is not despised, but admired. To-day this aristocracy is more powerful and vicious than that of Britain, and the vox populi is now really less effective in the United States than it is in the United Kingdom.
Commercialism is organized discord. Communism is organized harmony. Commercialism is compulsory conflict. Communism is voluntary concrete.
WM. HARRISON HILEY.
3/21/12
Editorials.
The Boston "Advertiser," relict, continues in deep mourning for her long-lost love, the whipping-post. Time cannot assuage her grief nor dry her tears. Sweet are the memories of her halcyon days, - the agonizing shrieks of denuded women in the marketplace, the hissing lash that stained their fair, white skin with blood. The leopard may change his spots, but his thirst for blood is insatiable. The wrinkled dame, to solace her declining days, would have us re-adorn her our public squares, now graced with such momentos of man's growing sense of Liberty and love as the emancipation group, with the antique, chaste, and Christian whipping-post. But really we couldn't, you know. Liberty has too great a regard for the grandam's weak backbone to subject it to such a risk, seeing that those Socialists who are not Anarchists may yet get possession of the government and interpret freedom of the press for themselves, as the masters of the "Advertiser" now interpret it to suit their purposes. It is upon vandals such as mutilate the sentient plants in the Public Garden that she would use the lash, though horrified when crowned, usurpers and assassins are hoist with their own petard. We suspect that the old lady would emigrate to St. Petersburg, chief city of the land of the knout, except for the danger of having to face the dreaded alternative of Siberia or dynamite.
______________________________
The Springfield "Republican" is nothing, if not inaccurate. A few weeks ago it announced Dr. Nathan-Ganz as still in jail, and not many days later it crammed three lies into three lines by describing the editor of Liberty as a resident of Princeton and editor of the "Word," calling the latter a "recently deceased journal." Now, the facts about these matters are that Dr. Nathan-Ganz, in absence of evidence against him, was discharged five months ago; that the editor of Liberty left Princeton five years ago; that he is not editor of the "Word;" and that the "Word" still lives. And yet the "Republican" prides itself on being a news paper. Perhaps it gets all its news now from that pseudo-nihilist, John Baker, who supplies its columns with irregular installments of lies about the Russian revolution and revolutionists.
______________________________
An omnipresent person necessarily would be shapeless and inert.
An omnipresent person necessarily would be shapeless and inert.
Pity, But Not Praise.
Under ordinary circumstances a man's dying hours are no time to recall his errors. But the extravagant language used by the press and people, especially the Democratic press and people, in connection with President Garfield's present danger, may excuse now what otherwise would be out of place. As to the act committed by Guiteau all sensible men agree. Nothing but its insanity saves it from being dastardly, bloodthirsty, and thoroughly devilish, without reason, proper motive, or excuse. No man regrets is more than we do, and no one would condemn it more strongly than we, had it been the work of a responsible mind. For the Guiteau style of assassination we have no apology. But how about the victim? Does the fact that a man has been shot change his moral character? One year ago four-fifths of Democrats and no small percentage of Republicans (journals and citizens alike) believe Garfield to be a bribed man and a perjurer, and publicly branded him as such. Now nearly all who made those charges vie with the most ardent of his admirers in ascribing to him all the virtues in the calender raised to their highest power. What has happened within twelve months to alter General Garfield's moral status? A few more people have voted for him for the office than voted for his competitor, and he has been shot by a crazy man. Will any one soberly maintain that these facts are sufficient, not only to erase the the memory of crime, but to lift the man guilty of it to a moral height rarely reached by the most stainless of his fellows? For ourselves we believed the gravest of the charges against the president from the first, and the fact that we sincerely hope for his recovery does not lighten the weight of the evidence that supported them; though we would not reassert them now, did not others retract them without reason.
And why this universal lamentation? The death of General Garfield before his nomination for the presidency would have caused no greater agitation of the nation's heart than would the death of Senator Edmunds or Senator Davis to-day. And yet whatever gratitude he is entitled to from his countrymen he earned before that event. The fact is that people do not mourn for the man. A spirit of flunkyism still pervades the masses, and only the insignia of office call forth this inordinate sorrow and extravagant expression of grief. Let there be sympathy for the sufferer; let the desire for his recovery be that which every person with a heart would naturally feel; but let there be no bowing before his official station merely for its sake, and, above all, let none who have bitterly denounced him in the past condemn, by eulogy to-day, their previous utterances as insincere and their utterances of the future as unworthy of the slightest confidence.
And why this universal lamentation? The death of General Garfield before his nomination for the presidency would have caused no greater agitation of the nation's heart than would the death of Senator Edmunds or Senator Davis to-day. And yet whatever gratitude he is entitled to from his countrymen he earned before that event. The fact is that people do not mourn for the man. A spirit of flunkyism still pervades the masses, and only the insignia of office call forth this inordinate sorrow and extravagant expression of grief. Let there be sympathy for the sufferer; let the desire for his recovery be that which every person with a heart would naturally feel; but let there be no bowing before his official station merely for its sake, and, above all, let none who have bitterly denounced him in the past condemn, by eulogy to-day, their previous utterances as insincere and their utterances of the future as unworthy of the slightest confidence.
Two Kinds of Communism.
We do not believe in communism in the economic sense of the world. To us it seems, for many reasons, an impossible and undesirable form of society. Proudhon described it accurately as well ad epigrammatically when he called it the "religion of poverty." But it is not our special business to antagonize the voluntary communism vigorously pictured by W.H. Riley in another column. He, and those of his friends who agree with him, may attempt any associative experiment they please. Liberty will look on with interest and report results.
It is compulsory communism of the Bismarckian stamp that we combat. It is the needle-gun socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle that we oppose. Statecraft is our enemy, whether it be that advocated by Jay Gould in the New York "Tribune," or that advocated by our good friend, W.G.H. Smart, in a note printed elsewhere in this journal, - a note, by the way, so good humored, so straightforward, so utterly void of the circumlocation too frequently characteristic of Mr. Smart's newspaper articles, that we publish it with great pleasure. Space is lacking to meet his points now. Nevertheless, one misapprehension should be corrected immediately. We do not believe any one can "stand alone." We do wish "social ties and guarantees." We wish all there are. We believe in human solidarity. We believe that members of society are independent. We would preserve these independencies untrammeled and inviolate. But we have faith in the sufficiency of natural forces. Motives and good impulses aside, we have no sort of sympathy with multitudinous groups of so-called socialists, of all colors, stripes, and propensities, with each its little scheme for bursting the bonds by which nature unites us and tying men and women together anew with artificial chains. None of them, whatever they may claim, believe in the unity of the race. All its members, in their opinion, need to be cemented into unity, and for this purpose each has his patent glue. They wish a manufactured solidarity; we are satisfied with the solidarity inherent in the universe. When Mr. Smart has whipped the Universe, "body, soul, and breeches," Liberty too will throw up the sponge.
It is compulsory communism of the Bismarckian stamp that we combat. It is the needle-gun socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle that we oppose. Statecraft is our enemy, whether it be that advocated by Jay Gould in the New York "Tribune," or that advocated by our good friend, W.G.H. Smart, in a note printed elsewhere in this journal, - a note, by the way, so good humored, so straightforward, so utterly void of the circumlocation too frequently characteristic of Mr. Smart's newspaper articles, that we publish it with great pleasure. Space is lacking to meet his points now. Nevertheless, one misapprehension should be corrected immediately. We do not believe any one can "stand alone." We do wish "social ties and guarantees." We wish all there are. We believe in human solidarity. We believe that members of society are independent. We would preserve these independencies untrammeled and inviolate. But we have faith in the sufficiency of natural forces. Motives and good impulses aside, we have no sort of sympathy with multitudinous groups of so-called socialists, of all colors, stripes, and propensities, with each its little scheme for bursting the bonds by which nature unites us and tying men and women together anew with artificial chains. None of them, whatever they may claim, believe in the unity of the race. All its members, in their opinion, need to be cemented into unity, and for this purpose each has his patent glue. They wish a manufactured solidarity; we are satisfied with the solidarity inherent in the universe. When Mr. Smart has whipped the Universe, "body, soul, and breeches," Liberty too will throw up the sponge.
3/20/12
Shall We Tease Our Big Papa?
Before these lines are read, President Garfield possibly will die; but, though written while his life is hanging in the balance, their lesson will in no case be impertinent, and may not be lost. From this preliminary remark we proceed to say that, if our contemporaries think prayer for the recovery of the president will influence heavenly powers, we truth they will make them; but we should be more impressed were they to act squarely in the full consistency of their faith. Yet, of all the secular editorials that have fallen under notice, not one has so as given a hint of an expectation that the slightest notice will be taken of the universal church's praying by the supposed being to whom the prayer is addressed. On the contrary, we are as good as given to understand that it is not the god, but the president, whose mind is to be influenced. In other words, our editorial brothers do not calculate on moving the Christian God, but think the president will be greatly cheered and benefited. Let the always pious Boston "Advertiser" bear witness. After approving of the proposed day of prayer, it simply adds: "It will be an unspeakable consolation to the president and his family, and help to support them through whatever trial may be in store for them." We hope this may prove to be true; but, all the same, we are called upon, in the larger interest of fact and truth, to press the circumstances into their service. How, then, does the case stand? Several questions rush forward to be unanswered. Two are sufficient for our present use.
Will the consolation of the patient sufferer at the White House be found in the knowledge that the god of heaven has been petitioned to come to his aid, or in the feeling that his countrymen who have been thus solicitous in his behalf? Or, will both considerations have their influence upon him? Our own view of the universe does not admit of what we must call such a besieging of divine will. God, if he exists at all, is not a being to be moved by human beseeching. To suppose that we are never effectually and tenderly cared for except when the god is aroused to special action by our supplications, is to suppose so ill of god that we do ourselves, as we do the god, the grossest injustice. It is an injustice to the god to suppose that he sits unheedful, uncaring, awaiting our united prayers; and it is an injustice to our own capacity for good sense and right behavior to forget, like little children in their impatience, so simple and reasonable a proposition as this - that, if there be a god, he can never need our besieging as a preliminary step to the doing of his duty. The old Bible text, "Wait on the Lord, and be still," is quite to our mind, if we may take the last two words to mean, "Be still; do not tease, worry, or pray." And we should venture to hope that it is this view of the case that the president is disposed to take, but for the reflection that it would involve a keen regret on his part that his countrymen do not all share the same high thought. And especially if it be true, as the "Advertiser" has asserted, that he will derive "unspeakable consolation" from the prayers of the churches, do we restrain the hope that he has lost this popular superstition concerning prayer, as our editorial brethren appear to have done; for, in this hour, we look for a genuine foundation to all the president's hopes. If he is consoled by these offered prayers, we trust it will not be merely because his countrymen have offered them, but quite as certainly because he honestly believes the god is in need of them. What we seek is the truth, the fact; and meantime, before these blessings shall cover the earth as the waters of the sea, we ask for consistency, for intellectual integrity, for sincerity.
