Today is the Eighteenth of March, the anniversary of the Paris Commune, a glorious date in the calendar of Liberty. It is the day we celebrate. But this year it is Fortune’s will that we should celebrate it at the grave whither one of the Commune’s many heroines has lately gone. Marie Ferré, sister of the brave Théophile Ferré who was shot at Satory by the infamous Thiers, was buried at Paris in the cemetery of Levallois-Perret on February 27. From various Paris papers we glean the following facts concerning the sad event:
Marie Ferré succumbed to a disease of the heart complicated with rheumatism. She died at the house of a friend, Mme. Camille Bias, No. 27 Rue Cendorcet. From this house at nine o’clock in the morning the procession started. A civil burial, it is needless to say. Very simple obsequies. The hearse, one of the most modest, bore three large crowns of red and white roses, to say nothing of immortelles. Following the hearse, to the number of about fifteen hundred, were the principal survivors of the Commune: Henri Rochefort, Clovis Hugues, General Eudes, Alphonse Humbert, Louise Michel, Emile Gautier, and many others. It was a long way to the cemetery, where the deceased was to be buried beside her brother, and it took an hour and a quarter to make the journey, which was effected in the most tranquil manner. At the head of the procession walked three citizens carrying large crowns of red immortelles. At the grave there were several addresses, among which was one by Louise Michel, who said:
“Citizens, soon this open tomb will close forever on the dearest possession of the democratic and social revolution. Marie Ferré, whom we all admired, manifested all the virtues of woman, all the energy of man, whenever there was occasion to struggle for the end which we all pursue. Her memory will live always in the hearts of those who knew her. In her whose body is now to join the body of her assassinated brother we behold another conquered victim, and we shall not forget it. But, though dead, she will ever live, for she will serve as model and exemplar for the women of the revolution. She will recall to all the task which it remains for us to finish, the levelling of all social iniquities by justice and equality. Marie Ferré, adieu, and success to the revolution!”
Henri Rochefort penned the following touching tribute to this noble woman’s memory in the columns of “L’Intransigeant,” under the head, La Sœur du Fusillé (The Sister of the Shot):
She is called, or rather, since they bury her this morning she was called Marie Ferré. Search the volumes of Shakspere, re-read Victor Hugo, traverse the range of bloody tragedies from Corneille to Æschylus, we defy you to find anything as dark as the story of this poor flower-girl, who died yesterday almost unexpectedly, we might say in the odor of sanctity: had that phrase not been damaged in the juggleries of the Catholic Church.
In May, 1871, Marie Ferré lay sick of typhoid fever in a small room on the Rue Frasilleau, where she lived with her mother and brother. A police commissioner, followed by police agents and soldiers, burst into her room:
“Where is Théophile Ferré, member of the Commune?”
“I do not know.”
“Perhaps your mother will know.”
They spring upon Mme. Ferre, the mother, and warn her, with that delicacy which characterized the Versaillists in all their exploits, that she must make known the retreat of her son or be immediately shot.
Marie Ferré sprang from her bed, and begged to be executed instead of her mother.
“It is veil; dress yourself, for we are going to take you away,” said the chief of the squad.
At seeing her daughter shivering with fever while donning her garb of death, Mme. Ferré could hold out no longer; her brain gave way. Of her two sons one, the younger, was already a prisoner in the hands of the versaillists; the other probably could not long elude them. To top all, they were about to slay the sister under her very eyes. The unhappy woman fell senseless, and of the incoherent words that passed her lips the police carefully retained this address: Rue Saint-Sauveur.
Thither they ran, ransacked the street until they found Théophile Ferré, and, being unable to take the mother, who was struck with a sort of congestion, dragged off her daughter Marie, who spent a week in a fetid prison amid the prisoners huddled there by hundreds.