Will the consolation of the patient sufferer at the White House be found in the knowledge that the god of heaven has been petitioned to come to his aid, or in the feeling that his countrymen who have been thus solicitous in his behalf? Or, will both considerations have their influence upon him? Our own view of the universe does not admit of what we must call such a besieging of divine will. God, if he exists at all, is not a being to be moved by human beseeching. To suppose that we are never effectually and tenderly cared for except when the god is aroused to special action by our supplications, is to suppose so ill of god that we do ourselves, as we do the god, the grossest injustice. It is an injustice to the god to suppose that he sits unheedful, uncaring, awaiting our united prayers; and it is an injustice to our own capacity for good sense and right behavior to forget, like little children in their impatience, so simple and reasonable a proposition as this - that, if there be a god, he can never need our besieging as a preliminary step to the doing of his duty. The old Bible text, "Wait on the Lord, and be still," is quite to our mind, if we may take the last two words to mean, "Be still; do not tease, worry, or pray." And we should venture to hope that it is this view of the case that the president is disposed to take, but for the reflection that it would involve a keen regret on his part that his countrymen do not all share the same high thought. And especially if it be true, as the "Advertiser" has asserted, that he will derive "unspeakable consolation" from the prayers of the churches, do we restrain the hope that he has lost this popular superstition concerning prayer, as our editorial brethren appear to have done; for, in this hour, we look for a genuine foundation to all the president's hopes. If he is consoled by these offered prayers, we trust it will not be merely because his countrymen have offered them, but quite as certainly because he honestly believes the god is in need of them. What we seek is the truth, the fact; and meantime, before these blessings shall cover the earth as the waters of the sea, we ask for consistency, for intellectual integrity, for sincerity.
A B-B-ird with W-W-W-One F-Feather.
Whether due to the appearance of Liberty, or to some other cause, certain it is that, for some reason or other, a tremendous hubbub has been kicked up in the columns of the "Free Religious Index" regarding the different varieties of Liberalism. The last number fairly swarms with frantic attempts at their classification. Its essayist of the week, Mr. Charles Ellis, analyzes them; its estimable editor pro tem., Mr. B. F. Underwood, "differentiates" them; his equally estimable wife, Sara, discriminates between them; and last, though not least, Mr. H. Clay Neville of Missouri, who is an old hand at the game, reconstructs for the hundredth time his familiar but distinctive categories. As a result we find ourselves neatly divided off into convenient compartments, each with its appropriate label; and very nice labels some of them are. Had we found them in the pages of the "Congregationalist," we certainly should have expected to see Joseph Cook's signature beneath them. Beginning with "anarchists" (which is not offensive unless applied with sneer), the list goes on through "vagarists," "Iconoclasts," "stench-hunters,"superficial and erratic persons with crotchets in their heads," "blind and foolish fanatics," "pirates upon the open sea of society," "dissonant hooters," "radical yawpers," "breeders of communism, free-love, and cancerous curses," and "libertines," till finally, after taking in "villains, thieves, prostitutes, liars, and murderers," it lumps all other Liberals than those of the "Index" school together under the general head of "the whole crew of social fiendism." The upshot of which is that Messrs Ellis, Underwood, et al., have decided that they know it all, and, so deciding, have resolved upon their attitude toward other Liberals and Liberalism, namely, to "come out from among them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing." Such conduct as this on part of the "Free Religious Index" entirely upsets the theory of association held by Lord Dundreary, which that unappreciated philosopher was want to elaborate in the following unique fashion: "They say that b-b-b-birds of a f-f-feather f-flock tog-g-g-gether. Now, w-w-what d-damned nonsense is that! Th-th-think of a h-h-whole lot of birds w-w-with only w-w-w-one feather. Only w-w-one of those birds c-c-c-could have that feather, and h-h-h-he'd f-fly all on w-w-one side. Besides, n-no bird would be such a d-d-damned fool as to g-g-go off in a c-corner and f-f-f-flock all by himself" A great mistake, m'lud and philosopher! There are just birds. And one of them, with its sorry and solitary feather of "Free Religion" feebly flapping in the breeze of Liberty, is flocking all by itself at No. 3 Tremont Place, Boston.
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.
3/19/12
About Progressive People.
James Reopath's name has been removed from the list of members of the Cobden Club.
Felix Prat sees in the French tricolor - fragments of a blouse sewn on to a blood-stained shirt.
Prof. Huxley makes $150,000 a year from his various offices in government and educational institutions.
The late M. Littre translated Dante's "Inferno" into French verse of the thirteenth century by way of pastime.
John Ruskin's health having improved somewhat, he is now engaged on a continuation of his papers entitled "Proserpina."
John Swinton enjoys and doubtless deserves the reputation of being the best after-dinner speaker in the city of New York.
The "Femmes Du Monde" has invited Emile Zola to explain his plan for obtaining the intellectual and moral emancipation of women.
A complete edition of Walt Whitman's poems, carefully revised, but without omissions, will be issued during the autumn by James R. Cagood & Co.
Prince Kropotkin has been expelled by the authorities of Switzerland from the territory which they assume to govern. It is said he will make London his home hereafter.
The late Dean Stanley was thought to be a little too secular by his hearers. "I went to hear about the way to heaven," said one of them, "and I only heard about the way to Palestine."
A four-volume edition of Rousseau's "Confessions," preceded by an essay from the pen of Professor Marc-Monnier, and illustrated by the etchings of Hedouin, has been published by the "Librairie de Bibliophiles," Paris.
Miss Helena Taylor, a niece of John Stuart Mill, takes an active interest in the Ladies' Land League movement in Ireland and England. In company with Miss Anna Parnell she has been delivering addresses to large audiences.
Sojourner Truth has had a large quantity of cabinet photographs taken to sell upon her travels. Upon each card under the picture she has printed the characteristic sentence: "I sell the shadow to support the substance."
George Eliot in her later years always wore a characteristic costume - a long, grace, close-fitting robe. A luxuriant mass of light brown hair hung low on both sides of her head, and was draped with rich point or valenciennes lace.
It is states that the memoirs of Barns, which were the property of the late M. Hortensins de Saint-Albin, and which passed from his hands into the possession of his sister, Mme. Jubinal, will shortly be published in eight volumes.
Gustave Flaubert's villa, near Rouen, wherein he wrote his famous novel of "Madame Bovary," has just been sold for $38,000, and a distillery is to be erected upon the site of the charming mansion, which dates from the time of Louis XV.
Governor Roberts, of Texas, the gentleman distinguished for refusing to order prayers for the president, is sixty years old. He has grey hair, beard, and moustache, and very dark eye-brows. He dresses in a well-worn suit of black, and smokes a corn-cob pipe.
Midhat Pasha refuses to be banished from Turkish soil. "I prefer," he says, "to die here, in sight of the world, as a specimen of the flagrant injustice of your judgements than to perish in the remote corners where my death, like that of a barren tree, would cast no gloom and teach no lesson.
P.A. Taylor, a member of the British parliament, has given notice of his intention, early next session, to call attention to the "undoubted failure of vaccination to prevent epidemics or small-pox," and to move that "it is unjust and impolitical to enforce vaccination under penalties upon those who accord it as unadvisable and dangerous."
James Parton, although one of the most thorough Americans in all his feeling and sympathies, is by birth an English man. He was born in the old cathedral town of Canterburry, whence he was brought to this country at the tender age of four. He was a schoolteacher from nineteen to twenty-five, and began Journalism on the New York "Home Journal," under William and Morris.
Felix Prat sees in the French tricolor - fragments of a blouse sewn on to a blood-stained shirt.
Prof. Huxley makes $150,000 a year from his various offices in government and educational institutions.
The late M. Littre translated Dante's "Inferno" into French verse of the thirteenth century by way of pastime.
John Ruskin's health having improved somewhat, he is now engaged on a continuation of his papers entitled "Proserpina."
John Swinton enjoys and doubtless deserves the reputation of being the best after-dinner speaker in the city of New York.
The "Femmes Du Monde" has invited Emile Zola to explain his plan for obtaining the intellectual and moral emancipation of women.
A complete edition of Walt Whitman's poems, carefully revised, but without omissions, will be issued during the autumn by James R. Cagood & Co.
Prince Kropotkin has been expelled by the authorities of Switzerland from the territory which they assume to govern. It is said he will make London his home hereafter.
The late Dean Stanley was thought to be a little too secular by his hearers. "I went to hear about the way to heaven," said one of them, "and I only heard about the way to Palestine."
A four-volume edition of Rousseau's "Confessions," preceded by an essay from the pen of Professor Marc-Monnier, and illustrated by the etchings of Hedouin, has been published by the "Librairie de Bibliophiles," Paris.
Miss Helena Taylor, a niece of John Stuart Mill, takes an active interest in the Ladies' Land League movement in Ireland and England. In company with Miss Anna Parnell she has been delivering addresses to large audiences.
Sojourner Truth has had a large quantity of cabinet photographs taken to sell upon her travels. Upon each card under the picture she has printed the characteristic sentence: "I sell the shadow to support the substance."
George Eliot in her later years always wore a characteristic costume - a long, grace, close-fitting robe. A luxuriant mass of light brown hair hung low on both sides of her head, and was draped with rich point or valenciennes lace.
It is states that the memoirs of Barns, which were the property of the late M. Hortensins de Saint-Albin, and which passed from his hands into the possession of his sister, Mme. Jubinal, will shortly be published in eight volumes.
Gustave Flaubert's villa, near Rouen, wherein he wrote his famous novel of "Madame Bovary," has just been sold for $38,000, and a distillery is to be erected upon the site of the charming mansion, which dates from the time of Louis XV.
Governor Roberts, of Texas, the gentleman distinguished for refusing to order prayers for the president, is sixty years old. He has grey hair, beard, and moustache, and very dark eye-brows. He dresses in a well-worn suit of black, and smokes a corn-cob pipe.
Midhat Pasha refuses to be banished from Turkish soil. "I prefer," he says, "to die here, in sight of the world, as a specimen of the flagrant injustice of your judgements than to perish in the remote corners where my death, like that of a barren tree, would cast no gloom and teach no lesson.
P.A. Taylor, a member of the British parliament, has given notice of his intention, early next session, to call attention to the "undoubted failure of vaccination to prevent epidemics or small-pox," and to move that "it is unjust and impolitical to enforce vaccination under penalties upon those who accord it as unadvisable and dangerous."
James Parton, although one of the most thorough Americans in all his feeling and sympathies, is by birth an English man. He was born in the old cathedral town of Canterburry, whence he was brought to this country at the tender age of four. He was a schoolteacher from nineteen to twenty-five, and began Journalism on the New York "Home Journal," under William and Morris.
On Picket Duty.
Liberty, Boston Mass., Saturday, September 3, 1881.
Vol. 1, No. 3
Whatever is is natural; therefore, there can be nothing supernatural.
Wages is not slavery. Wages is a form of voluntary exchange, and voluntary exchange is a form of Liberty.
Henry Maret, the bravest and most consistent writer for the daily press of Paris, has started a daily journal of his own called the "Radical." Success to it.
Henry Ward Beecher says the great vice of politics are lying and whiskey. Judging by the Plymouth preacher, the great vice of religion are lying and "nest-hiding."
How grand a motto that inscribed upon the banner under which MM. Lacroix and Revillion fought against Gambetta for his seat in the chamber of deputies: "By Liberty towards Justice!"
The trembling tyrant, Alexnder III, immured in his winter palaces and Moscow fortresses, is beginning to realize the force of Damon's remark before execution: "Better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the government of men."
"The Church pronounces a thing right (or wrong); therefore it is right (or wrong)," says the religious fanatic. "The State pronounces a thing wrong (or right); therefore it is wrong (or right) says the political fanatic. Both agree in condemning as a blasphemer and enemy of order the atheist and anarchist who trusts in growing human reason and experience as the sole, though fallible, criteria of morality.
With that reformatory movement which calls for the abolition of the presidency and the senate we have no sympathy. German in its origin, we believe, it is at all events German in character. Its realization would be a long step in the centralization and strengthening of power. If there must be power, let us divide it; if there must be a State, let us cripple it all we can. The agencies of tyranny often obstruct one another. Until Liberty induces the people to abolish the house of representatives, let the president and senate be retained to keep it in check.
David Dudley Field, in the International Law Congress, offers a resolution the assassination of royal robbers and murderers shall not be included in political crimes, and that nations shall refuse asylum to those guilty of it; and it passed by acclamation. A guilty conscience makes cowards of our national thieves. The Field family may well tremble in fear of that day when the swindled toilers shall have nothing more - not even a vote - of which to be robbed. Mr. Field, the Working People's International Association will have something to say, authoritatively, about the comity of nations. It may reverse your decision, and where will your band of brothers be then? One Field upon the supreme bench to promulgate decisions formulated by another Field at the bar in the interest of still a third Field in copartnership with the Repubican swindlers who compose the rings and control the monopolies, is a very nice little family arrangement, certainly; but, when the great human family once fathoms the secret of its operations, the lesser will be speedily subordinated to the greater, and may thank its stars if it be not utterly crushed by the fall.
The shortest way to turn a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows. Witness the recent vote in the British Commons on the abolition of the death penalty. Under the administration of the Tories every member of the present ministry voted against the gallows. Under Gladstone's rule John Bright alone remains true to his record; while Sir William Harcourt, whose name stands on the lists of previous years in antagonism to capital punishment, went so far as to speak in its favor. Such is the effect of a little brief authority.
Our memory recalls no "give-away" so delightfully innocent as that of a Catholic bishop of Ohio, who, in a recent proclamation ordering a certain numbers of prayers per day in his diocese, for the recovery of President Garfield, gravely added that, "in case of the president's death, the prayers should be continued during the week following the event, for the welfare of the country." That is to say, having prayed the president to death, his priests must next try to pray the country to death. It is impossible to caricature the Christian system, there being a point beyond which absurdity cannot go.
"There will be no perfect government until men grow from the one-man idea to the all-man idea," says that ablest of Greenback papers, the "Chicago Express." Precisely so; because, the best government being that which governs least, the perfection of government is none at all, a result involved in the all-men idea. But Republicans, Democrats, Prohibitionists, Greenbackers, Socialists, Eight-Hour men, and all governmental schools of reformers seem as yet to have got no further than the majority-of-man idea. The Woman-Suffragists, it is true, do a trifle better in standing for the majority-of-men-and-women idea; but up to present time Liberty and the Anarchists possess a monopoly of the all-men, or better, all-people idea. Possess, we were careful to say; not enjoy: for, being in this, as in all things, anti-monopolists, we should be only too glad to see it diffused throughout the world, to the achievement of which end we are doing our level best.
Europe is becoming thickly dotted with Anarchistic newspapers. Besides the appearance of the clandestine sheet, "Der Kampf," referred to by our foreign correspondent in another column, an announcment is made of the Italian journal, "L'Insurrezione," to be published weekly in London by the well-known Italian revolutionist, Enrico Malatesta, Carlo Cafiero, and Vito Solieri. While holding communism in anarchy as the social ideal and the free action of natural laws of man and society as the scientific method of its attainment, it looks upon the State as the supreme obstacle in the way of the application of this method, and therefore regards insurrection (its name) as the first of duties. It will undoubtedly render valuable aid to the revolutionary cause, and every one who read Italian should forward $1.60, plus foreign postage, for a year's subscription, to Vito Solieri, 8 Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, W, England.
Vol. 1, No. 3
Whatever is is natural; therefore, there can be nothing supernatural.
Wages is not slavery. Wages is a form of voluntary exchange, and voluntary exchange is a form of Liberty.
Henry Maret, the bravest and most consistent writer for the daily press of Paris, has started a daily journal of his own called the "Radical." Success to it.
Henry Ward Beecher says the great vice of politics are lying and whiskey. Judging by the Plymouth preacher, the great vice of religion are lying and "nest-hiding."
How grand a motto that inscribed upon the banner under which MM. Lacroix and Revillion fought against Gambetta for his seat in the chamber of deputies: "By Liberty towards Justice!"
The trembling tyrant, Alexnder III, immured in his winter palaces and Moscow fortresses, is beginning to realize the force of Damon's remark before execution: "Better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the government of men."
"The Church pronounces a thing right (or wrong); therefore it is right (or wrong)," says the religious fanatic. "The State pronounces a thing wrong (or right); therefore it is wrong (or right) says the political fanatic. Both agree in condemning as a blasphemer and enemy of order the atheist and anarchist who trusts in growing human reason and experience as the sole, though fallible, criteria of morality.
With that reformatory movement which calls for the abolition of the presidency and the senate we have no sympathy. German in its origin, we believe, it is at all events German in character. Its realization would be a long step in the centralization and strengthening of power. If there must be power, let us divide it; if there must be a State, let us cripple it all we can. The agencies of tyranny often obstruct one another. Until Liberty induces the people to abolish the house of representatives, let the president and senate be retained to keep it in check.
David Dudley Field, in the International Law Congress, offers a resolution the assassination of royal robbers and murderers shall not be included in political crimes, and that nations shall refuse asylum to those guilty of it; and it passed by acclamation. A guilty conscience makes cowards of our national thieves. The Field family may well tremble in fear of that day when the swindled toilers shall have nothing more - not even a vote - of which to be robbed. Mr. Field, the Working People's International Association will have something to say, authoritatively, about the comity of nations. It may reverse your decision, and where will your band of brothers be then? One Field upon the supreme bench to promulgate decisions formulated by another Field at the bar in the interest of still a third Field in copartnership with the Repubican swindlers who compose the rings and control the monopolies, is a very nice little family arrangement, certainly; but, when the great human family once fathoms the secret of its operations, the lesser will be speedily subordinated to the greater, and may thank its stars if it be not utterly crushed by the fall.
The shortest way to turn a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows. Witness the recent vote in the British Commons on the abolition of the death penalty. Under the administration of the Tories every member of the present ministry voted against the gallows. Under Gladstone's rule John Bright alone remains true to his record; while Sir William Harcourt, whose name stands on the lists of previous years in antagonism to capital punishment, went so far as to speak in its favor. Such is the effect of a little brief authority.
Our memory recalls no "give-away" so delightfully innocent as that of a Catholic bishop of Ohio, who, in a recent proclamation ordering a certain numbers of prayers per day in his diocese, for the recovery of President Garfield, gravely added that, "in case of the president's death, the prayers should be continued during the week following the event, for the welfare of the country." That is to say, having prayed the president to death, his priests must next try to pray the country to death. It is impossible to caricature the Christian system, there being a point beyond which absurdity cannot go.
"There will be no perfect government until men grow from the one-man idea to the all-man idea," says that ablest of Greenback papers, the "Chicago Express." Precisely so; because, the best government being that which governs least, the perfection of government is none at all, a result involved in the all-men idea. But Republicans, Democrats, Prohibitionists, Greenbackers, Socialists, Eight-Hour men, and all governmental schools of reformers seem as yet to have got no further than the majority-of-man idea. The Woman-Suffragists, it is true, do a trifle better in standing for the majority-of-men-and-women idea; but up to present time Liberty and the Anarchists possess a monopoly of the all-men, or better, all-people idea. Possess, we were careful to say; not enjoy: for, being in this, as in all things, anti-monopolists, we should be only too glad to see it diffused throughout the world, to the achievement of which end we are doing our level best.
Europe is becoming thickly dotted with Anarchistic newspapers. Besides the appearance of the clandestine sheet, "Der Kampf," referred to by our foreign correspondent in another column, an announcment is made of the Italian journal, "L'Insurrezione," to be published weekly in London by the well-known Italian revolutionist, Enrico Malatesta, Carlo Cafiero, and Vito Solieri. While holding communism in anarchy as the social ideal and the free action of natural laws of man and society as the scientific method of its attainment, it looks upon the State as the supreme obstacle in the way of the application of this method, and therefore regards insurrection (its name) as the first of duties. It will undoubtedly render valuable aid to the revolutionary cause, and every one who read Italian should forward $1.60, plus foreign postage, for a year's subscription, to Vito Solieri, 8 Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, W, England.
3/16/12
Report of the London Congress.
[Condensed from "Le Révolté."]
The following is the federation compact prepared by the London Congress for submission to all socialistic-revolutionary organizations. It will be seen that it does not differ from that adopted by the Congress of 1866 or 1873, except by some insignificant modifications of that portion of statutes revised at the Congress of 1873, in consequence of definitive abolition of the General Council. Whether to adopt or reject it the groups and federations will decide for themselves.
Whereas, the emancipation of the laborers must be the work of the laborers themselves, and
Whereas, the efforts of the laborers to achieve their emancipation must not tend to the constitutions of new privileges, but to establish for all the same rights and the same duties; and
Whereas, for this reason, the economic emancipation of the working-people is the great object to which all political movement ought to be subordinated; and
Whereas, all previous efforts have failed for want of solidarity between workmen of different trades in the same country and of fraternal union between the working-people of different countries; and
Whereas, the emancipation of the working people is not a mere local or national problem, but, on the contrary, one that interests all civilized nations, its solution being dependent necessarily on their co-operation in theory and practice; and
Whereas, the movement now in progress among the laborers of those countries farthest advanced industrially, in generating new hopes, gives a solemn warning against falling back into old errors, and advises a combination of all efforts still isolated;
For those reasons:
The Congress of the International Association of Working-People, held at Geneva, September 3, 1866, declares that this association recognizes Truth, Justice, Morality, as the proper rule of its own conduct, and that of all adherent societies or individuals, towards all human beings, without distinction of color, faith, or nationality.
The Congress considers it a duty to claim human and civil rights not only for its own members, but also for all persons who preform their duties. No duties without rights, no rights without duties.
The representatives of the revolutionary socialists of both worlds, assembled at London, July 14, 1881, unanimously favoring the total destruction, by force, of existing political and economic institutions, have accepted this declaration of principles.
They declare - in harmony, moreover, with the significance always given it by the International - that the word morality used in the preamble is not used in the sense given it by the bourgeoisie, but in the sense that we can arrive at morality only by abolition, by all methods, of the existing form of society, based on immorality.
Whereas, the time has arrived for passing from the period of affirmation to the period of action, and for adding to propagandism by voice and pen, which has shown to be ineffective, propagandism by fact and insurrectional action.
They propose to adherent groups the following resolution:
The International Association of Working-People declares itself an opponent of parliamentary politics.
Whoever adopts and defends the principles of the Association is eligible for membership.
Each adherent group shall have the right to correspond directly with all other groups and federations that may give it their addresses.
Nevertheless to facilitate relations, an international bureau of information shall be established. This bureau shall be composed of three members.
General expenses shall be covered by voluntary assessments to be remitted to said bureau.
Adhesions shall be received at this bureau and communicated to it by all groups.
An international congress shall be held whenever adherent groups and federations may decide in favor thereof.
Of course the Congress could not declare publicly its full opinion regarding revolutionary methods of action, but in the following resolutions it expressed a few ideas on this point:
Whereas, the International Working-People's Association has recognized the necessity of supplementing propagandism by voice and pen with propagandism by fact; and
Whereas, further, a general revolution is not far off, when the revolutionary elements will be called upon to show the extent of their devotion to the proletarian cause and of their power and action,
The Congress expresses the desire that organizations adherent to the International Working-People's Association may consider carefully the following propositions:
It is strictly necessary to make all possible efforts to spread by action the revolutionary idea and spirit of revolt among that large portion of the popular masses which does not yet take an active part in the movement and cherishes illusions regarding the morality and effectiveness of legal methods.
In abandoning the legal ground on which we have generally stood hitherto extend our action into the domain of illegality, which is the only road leading to revolution, it is necessary to to resort to methods in conformity to this end.
The persecution against which the revolutionary public press struggles in all countries make the organization of a clandestine press a necessity henceforth.
The great mass of laborers in the country still remaining outside of the socialistic-revolutionary movement, it is absolutely necessary to direct our efforts to that quarter, remembering the simplest fact, aimed at existing institutions, speaks louder to the masses than thousands of printed papers and floods of words, and that propagandism by fact in the country is still more important than in cities.
The technical and chemical sciences have already done service in the revolutionary cause and being destined to do still greater service in the future, the Congress recommends organizations and individuals belonging to the International Working-People's Association to give great weight to the study and application of these sciences as a method of defense and attack.
To the foregoing resolutions another was added as follows:
The Congress, recognizing that it has no other right than to indicate a general outline of what it considers the best form of revolutionary socialistic organization, leaves the groups to initiate such organizations, secret or not, as may seem to them useful in effecting the triumph of the Social Revolution.
In the list of delegates were to be found the following of the United States: No. 5, representing the German socialistic-revolutionary club of New York and Philedelphia; No. 7, representing the German section of the socialistic labor party of New York; No. 30, representing the revolutionists of Boston. The following are abstracts of the more important of the sectional reports submitted by the delegates.
America - The industrial situation is the same in New World as in the Old: the same divisions of rich and poor, idle and industrious. In spite of all the obstacles in the shape of political prejudice met in the propagation of socialism, perhaps in the United States, after all, the revolution is furthest advanced. The organizations represented by the present delegate agree in favoring violent revolution. The revolutionary groups are not yet as strong as they should be. Opportunities for overturning the government at Washington have not been taken advantage of. The great strike and the events at Pittsburgh made a great impression in the East. The late strike of the brewers did not tell in our favor, the revolutionary workers not being able to penetrate their councils, which is the more regrettable because the opportunity for revolutionary propagandism was a very good one. It is out opinion that we should join all labor organizations. We do not deny the necessity of open propagandism, since that must attract the masses still outside the movement; but we do not forget the necessity of secret organizations.
The Lower Rhine - The situation in Germany is well known, repression being almost as violent as Russia; the tendency then is absolutely revolutionary. We wish to make not only a defensive, but an offensive struggle. Formerly the socialist party was very strong. We had over 600,000 voters, but now our strength is very much reduced. Therefore we are organizing on a new basis. The capital is really revolutionary. In the cities, where the moderate party is the strongest, the socialist abstain from voting, as will be clearly seen at the approaching elections. In the Rhenish provinces the revolutionary spirit is very strong, and in Bavaria we can count on the peasants. There can be no longer any doubt that the social democrats of Austria are now inspired with our ideas.
Switzerland - In so-called free Switzerland the situation is the same as monarchical States. The liberty granted to socialists is quite as illusory as in other countries. The socialistic-revolutionary movement gains ground, while the parliamentary socialists continually lose, their best elements coming to join us.
France - The socialistic-revolutionary party of Lyons is absolutely inspired by anarchist ideas. It seeks to act on the great mass of laborers. Recently established, it has already obtained a firm footing in Lyons, and foresees an increased rate of growth after the Congress. It expends some of its efforts in neighboring towns, and there is reason to believe that a Lyonese federation, revolutionary in fact as well as words, will soon be definitively organized.
Spain - In spite of the persecution of the International in Spain, the organization has maintained itself intact since 1873. It is purely economic, being made up trade organizations and miscellaneous sections. Strikes are instituted, not as an end, but a means, with a view to organizing laborers. We do not expect to accomplish the revolution by a stroke, but we are sure that, unless the workingmen have some powerful organization of their own, the revolution can be easily defeated by the bourgeoisie. We have no continuous functions. Any one charged with a special duty returns to the ranks as soon as he has fulfilled it. By this means we have avoided individual ascendancy and kept the ambitious aloof. The regional bureaus of the seven organized regions are only as a medium of correspondence; likewise, the federal bureau, which has so little authority and is so powerless to assume any that the federations could get along perfectly well without it. Finally, we have a journal of our own, which, as far as means are concerned, is sure of continued existence.
Reports of similar tenor were submitted from Italy, Belgium, and other countries.
Whereas, the emancipation of the laborers must be the work of the laborers themselves, and
Whereas, the efforts of the laborers to achieve their emancipation must not tend to the constitutions of new privileges, but to establish for all the same rights and the same duties; and
Whereas, for this reason, the economic emancipation of the working-people is the great object to which all political movement ought to be subordinated; and
Whereas, all previous efforts have failed for want of solidarity between workmen of different trades in the same country and of fraternal union between the working-people of different countries; and
Whereas, the emancipation of the working people is not a mere local or national problem, but, on the contrary, one that interests all civilized nations, its solution being dependent necessarily on their co-operation in theory and practice; and
Whereas, the movement now in progress among the laborers of those countries farthest advanced industrially, in generating new hopes, gives a solemn warning against falling back into old errors, and advises a combination of all efforts still isolated;
For those reasons:
The Congress of the International Association of Working-People, held at Geneva, September 3, 1866, declares that this association recognizes Truth, Justice, Morality, as the proper rule of its own conduct, and that of all adherent societies or individuals, towards all human beings, without distinction of color, faith, or nationality.
The Congress considers it a duty to claim human and civil rights not only for its own members, but also for all persons who preform their duties. No duties without rights, no rights without duties.
The representatives of the revolutionary socialists of both worlds, assembled at London, July 14, 1881, unanimously favoring the total destruction, by force, of existing political and economic institutions, have accepted this declaration of principles.
They declare - in harmony, moreover, with the significance always given it by the International - that the word morality used in the preamble is not used in the sense given it by the bourgeoisie, but in the sense that we can arrive at morality only by abolition, by all methods, of the existing form of society, based on immorality.
Whereas, the time has arrived for passing from the period of affirmation to the period of action, and for adding to propagandism by voice and pen, which has shown to be ineffective, propagandism by fact and insurrectional action.
They propose to adherent groups the following resolution:
The International Association of Working-People declares itself an opponent of parliamentary politics.
Whoever adopts and defends the principles of the Association is eligible for membership.
Each adherent group shall have the right to correspond directly with all other groups and federations that may give it their addresses.
Nevertheless to facilitate relations, an international bureau of information shall be established. This bureau shall be composed of three members.
General expenses shall be covered by voluntary assessments to be remitted to said bureau.
Adhesions shall be received at this bureau and communicated to it by all groups.
An international congress shall be held whenever adherent groups and federations may decide in favor thereof.
Of course the Congress could not declare publicly its full opinion regarding revolutionary methods of action, but in the following resolutions it expressed a few ideas on this point:
Whereas, the International Working-People's Association has recognized the necessity of supplementing propagandism by voice and pen with propagandism by fact; and
Whereas, further, a general revolution is not far off, when the revolutionary elements will be called upon to show the extent of their devotion to the proletarian cause and of their power and action,
The Congress expresses the desire that organizations adherent to the International Working-People's Association may consider carefully the following propositions:
It is strictly necessary to make all possible efforts to spread by action the revolutionary idea and spirit of revolt among that large portion of the popular masses which does not yet take an active part in the movement and cherishes illusions regarding the morality and effectiveness of legal methods.
In abandoning the legal ground on which we have generally stood hitherto extend our action into the domain of illegality, which is the only road leading to revolution, it is necessary to to resort to methods in conformity to this end.
The persecution against which the revolutionary public press struggles in all countries make the organization of a clandestine press a necessity henceforth.
The great mass of laborers in the country still remaining outside of the socialistic-revolutionary movement, it is absolutely necessary to direct our efforts to that quarter, remembering the simplest fact, aimed at existing institutions, speaks louder to the masses than thousands of printed papers and floods of words, and that propagandism by fact in the country is still more important than in cities.
The technical and chemical sciences have already done service in the revolutionary cause and being destined to do still greater service in the future, the Congress recommends organizations and individuals belonging to the International Working-People's Association to give great weight to the study and application of these sciences as a method of defense and attack.
To the foregoing resolutions another was added as follows:
The Congress, recognizing that it has no other right than to indicate a general outline of what it considers the best form of revolutionary socialistic organization, leaves the groups to initiate such organizations, secret or not, as may seem to them useful in effecting the triumph of the Social Revolution.
In the list of delegates were to be found the following of the United States: No. 5, representing the German socialistic-revolutionary club of New York and Philedelphia; No. 7, representing the German section of the socialistic labor party of New York; No. 30, representing the revolutionists of Boston. The following are abstracts of the more important of the sectional reports submitted by the delegates.
America - The industrial situation is the same in New World as in the Old: the same divisions of rich and poor, idle and industrious. In spite of all the obstacles in the shape of political prejudice met in the propagation of socialism, perhaps in the United States, after all, the revolution is furthest advanced. The organizations represented by the present delegate agree in favoring violent revolution. The revolutionary groups are not yet as strong as they should be. Opportunities for overturning the government at Washington have not been taken advantage of. The great strike and the events at Pittsburgh made a great impression in the East. The late strike of the brewers did not tell in our favor, the revolutionary workers not being able to penetrate their councils, which is the more regrettable because the opportunity for revolutionary propagandism was a very good one. It is out opinion that we should join all labor organizations. We do not deny the necessity of open propagandism, since that must attract the masses still outside the movement; but we do not forget the necessity of secret organizations.
The Lower Rhine - The situation in Germany is well known, repression being almost as violent as Russia; the tendency then is absolutely revolutionary. We wish to make not only a defensive, but an offensive struggle. Formerly the socialist party was very strong. We had over 600,000 voters, but now our strength is very much reduced. Therefore we are organizing on a new basis. The capital is really revolutionary. In the cities, where the moderate party is the strongest, the socialist abstain from voting, as will be clearly seen at the approaching elections. In the Rhenish provinces the revolutionary spirit is very strong, and in Bavaria we can count on the peasants. There can be no longer any doubt that the social democrats of Austria are now inspired with our ideas.
Switzerland - In so-called free Switzerland the situation is the same as monarchical States. The liberty granted to socialists is quite as illusory as in other countries. The socialistic-revolutionary movement gains ground, while the parliamentary socialists continually lose, their best elements coming to join us.
France - The socialistic-revolutionary party of Lyons is absolutely inspired by anarchist ideas. It seeks to act on the great mass of laborers. Recently established, it has already obtained a firm footing in Lyons, and foresees an increased rate of growth after the Congress. It expends some of its efforts in neighboring towns, and there is reason to believe that a Lyonese federation, revolutionary in fact as well as words, will soon be definitively organized.
Spain - In spite of the persecution of the International in Spain, the organization has maintained itself intact since 1873. It is purely economic, being made up trade organizations and miscellaneous sections. Strikes are instituted, not as an end, but a means, with a view to organizing laborers. We do not expect to accomplish the revolution by a stroke, but we are sure that, unless the workingmen have some powerful organization of their own, the revolution can be easily defeated by the bourgeoisie. We have no continuous functions. Any one charged with a special duty returns to the ranks as soon as he has fulfilled it. By this means we have avoided individual ascendancy and kept the ambitious aloof. The regional bureaus of the seven organized regions are only as a medium of correspondence; likewise, the federal bureau, which has so little authority and is so powerless to assume any that the federations could get along perfectly well without it. Finally, we have a journal of our own, which, as far as means are concerned, is sure of continued existence.
Reports of similar tenor were submitted from Italy, Belgium, and other countries.
The Revolutionary Congress.
HELD IN LONDON FROM JULY 14 TO JULY 20.
[From Liberty's Special Correspondent.]
[From Liberty's Special Correspondent.]
AMSTERDAM, Holland, July 28. - Though congresses are always a part of parliamentary tradition and therefore illogical as well as inconsistent with true revolutionary and anarchical principles, we may, by reviewing the work of the past International Revolutionary Congress, avow, with satisfaction and enthusiasm, over the prospect of the future, that it had nothing in common with speech-congresses; that it was the manifestation of of earnest men and women with earnest intentions; and that one result attained, - the reconstitution of the International Association of Working People, which arose, like the Phoenix from the ashes, a thousand times stronger and better than before, - would alone have amply contented all expectations.
The Congress was opened on Thursday, July 14, at 8 A. M., in the exclusive presence of the fifty-four delegates, representing 320 federations of groups composed of 600,000 organized members. The countries represented were France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Egypt, England, Mexico, and the United States (America was comparatively well represented, having as many as five delegates).
No presidents, no vice-presidents, etc. Three secretaries officiated: one for taking note of the numbers of those wishing to speak; one for translating speeches from foreign languages, one for preparation of the minutes.
The strictest secrecy was maintained throughout, and delegates were designated only by numbers, though of course many already knew each other personally. After the close of the Congress, a public meeting was held at Cleveland, and only then did the easily-frightened bourgeoisie of London learn what a disagreeable guest they had harbored.
All the principal decisions of the Congress were taken unanimously, though no votes, in common sense of the word, were cast, it being agreed that, not recognizing the right of a majority, only adhesions should be recorded, giving the different factions the opportunity to announce their particular notions of each question. The first two days were spent in listening to the reports of different countries, giving their situations from the general and revolutionary standpoint, statistics of our forces and those of our adversaries, etc. The third day was occupied in the discussion of the principal object, the reconstitution of the old International, to which all, after a debate of fifteen consecutive hours (we worked each day 10 A. M. to 1 A. M.), agreed on the new basis of autonomy of the groups and individuals composing the association, each country forming at the same time a complete, autonomous sub-organization, the only general connection of the parts being an international information and statistical office at --------, conducted by three members, thus disabling individuals, through any centralization whatever, from attaining any undue influence or authority in the association, and, further, relieving the International of the danger incurred under the former constitution of being beheaded and disorganized by the arrest of a central authority.
No group or individual is bound to recognize the general information office, all having the right to correspond and federate for certain purposes among themselves directly, without the intermediation of the office. The only and all-absorbing object of the international will henceforth be the Social Revolution.
The following days were occupied with particular consideration in reference to this object, the means to employ, the modes of action, etc., for the different countries. You will appreciate my reasons for keeping silent on these points. The Congress, at its close, adopted a series of resolutions, elaborated by delegates No. 9, No. 13, and No. 22, and embodying the work of the Congress, laying particular stress on the agitation of the peasantry (an agitation to be adapted to their particular needs and requirements), the recommendation of the study of chemistry, electricity, and all the sciences offering the means of defense and destruction, the establishment of clandestine periodicals and literature for those countries where open agitation is impossible, etc.
I am sure that the London Congress will in future history mark the beginning of a new period, the period of the solution of the social question, the only question worthy of the attention of men, the only question truly existing, which, like the Gordian knot, admits no other resolution than the sword. The London Congress means the beginning of the Social Revolution, of the inevitable, sublime-terrible hurricane, purifying the present heavy-laden atmosphere and dispersing the clouds from that divine picture: Universal Happiness and Universal Freedom.
The Congress was opened on Thursday, July 14, at 8 A. M., in the exclusive presence of the fifty-four delegates, representing 320 federations of groups composed of 600,000 organized members. The countries represented were France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Egypt, England, Mexico, and the United States (America was comparatively well represented, having as many as five delegates).
No presidents, no vice-presidents, etc. Three secretaries officiated: one for taking note of the numbers of those wishing to speak; one for translating speeches from foreign languages, one for preparation of the minutes.
The strictest secrecy was maintained throughout, and delegates were designated only by numbers, though of course many already knew each other personally. After the close of the Congress, a public meeting was held at Cleveland, and only then did the easily-frightened bourgeoisie of London learn what a disagreeable guest they had harbored.
All the principal decisions of the Congress were taken unanimously, though no votes, in common sense of the word, were cast, it being agreed that, not recognizing the right of a majority, only adhesions should be recorded, giving the different factions the opportunity to announce their particular notions of each question. The first two days were spent in listening to the reports of different countries, giving their situations from the general and revolutionary standpoint, statistics of our forces and those of our adversaries, etc. The third day was occupied in the discussion of the principal object, the reconstitution of the old International, to which all, after a debate of fifteen consecutive hours (we worked each day 10 A. M. to 1 A. M.), agreed on the new basis of autonomy of the groups and individuals composing the association, each country forming at the same time a complete, autonomous sub-organization, the only general connection of the parts being an international information and statistical office at --------, conducted by three members, thus disabling individuals, through any centralization whatever, from attaining any undue influence or authority in the association, and, further, relieving the International of the danger incurred under the former constitution of being beheaded and disorganized by the arrest of a central authority.
No group or individual is bound to recognize the general information office, all having the right to correspond and federate for certain purposes among themselves directly, without the intermediation of the office. The only and all-absorbing object of the international will henceforth be the Social Revolution.
The following days were occupied with particular consideration in reference to this object, the means to employ, the modes of action, etc., for the different countries. You will appreciate my reasons for keeping silent on these points. The Congress, at its close, adopted a series of resolutions, elaborated by delegates No. 9, No. 13, and No. 22, and embodying the work of the Congress, laying particular stress on the agitation of the peasantry (an agitation to be adapted to their particular needs and requirements), the recommendation of the study of chemistry, electricity, and all the sciences offering the means of defense and destruction, the establishment of clandestine periodicals and literature for those countries where open agitation is impossible, etc.
I am sure that the London Congress will in future history mark the beginning of a new period, the period of the solution of the social question, the only question worthy of the attention of men, the only question truly existing, which, like the Gordian knot, admits no other resolution than the sword. The London Congress means the beginning of the Social Revolution, of the inevitable, sublime-terrible hurricane, purifying the present heavy-laden atmosphere and dispersing the clouds from that divine picture: Universal Happiness and Universal Freedom.
DELEGATE NO. 22
3/15/12
Crumbs From Liberty's Table.
Of all the cants that are canted in this canting world, though the cant of piety may be the worst, the cant of Americans bewailing Russian Nihilism is the most disgusting. -Wendell Phillip.
You cannot get rid of regicide by killing him. If the feeling against kings and presidents is strong enough, the individual murderer, actual or potential, will no sooner have been disposed of than a qualified successor will step into his place. -London World.
A minor French dramatist who had aided Scribe in many of the latter's unsuccessful plays, passing by the residence of his wealthy colleague, said to a friend who accompanied him: "There stands a house to which I contributed many a stone." "Yes, through the windows," replied Scribe, who happened to be entering at the time.
David O. Jones, a street preacher, was arrested in New York on a recent Sunday for exercising too much long force in trying to save souls. Jones asked the police judge, who was about to fine him five dollars, what he proposed to do if three or four souls were lost through his wickedness in suppressing him. This conundrum was too much for a New York Judge, and he let Jones go. -Providence Telegram.
The need of our day seems to me to be an increase of the number of citizens who neither obey nor defy public sentiment, but illustrate a polarity in righteousness; like the mariner's needle - in tumult, darkness, and storm obeying its own mystic law, and by its silent fidelity to its pole enabling every observer to take knowledge of it, and by comparison name the winds and currents accurately. -Thomas K. Beecher
You cannot get rid of regicide by killing him. If the feeling against kings and presidents is strong enough, the individual murderer, actual or potential, will no sooner have been disposed of than a qualified successor will step into his place. -London World.
A minor French dramatist who had aided Scribe in many of the latter's unsuccessful plays, passing by the residence of his wealthy colleague, said to a friend who accompanied him: "There stands a house to which I contributed many a stone." "Yes, through the windows," replied Scribe, who happened to be entering at the time.
David O. Jones, a street preacher, was arrested in New York on a recent Sunday for exercising too much long force in trying to save souls. Jones asked the police judge, who was about to fine him five dollars, what he proposed to do if three or four souls were lost through his wickedness in suppressing him. This conundrum was too much for a New York Judge, and he let Jones go. -Providence Telegram.
The need of our day seems to me to be an increase of the number of citizens who neither obey nor defy public sentiment, but illustrate a polarity in righteousness; like the mariner's needle - in tumult, darkness, and storm obeying its own mystic law, and by its silent fidelity to its pole enabling every observer to take knowledge of it, and by comparison name the winds and currents accurately. -Thomas K. Beecher
Editorials.
Judging by the storm it has raised about our ears, the innocent paragraph in our previous issue noting the downward career of a Chicago siren who lately made common cause with the Chicago "saints," was our trump editorial card. It seems to have given the nation at large, as well as some of our more sensitive friends, a very healthy shock. Saying nothing of the numerous newspapers that have quoted , attacked and denounced it, we have been asked something less than a thousand times: "Would you rather see a sister of yours a prostitute than a church-member?" We are just beginning to appreciate the situation of the abolitionist, who used to be asked so often "Would you like your daughter to marry a nigger?" Our answer has been: "Yes, if thereby she should escape becoming the embodiment of all the vices of the church; otherwise, no." Of course there are very many worthy persons in the church whom it would be an insult to compare with the inmates of a brothel. Our comparison was of institutions, not of individuals. So heavy is the fog of respectability hovering over the church that it has veiled from the eyes of our critics the fact that an institution whose patrons are ministered unto by men who sell their brains, hearts, and souls ought to stand much lower in the social scale than one whose patrons are ministered unto by girls who sell merely their bodies. Nine-tenths of the occupants of Christian pulpits are prostitutes of a far worse order than the unfortunate women whom social conditions force into the service of the lusts of their male parishioners. To be obliged to choose between syphilitic poison and the poison of hypocrisy is not a desirable situation, but, once confronted with so unenviable an alternative, we can conceive of no reason for hesitation.
______________________________
The London correspondent of the "Philadelphia Telegraph" thinks that Baker Pasha's military exploits in Turkey largely compensate for the "grave indiscretion" of which, as Lieutenant Valentine Baker, he was guilty several years ago in endeavoring to violate the person of a young lady, his fellow passenger in an English railway train. To this journalist we are indebted for the lesson that a man may retrieve a reputation lost in assaulting an unarmed women by engaging in conflict with armed men. His reinstatement in the Army and Navy Club, says the same writer, shows that English gentleman do not like to "kick a man when he's down." Indeed! But is it, then, characteristic of English gentlemen to prefer as companions men who outrage defenceless women? We would not depreciate any attempt to shield even Baker Pasha from vindictive ostracism, but, if we knew how many of his associates in the Army and Navy Club would be willing to accept a public introduction to the lady whom he assaulted, we should be in a better position to accurately judge the quality of their mercy.
______________________________
A German scientist has just invented a machine calculated to replace all our charming methods of applying the death penalty. This interesting invention and the manner of using it are described as follows: In the middle of a hall specially designed for the executions is erected a large allegorical statue of Justice, holding in one hand a sword and in the other a balance. In front of the statue is an arm-chair for the criminal. After pronouncing the sentence, the judge (the machine dispenses with the hangman) throws the baton of justice, which he has previously broken into two pieces, into one of the scales of the balance held by the statue; the scale falls and - human justice is satisfied. For the condemned dies, struck by lightning from a powerful electric battery placed within the statue and started into action by the fall of the scale. Is it the intention of advancing civilization to temper justice by science and arts rather than by mercy?
______________________________
The "Renssciaer County Gazette," published at Greenbush, N.Y., remarked the other day that "communism and nihilism embrace nothing but the recrement of the life-blood and the scoria of the industry of the countries they infest." After that we were not surprised to find the next column the following terse but superfluous editorial confession: "We haven't got much brains."
______________________________
Liberty lost one of her most cruel enemies by the death of M. Dufaure, the French senator, a few weeks ago, in his eighty-fourth year. As Rochefort wittily said when he died, "Buffon failed to tell us that crocodiles could live so long." Though professedly progressive, he persistently fought every progressive measure, and in 1871 made himself conspicuous by the bitterness of his pursuit of the Paris Communists. He initiated also, we believe, the measure suppressive of the great International Working People's Association. Rochefort's obituary of the deceased was entitled "One Less," and concluded with these words: "The idea of seeing suffering was the sole delight of this wild beast who never sought satisfaction except in the sorrow of another. To the four horses employed for the quartering of Damiens, he with pleasure would've added two. Has he died expressing regret at not having witnessed the tortures of Hessy Helfmann, we should have been but little surprised. He appears to have died of hunger, his stomach no longer being able to bear food. It was just the opposite with the exiles whom he sent to New Caledonia, and who died likewise, but because they had no food, not because they had no stomach." We echo the wish of Paul Leconte, another French journalist: "May Liberty never meet upon her path any more such 'Liberals' as he!"
______________________________
Has Boston at last found a successor to Theodore Parker? It really begins to look so. Not, however, in the hall that bears Parker's name, but next door, in the Paine Memorial Hall. There for six months now, every Sunday afternoon, has been heard by a steadily growing audience a discourse from George Chainey, the infidel preacher. Before us, by his courtesy, lies a beautiful volume of 132 pages containing the first eighteen of these discourses, which he published weekly in a pamphlet called "The Infidel Pulpit." Coming to Boston from the West full of enthusiasm for his work, he has imbued others with the same spirit, and has formed a society that is already a powerful and beneficent factor in the work of Liberalism. Each of these lectures shows vigor and breadth of intellect; each line of them breathes earnestness of purpose. They deserve to be read by all thinking people, who can order the volume and subscribe for subsequent issues by addressing Mr. Chainey at 51 Fort Avenue, Roxbury, Boston, Mass.
______________________________
That staid London journal, the "Daily News," was sadly upset by Hartmann's letter to the "New York Herald." It was actually forced to the conclusion that "it seems to be possible for an educated person to grow to man's estate on the continent of Europe without the slightest notion that carefully prepared murder, schemes which, if successful, must sacrifice the lives, not only of their objects, but of many other innocent people, are abhorrent to the vast majority of civilized men throughout the world." The "News" did not lose its head entirely, however, but retained sufficient of its equanimity to "not undertake to account by any single fact or any simple explanation for this strange phenomenon of modern life and society." This course speaks volumes for the editor's prudence.
That staid London journal, the "Daily News," was sadly upset by Hartmann's letter to the "New York Herald." It was actually forced to the conclusion that "it seems to be possible for an educated person to grow to man's estate on the continent of Europe without the slightest notion that carefully prepared murder, schemes which, if successful, must sacrifice the lives, not only of their objects, but of many other innocent people, are abhorrent to the vast majority of civilized men throughout the world." The "News" did not lose its head entirely, however, but retained sufficient of its equanimity to "not undertake to account by any single fact or any simple explanation for this strange phenomenon of modern life and society." This course speaks volumes for the editor's prudence.
______________________________
People taught to depend upon the reliance of authority lose their self-reliance. To reassure a populace excited and bewildered by news of Lincoln's assassination, Gen. Garfield could find no more effective words than those now famous: "God reigns and the government still lives." Once satisfied that they still had masters in both worlds, their security seemed complete. To derive security from oppression is indeed to "pluck the flower, safety, from the nettle, danger."
______________________________
The third annual convention of the Union Reform League will be held in the town hall at Princeton, Mass., on the last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this month, and will be addressed by Stephen Pearl Andrews, Col. J. H. Blood, and numerous other speakers.
The third annual convention of the Union Reform League will be held in the town hall at Princeton, Mass., on the last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this month, and will be addressed by Stephen Pearl Andrews, Col. J. H. Blood, and numerous other speakers.
______________________________
We suspect that Mrs. E. D. Cheney has hit upon the origin of "Me Too." She writes in the "Free Religious Index:" "When Louis XIV said, "L'Etat, c'est moi," he obliged the sans-culottes of Paris to answer, "Et moi aussi.
3/14/12
The Concord School.
"To speak of mysteries and make them plain."
The Concord School of philosophy is well reported by the press, and we judge its many professors have given some interesting and otherwise excellent essays. The celebration of the Kant centennial offered at least two such, one by Professor Hedge of Cambridge, the other by Professor Bascon of Michigan University. The paper by the latter, though upon that old and time-worn topic, "the freedom of the will," was fresh and original, dealing with the question of liberty in a practical way. It referred to the relation that belongs to "truth and liberty," and we quote with pleasure the sentence which follows: "The movement of the mind towards truth must be flexible and spontaneous. Truth is the reward of freedom wisely exercised." Again, "The one condition of freedom is to maintain unimpaired intellectual activity in all directions and actions. The condition of intellectual freedom is virtue - feelings that subordinate themselves to truth. If the intellectual movement is honest, it fails of thoroughness." Liberty, while asserting with even greater emphasis that the condition of virtue is freedom, takes opportunity to add that this strain of philosophy from Concord is in perfect harmony with its own cherished thinking. To follow up and o'ertake truth, to know it and utilize it, is the very sum and purpose of its being.Professor Bascom does well to consider as he does the limitations on man's freedom, and he is fully justified, as we believe, in the heroic expectations with which his essay is brought to a conclusion. The indefiniteness that shrouds a single word gives rise to slight regret, but the philosophical spirit will readily dispose of it and understand that the term "archangel," as here used, means simply, man raised to his supremest power. With this brief explanatory sentence we trust our readers with the full text; "There is no reason, in any limitation of liberty, why, under the laws of inheritance, man should not in time, walk the earth with the bounding life of an archangel, govern it with the strength of an archangel, and take home his thoughts and feelings to the pure and serene experience of an archangel."
And looking forward with Professor Bascom to the fulfilment of his high prophecy, Wordsworth's lines come to mind, and Liberty, heeding them, will
"Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope,"
trusting its cause to
"The light of Knowledge and the warmth of Love."
The Root of Despotism.
The purpose of Liberty, boiled down to its ultimate essence, is the abolition of authority. But, until the reader has come into accord with our philosophy, he must not misunderstand what we mean by the abolition of authority. The reason of the writer of this article is (to him) authority; otherwise it would be foolishness for him to write.
But the writer of this article is an individual. He can set up whatever god he chooses (for himself) as authority. Yes, he may offer whatever these gods dictate to him for the consideration of his fellow-men. If he makes a god of his reason, he may worship that god to his heart's content, and submit to the letter to the authority of that god. And he may give that god a tongue through the press, the pulpit, and the rostrum. He may set him up on every corner, and call him holy, infallible, and all-wise.
Thus far he has violated no man's liberty. He begins to be a despot and a public enemy only when he imposes that god upon others by force. See how it is under our advanced democratic institutions. A man starts on campaigning for his god. He convinces some, bribes others, and swindles enough more till he secures what he calls a majority. But, when he gets so far, he recollects that a certain fiction possesses the masses, via, "the majority must rule." He there upon drops the method of peace and persuasion, and proceeds to saddle his god upon the majority by force.
Now, what Liberty proposes to abolish is all these gratuitous fictions by which any and all gods, theological, political, and social, are saddled by force upon unwilling soldiers. That toppling theological colossus who has straddled humanity for centuries had first to be "boycotted" and unseated from those who are tired of his weight. Now that he feels the pillars giving way and begins to quake, a swarm of ecclesiastical parasites and priestly dead-beats, from pope down, are beginning to dress their wings and look for a new roost. Not that Liberty has anything against the Christian God per se. It simply asks that the Jewish usurper stands on his own merits, pay his own bills, and stop sitting down on people who do not want his company.
The dangerous fiction, crowned God, which makes an authority out of the Jewish usurper theologically, has its exact counterpart in that fiction which sets up the State as an authority politically. God is the supreme being for the plundering purposes of the ecclesiastics. The State is the supreme being for the plundering purposes of the politician. The saving grace which perpetuates the whole swindle lies in the ability to keep the masses drugged with superstitious reverence for that fiction of authority which keeps the double-headed monster alive.
Liberty denies the authority of anybody's god to bind those who do not accept it through persuation and natural selection. Liberty denies the authority of anybody's State to bind those who do not lend voluntary allegiance to it. Liberty denies the authority of anybody's "public opinion," "social custom," "consensus of the competent," and every other fashionable and scholarly despot, to step between the individual and his free option in all thing. In short, it sets up the standard of uncompromising rebellion against authority, meaning by authority any coercive force not developed spontaneously and naturally out of the constitution of the individual himself or herself.
We of course believe in forces. Nature is made up of forces. But we want native, healthy, spontaneous forces in social life, not arbitrary, extraneous, usurping forces. And we believe in authority too, when authority is made to mean that which is sifted through reason and made welcome by choice. The thing that we have gone into defensive warfare with is that usurping aggressor which proposes to saddle its forms and fictions upon us without our consent, and makes us its slaves under the many cunning guises which have made history a bloody record of brutality practiced by the few upon the ignorance and helplessness of the many.
But the writer of this article is an individual. He can set up whatever god he chooses (for himself) as authority. Yes, he may offer whatever these gods dictate to him for the consideration of his fellow-men. If he makes a god of his reason, he may worship that god to his heart's content, and submit to the letter to the authority of that god. And he may give that god a tongue through the press, the pulpit, and the rostrum. He may set him up on every corner, and call him holy, infallible, and all-wise.
Thus far he has violated no man's liberty. He begins to be a despot and a public enemy only when he imposes that god upon others by force. See how it is under our advanced democratic institutions. A man starts on campaigning for his god. He convinces some, bribes others, and swindles enough more till he secures what he calls a majority. But, when he gets so far, he recollects that a certain fiction possesses the masses, via, "the majority must rule." He there upon drops the method of peace and persuasion, and proceeds to saddle his god upon the majority by force.
Now, what Liberty proposes to abolish is all these gratuitous fictions by which any and all gods, theological, political, and social, are saddled by force upon unwilling soldiers. That toppling theological colossus who has straddled humanity for centuries had first to be "boycotted" and unseated from those who are tired of his weight. Now that he feels the pillars giving way and begins to quake, a swarm of ecclesiastical parasites and priestly dead-beats, from pope down, are beginning to dress their wings and look for a new roost. Not that Liberty has anything against the Christian God per se. It simply asks that the Jewish usurper stands on his own merits, pay his own bills, and stop sitting down on people who do not want his company.
The dangerous fiction, crowned God, which makes an authority out of the Jewish usurper theologically, has its exact counterpart in that fiction which sets up the State as an authority politically. God is the supreme being for the plundering purposes of the ecclesiastics. The State is the supreme being for the plundering purposes of the politician. The saving grace which perpetuates the whole swindle lies in the ability to keep the masses drugged with superstitious reverence for that fiction of authority which keeps the double-headed monster alive.
Liberty denies the authority of anybody's god to bind those who do not accept it through persuation and natural selection. Liberty denies the authority of anybody's State to bind those who do not lend voluntary allegiance to it. Liberty denies the authority of anybody's "public opinion," "social custom," "consensus of the competent," and every other fashionable and scholarly despot, to step between the individual and his free option in all thing. In short, it sets up the standard of uncompromising rebellion against authority, meaning by authority any coercive force not developed spontaneously and naturally out of the constitution of the individual himself or herself.
We of course believe in forces. Nature is made up of forces. But we want native, healthy, spontaneous forces in social life, not arbitrary, extraneous, usurping forces. And we believe in authority too, when authority is made to mean that which is sifted through reason and made welcome by choice. The thing that we have gone into defensive warfare with is that usurping aggressor which proposes to saddle its forms and fictions upon us without our consent, and makes us its slaves under the many cunning guises which have made history a bloody record of brutality practiced by the few upon the ignorance and helplessness of the many.
3/12/12
Rise and Fall of "Free Religion."
"Free Religion" is some fourteen years old. It leaped full-grown from the brains of a few cultured people who could no longer submit to the tyranny of Jesus Christ. "Let us come together," said this goodly number of emancipated souls, "and rejoice over our deliverance. Let us seek the universal religion, in which shall appear no Lord or Master." There were choice spirits in this new movement, of either sex. Even Orthodoxy treated them with respect. The first meeting at Horticultural Hall were enthusiastic. Emerson graced them with his presence. Lucretia Mott stood in the midst of them like a benediction. John Weiss, Frothingham, Wasson, Bartol, Higginson, Aboot, were there, and spoke with effect. The hall was filled at every occasion. The people came from the west and east, were caught up by the new enthusiasm, and the evening festivals were love feasts. Many things were said good to hear. The key-note was "freedom." The question uppermost was this: What emancipates human beings into the freedom of intelligence
and love?
It was a new story, and every one was filled with it. The spontaneity of the movement was a seeming guarantee of its genuineness. That is, no design upon the future of appeared in view. The future, like the present, was to be left open and free. In plainer terms, no sect was to be founded. "Organization" was a word but little emphasized. Thus the matter lay in the popular mind.
But the plotters were there in masks which not only "deceived the elect," but even themselves: men with a touch of poetry, but, for the most part, gifted with talents for mechanics, - the kind of men that, in all ages, have built the other sects. They were soon restive in the presence of mere sentiment, even though it possessed that virtue which uplifts and en-nobles mankind. "Free Religion?" they began to murmur: "what is it good for, if it cannot be put through the world? Organize! organize! ye free men and women; enlist for the crusade!"
Year by year these words have fallen on Free Religions ears, and the temper of the meetings has much changed. The early, fresh, invigorating life is dead. Of all the choice spirits then leading the joyous throng into pastures new, scarce one is now to be seen. The faithful secretary sticks to his post, bound in sober duty to keep up his yearly report of a decided progress. But the others, where are they? New faces; new voices; new topics. The poetry, the inspiration all gone. The dead-level at last reached, - that awful desert-place where all other sects and churches have been built!
Alas!
And yet, what do we hear?
It is the voice of the new president arguing against his own nature, - as we must think, - declaring that there has been a "new birth."
"Birth?" cries the old voice heard at the beginning; "if this be birth, what is death?"
And it begins to appear plain to many eyes how there has been in reality only a slowly-dying cause.
"Lapse," Dean Alcott might prefer to say. But his speech, like our own, would not be entirely accurate. There is neither lapse nor death. Little and great efforts have their day, and cease to be; but the old spirit of freedom is from everlasting to everlasting, surviving all calamity, and will not succumb.
"Free Religion" is feebly trying to do over again much the same work that has so exercised the Unitarian brain for the last fifty years, and, curiously enough, even the name, which was thought to be original, if not consciously borrowed, is a Unitarian tradition. Fifty years ago, Mr. Reed, announcing the platform of the "Christian Register," declared that that then liberal movement was inspired by "free religious thought."
But the mission of both movements is to die. Paralyzed already, demise is certain.
The future will compress the history of Free Religion into one short paragraph.
How do we know?
Can we gather grapes from thistles, or freedom from a machine? Woe to all good souls whom the machine-spirit seizes!
and love?
It was a new story, and every one was filled with it. The spontaneity of the movement was a seeming guarantee of its genuineness. That is, no design upon the future of appeared in view. The future, like the present, was to be left open and free. In plainer terms, no sect was to be founded. "Organization" was a word but little emphasized. Thus the matter lay in the popular mind.
But the plotters were there in masks which not only "deceived the elect," but even themselves: men with a touch of poetry, but, for the most part, gifted with talents for mechanics, - the kind of men that, in all ages, have built the other sects. They were soon restive in the presence of mere sentiment, even though it possessed that virtue which uplifts and en-nobles mankind. "Free Religion?" they began to murmur: "what is it good for, if it cannot be put through the world? Organize! organize! ye free men and women; enlist for the crusade!"
Year by year these words have fallen on Free Religions ears, and the temper of the meetings has much changed. The early, fresh, invigorating life is dead. Of all the choice spirits then leading the joyous throng into pastures new, scarce one is now to be seen. The faithful secretary sticks to his post, bound in sober duty to keep up his yearly report of a decided progress. But the others, where are they? New faces; new voices; new topics. The poetry, the inspiration all gone. The dead-level at last reached, - that awful desert-place where all other sects and churches have been built!
Alas!
And yet, what do we hear?
It is the voice of the new president arguing against his own nature, - as we must think, - declaring that there has been a "new birth."
"Birth?" cries the old voice heard at the beginning; "if this be birth, what is death?"
And it begins to appear plain to many eyes how there has been in reality only a slowly-dying cause.
"Lapse," Dean Alcott might prefer to say. But his speech, like our own, would not be entirely accurate. There is neither lapse nor death. Little and great efforts have their day, and cease to be; but the old spirit of freedom is from everlasting to everlasting, surviving all calamity, and will not succumb.
"Free Religion" is feebly trying to do over again much the same work that has so exercised the Unitarian brain for the last fifty years, and, curiously enough, even the name, which was thought to be original, if not consciously borrowed, is a Unitarian tradition. Fifty years ago, Mr. Reed, announcing the platform of the "Christian Register," declared that that then liberal movement was inspired by "free religious thought."
But the mission of both movements is to die. Paralyzed already, demise is certain.
The future will compress the history of Free Religion into one short paragraph.
How do we know?
Can we gather grapes from thistles, or freedom from a machine? Woe to all good souls whom the machine-spirit seizes!
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!
3/11/12
About Progressive People.
M. Jules Valles, of Communist renown, has written a four act comdy entitled "Les Reguliers."
Mr. E. L. Youmans, editor of the "Popular Science Monthy," and his family are summering at Saratoga.
Algernon Charles Swinburne has written a poem called "The Statue of Victor Hugo," which will appear in "The Gentleman's Magazine."
Mr. Karl Blind has written an essay on recently discovered Shetlandie folk-lore, the first part of which appears in the "Contemporary Review" for August, under the title of "Germanic Water Deities."
Mrs. Annie Besant has passed in the first class at the preliminary examination for the degree of B. Sc. in the University of Loudon, her tutor being Dr. E. B. Aveling. Mrs. Besant has also passed in the advanced classes in seven subjects at South Kensington.
Henri Rochefort refused to be a candidate in the coming French elections, saying: "I have no desire to enter that hospital where, the 363 [the number of Gambetta's followers in the chamber of deputies have been exhibition their plague-spots and deformities."
At the recent burial in Halle, Germany, of Anlauff, the German socialist, the followers in the funeral wore red flowers in their button holes. Ceremonies at the grave were prevented by the police. Anlauff was banished from Berlin at the time that city was declared under state of siege, and later from Leipzig when that city was included with Berlin under that condition.
The radicals of Belleville, the communist quarter of Paris, who elected Gambetta to represent them in the chamber of deputies before that time-server adopted his policy of opportunism, have pitted against him in two arrondissements for the coming election Sigismund Lacroix, a member of the commune of 1871, and Tony Revillon, and are giving these candidates a strength of support unexpectedly formidable.
The Marquis of Queensbury, at a conference of the British Secular Union held at Leicester recently, read a paper in which he said the Secularists, who were strongly bound together in common enthusiasm for the elevation of mankind to its ideal state, and who had no dogmas respecting the Unknowable to quarrel about, justly claimed to possess a great and ennobling religion, and their possession would ultimately have to be recognized by those who apparently desired to ignore their existence as a religious body altogether.
The first subscription list for a statue of Victor Hugo amount to 7,078 fr. The president of the French Republic contributes 200 fr.; the president of the senate and chamber 150 fr. each; the ministers each 100 fr. A journalist of Paris, having had occasion lately to drive to Victor Hugo's residence, on arriving at the door, got out and tendered the cabman his fare and pourboire. The latter, however, on noticing where he had come, refused to take the money - 2 fr. 50 c. - and requested his passenger to add the "little sum towards the subscription for Victor Hugo's statue." This was done, and the 2 fr. 50 c. may be seen on one of the lists to the credit of "Cocher No. 11,492," in the service of the Compagnie Parisieune de Voitures, a proof of the poet's popularity among the masses.
Kossuth is in mourning for the death of his friend and constant companion, General Ihass. His life at Barraccone, near Turin, is most retired and uneventful. There are few persons whom he will see, and these are chiefly Americans, whom he will always see. At present he is engaged in preparation of the third volume of his memoirs, and this, he says, will be the last volume, although, did strength permit, he would gladly write a fourth. Recently, when visited by a friend, he pointed to his secretary and said he had materials there for twenty volumes, none of which would go into the grave with him, as all would be left to his sons for them to deal with as they should think best. Kossuth finds that his income is not sufficient to maintain his quarters in Turin, as well as the villa at Barraccone, and has accordingly determined to give up the villa. It has been suggested that it would be a graceful thing for the Hungarian nation to purchase the villa and make him a present of it.
Mr. E. L. Youmans, editor of the "Popular Science Monthy," and his family are summering at Saratoga.
Algernon Charles Swinburne has written a poem called "The Statue of Victor Hugo," which will appear in "The Gentleman's Magazine."
Mr. Karl Blind has written an essay on recently discovered Shetlandie folk-lore, the first part of which appears in the "Contemporary Review" for August, under the title of "Germanic Water Deities."
Mrs. Annie Besant has passed in the first class at the preliminary examination for the degree of B. Sc. in the University of Loudon, her tutor being Dr. E. B. Aveling. Mrs. Besant has also passed in the advanced classes in seven subjects at South Kensington.
Henri Rochefort refused to be a candidate in the coming French elections, saying: "I have no desire to enter that hospital where, the 363 [the number of Gambetta's followers in the chamber of deputies have been exhibition their plague-spots and deformities."
At the recent burial in Halle, Germany, of Anlauff, the German socialist, the followers in the funeral wore red flowers in their button holes. Ceremonies at the grave were prevented by the police. Anlauff was banished from Berlin at the time that city was declared under state of siege, and later from Leipzig when that city was included with Berlin under that condition.
The radicals of Belleville, the communist quarter of Paris, who elected Gambetta to represent them in the chamber of deputies before that time-server adopted his policy of opportunism, have pitted against him in two arrondissements for the coming election Sigismund Lacroix, a member of the commune of 1871, and Tony Revillon, and are giving these candidates a strength of support unexpectedly formidable.
The Marquis of Queensbury, at a conference of the British Secular Union held at Leicester recently, read a paper in which he said the Secularists, who were strongly bound together in common enthusiasm for the elevation of mankind to its ideal state, and who had no dogmas respecting the Unknowable to quarrel about, justly claimed to possess a great and ennobling religion, and their possession would ultimately have to be recognized by those who apparently desired to ignore their existence as a religious body altogether.
The first subscription list for a statue of Victor Hugo amount to 7,078 fr. The president of the French Republic contributes 200 fr.; the president of the senate and chamber 150 fr. each; the ministers each 100 fr. A journalist of Paris, having had occasion lately to drive to Victor Hugo's residence, on arriving at the door, got out and tendered the cabman his fare and pourboire. The latter, however, on noticing where he had come, refused to take the money - 2 fr. 50 c. - and requested his passenger to add the "little sum towards the subscription for Victor Hugo's statue." This was done, and the 2 fr. 50 c. may be seen on one of the lists to the credit of "Cocher No. 11,492," in the service of the Compagnie Parisieune de Voitures, a proof of the poet's popularity among the masses.
Kossuth is in mourning for the death of his friend and constant companion, General Ihass. His life at Barraccone, near Turin, is most retired and uneventful. There are few persons whom he will see, and these are chiefly Americans, whom he will always see. At present he is engaged in preparation of the third volume of his memoirs, and this, he says, will be the last volume, although, did strength permit, he would gladly write a fourth. Recently, when visited by a friend, he pointed to his secretary and said he had materials there for twenty volumes, none of which would go into the grave with him, as all would be left to his sons for them to deal with as they should think best. Kossuth finds that his income is not sufficient to maintain his quarters in Turin, as well as the villa at Barraccone, and has accordingly determined to give up the villa. It has been suggested that it would be a graceful thing for the Hungarian nation to purchase the villa and make him a present of it.
On Picket Duty.
Liberty, Boston Mass., Saturday, August 20, 1881
Vol. 1, No. 2
"Liberty is coming," says the New York "Truth-Seeker." A mistake; Liberty has come.
Hon Elizur Wright was among the callers at the "Index" office last week. - Free Religious Index. The time when this was an occurrence too common to be noted is not yet beyond the memory of man.
Ireland aside, but little is known in America, even among radicals, of the rapid strides and interesting phases of reform and revolution in Europe. As opportunity offers, Liberty's crowded columns will be made a channel for the diffusion of this needed information.
"Bullion" thinks that "civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves, and then letting them do it." A very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: "Civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it."
Moneure D. Conway, who has witnessed in West-minister Abbey the funerals of seven great men, - Palmerston, Faraday, Livingston, Peabody, Lyell, Dickens, and Dean Stanley, - says they have all been painful to him by reason of the ceremony, representing ideas of death not believed by any one of those over whom he has heard it read.
The "land question" is too big for Ireland. America must take a turn at it. And she probably will before many decades. And that's what's the matter - with Capital. It prefers to run the country for itself. But the consolation is that, the more it succeeds, the tighter will be it's pinch of the people. There's an end - even for landlords.
The Freethinkers' Association, which will meet at Hornellsville, beginning August 31, announces that any orthodox minister of good standing in his denomination and of sufficient ability to fairly represent the Christian Church, will be welcome to the platform of the convention granted the same privileges and hospitalities as the other speakers, besides having his actual expenses paid.
Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly desires to get his "bill" properly constructed. But he can never do so. He has got a problem in his hand much like that puzzling one of perpetual motion. It is not possible to set aside or act in defiance of the complete justice, if you wish your work to have a "perpetual motion." Mr. Gladstone is not likely to prove himself an exception to the now long list of time-wasting inventors.
Jules Ferry, president of the French Cabinet, state recently, in the chamber of deputies, that the government's action in fixing so early a day as August 21 for the date of the elections was inspired by a desire to restrain electoral agitation as much as possible. It is a fraud confession. In Germany, government, in order to maintain itself, suppressed electoral agitation by law; but Germany, as all know, is one of "effete despotism." In France the same result is achieved by surprise. Free France is a republic, and her citizens govern themselves. O Liberty! how many peoples are bamboosled in thy name?
The election of the German Reichstag are expected to begin in early October. The Conservative factions are uniting against the Progressists, who, notwithstanding their names, are not very far advanced. Still, they are so powerful in Berlin that the Social Democrats intend to contest but two seats for that city, where formerly the latter had greater strength. We should feel a keener regret because of the socialists' decline if their methods were those of Liberty. As it is, we are nearly as hostile to Bismarkian socialism as to Bismark himself.
The crofters in the Isle of Skye (eleven families), who had been served with ejectment notices by their landlord for refusing to pay an increased rent, and to whom the Land League recently made a grant of fifty pounds, have declared their determination to "keep a firm grip of their homesteads," and only to submit to eviction at the point of bayonet, have had their ejectment notices withdrawn, and have received a reduction of 621/2 per cent in their rents. The tenantry and peasantry of Ireland, if they choose, may profit more by the example of one such fact as this than by a century of electoral agitation, parliamentary struggle, home rule, and land legislation.
We see no further call for denominational activity or sectarian propagandism. Always expensive, they have now become useless. Souls can be saved without them. The disposition of the great and learned infidel recently deceased, M. Littre, appear to satisfy everybody. The Church is jubilant at having run him into the fold in season to train him for the celestial journey, while infidels, at first not exactly reconciled to the capture, begin to appreciate the advantages of the situation, and are expressing their satisfaction in words like Rochefort's: "Free-thinking France had his life, his brain, his thought, and his work. The Church will have only his body, - his carcass." Henceforth let us save our money. No more Sunday schools; no more tract societies; no more home or foreign missions. Let us be infidels while we live, and we'll agree to become Christians when we come to die. Thus all parties will be suited, none will be out of pocket, the devil will be discomfited, and heaven will run short of harps. Blessed be Compromise!
The Social Democrats of Europe are having a hard time of it. Forbidden to hold their proposed congress in Zurich, they have carried the question up from one authority to another only to be snubbed more ignominiously after each new appeal. They have even begged and attempted a compromise. They have agreed to ventilate no revolutionary ideas, to be more moderate in their demands than they were ten years ago, and to do nothing whatever to disturb the peace of Switzerland. But all to no purpose. To their touching appeal the federal tribunal turned a deaf ear. Liberty is always sorry to see free speech denied, no matter where or to whom, but it must be confessed that this outrage has its amusing aspect. We view with considerable satisfaction the wry faces made by these lovers of the State at having to swallow so bitter a dose of their own medicine. You wish the State, gentlemen. Well, you've got it, - a plenty of it. Tell us when you've had enough. Room can always be made for fresh recruits in the ranks of the army of Liberty.
Vol. 1, No. 2
"Liberty is coming," says the New York "Truth-Seeker." A mistake; Liberty has come.
Hon Elizur Wright was among the callers at the "Index" office last week. - Free Religious Index. The time when this was an occurrence too common to be noted is not yet beyond the memory of man.
Ireland aside, but little is known in America, even among radicals, of the rapid strides and interesting phases of reform and revolution in Europe. As opportunity offers, Liberty's crowded columns will be made a channel for the diffusion of this needed information.
"Bullion" thinks that "civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves, and then letting them do it." A very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: "Civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it."
Moneure D. Conway, who has witnessed in West-minister Abbey the funerals of seven great men, - Palmerston, Faraday, Livingston, Peabody, Lyell, Dickens, and Dean Stanley, - says they have all been painful to him by reason of the ceremony, representing ideas of death not believed by any one of those over whom he has heard it read.
The "land question" is too big for Ireland. America must take a turn at it. And she probably will before many decades. And that's what's the matter - with Capital. It prefers to run the country for itself. But the consolation is that, the more it succeeds, the tighter will be it's pinch of the people. There's an end - even for landlords.
The Freethinkers' Association, which will meet at Hornellsville, beginning August 31, announces that any orthodox minister of good standing in his denomination and of sufficient ability to fairly represent the Christian Church, will be welcome to the platform of the convention granted the same privileges and hospitalities as the other speakers, besides having his actual expenses paid.
Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly desires to get his "bill" properly constructed. But he can never do so. He has got a problem in his hand much like that puzzling one of perpetual motion. It is not possible to set aside or act in defiance of the complete justice, if you wish your work to have a "perpetual motion." Mr. Gladstone is not likely to prove himself an exception to the now long list of time-wasting inventors.
Jules Ferry, president of the French Cabinet, state recently, in the chamber of deputies, that the government's action in fixing so early a day as August 21 for the date of the elections was inspired by a desire to restrain electoral agitation as much as possible. It is a fraud confession. In Germany, government, in order to maintain itself, suppressed electoral agitation by law; but Germany, as all know, is one of "effete despotism." In France the same result is achieved by surprise. Free France is a republic, and her citizens govern themselves. O Liberty! how many peoples are bamboosled in thy name?
The election of the German Reichstag are expected to begin in early October. The Conservative factions are uniting against the Progressists, who, notwithstanding their names, are not very far advanced. Still, they are so powerful in Berlin that the Social Democrats intend to contest but two seats for that city, where formerly the latter had greater strength. We should feel a keener regret because of the socialists' decline if their methods were those of Liberty. As it is, we are nearly as hostile to Bismarkian socialism as to Bismark himself.
The crofters in the Isle of Skye (eleven families), who had been served with ejectment notices by their landlord for refusing to pay an increased rent, and to whom the Land League recently made a grant of fifty pounds, have declared their determination to "keep a firm grip of their homesteads," and only to submit to eviction at the point of bayonet, have had their ejectment notices withdrawn, and have received a reduction of 621/2 per cent in their rents. The tenantry and peasantry of Ireland, if they choose, may profit more by the example of one such fact as this than by a century of electoral agitation, parliamentary struggle, home rule, and land legislation.
We see no further call for denominational activity or sectarian propagandism. Always expensive, they have now become useless. Souls can be saved without them. The disposition of the great and learned infidel recently deceased, M. Littre, appear to satisfy everybody. The Church is jubilant at having run him into the fold in season to train him for the celestial journey, while infidels, at first not exactly reconciled to the capture, begin to appreciate the advantages of the situation, and are expressing their satisfaction in words like Rochefort's: "Free-thinking France had his life, his brain, his thought, and his work. The Church will have only his body, - his carcass." Henceforth let us save our money. No more Sunday schools; no more tract societies; no more home or foreign missions. Let us be infidels while we live, and we'll agree to become Christians when we come to die. Thus all parties will be suited, none will be out of pocket, the devil will be discomfited, and heaven will run short of harps. Blessed be Compromise!
The Social Democrats of Europe are having a hard time of it. Forbidden to hold their proposed congress in Zurich, they have carried the question up from one authority to another only to be snubbed more ignominiously after each new appeal. They have even begged and attempted a compromise. They have agreed to ventilate no revolutionary ideas, to be more moderate in their demands than they were ten years ago, and to do nothing whatever to disturb the peace of Switzerland. But all to no purpose. To their touching appeal the federal tribunal turned a deaf ear. Liberty is always sorry to see free speech denied, no matter where or to whom, but it must be confessed that this outrage has its amusing aspect. We view with considerable satisfaction the wry faces made by these lovers of the State at having to swallow so bitter a dose of their own medicine. You wish the State, gentlemen. Well, you've got it, - a plenty of it. Tell us when you've had enough. Room can always be made for fresh recruits in the ranks of the army of Liberty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)