On restoring her her liberty the turnkeys told her that her father and her two brothers had been arrested, and that her mother, whom the last shock had driven mad, had been removed to the Saint-Anne asylum, where, for the rest, she died shortly after. Merle alone remained, with her courage and her industry, to supply her relatives with the food that the jailers refused them, for in the prisons of Versailles without money there was no eating, and I have personally had the pleasure of saving from death by starvation two or three fellow-prisoners, with whom I shared the meals, much too abundant for myself, which were brought to me from without.
But after the week of May and the stories which the venomous newspapers had fabricated concerning the men of the Commune, at what door could one knock to obtain work who bore the name of Ferré? Moreover, at what hour of the day could we orphan labor, when she continually had to be on the road from Levallois to Versailles in order to try to see her brothers, to whom she brought the meagre extras that constituted the major portion of their daily fare?
The night following Ferré’s death sentence I was awakened by piercing cries and a noise of broken furniture. At first I thought some prisoner had committed suicide. It was the brother of the condemned, who, occupying the cell above mine, had been plunged by the news of the fate in store for his elder brother into a sort of nervous attack complicated with wild delirium.
They called Ferré, who slept stoically, and for some hours the kindness of the director allowed to remain together in one cell these two members of the same family, of whom one had lost his head and the other was about to lose his life. It was the latter who consoled and succeeded in calming the former. Only my guard, a man who, though very thoroughly hardened to human suffering, had, the profoundest respect for the admirable bravery of the condemned man of the Commune, told me that on re-entering his cell Ferré, who had contained himself from fear of adding fuel to his brother’s excitement, seated himself on his bench and, placing his two elbows on the oaken table fastened to the wall, burst into tears.
Marie, who refrained from sleep in order to procure for her relatives a few of the extras so necessary to them, learned, on arriving at the prison, that the elder of her two brothers had been condemned to death and that the younger had just been seized with a fit of burning fever. As for her father, there was nothing against him. Consequently they did not release him. They kept on waiting for something to turn up.
Marie Ferré’s torture lasted five months. When I lately saw her again on my return from exile, I still retained all indelible remembrance of the young girl which her unexpected death has just revived. I still see her gliding like a shadow, in her black garments, along the corridor which led to the parlor. Three of us, Rossel, Ferré, and myself, generally met in these box-like enclosures which constitute an entire room, a sort of cellular omnibus. Being all three marked for death, we had been placed side by side on the ground floor of the prison, with two overseers, who, through our open grates, kept their restless eyes steadily upon us.
In the parlor Mlle. Rossel, Mlle. Ferré, and my children gathered with a common feeling of anxiety. I shall never forget, when they learned that I was sentenced only to perpetual exile in a fortified district, the look of sympathetic envy which the two young girls out upon my daughters, seeming to say:
“Your father is simply destined to end his days six thousand five hundred leagues away among cannibals; are you not happy enough?”
The sister of Ferré, like the sister of Delescluze, struggled bravely against the bitterness of her sorrows, and then fell conquered. The day when the clerical calendar, which the postman brings us every year, shall be replaced by the republican calendar, the name of this martyr will shine among the most memorable; and if ever civil baptism succeeds religious baptism, honest women will place their infants under the shield of her memory and her virtue.
Formerly the price of Liberty was eternal vigilance, then it could be had for fifty cents a year - Now only a click away.
1/17/20
Construction and Destruction.
Almost without exception every new subscriber to Liberty to whom its purposes are disclosed and who has grown up under prevailing systems exclaims: “Ah! I see you are wonderfully expert as tearing down, but you don’t say what you propose to substitute. I am fully aware that our present governments are terribly rotten, but you don’t propose anything better.”
Dear friends: suppose the natural road-bed from Boston to Lowell were of the very best quality. Nature had made it most admirably adapted for travel and transportation. But, seeing a chance to put up a job and rob the public, certain designing rogues, hired by a few thieving contractors, have succeeded, through the vile arts of politics, in covering this natural pavement with a certain patent invention, gotten up by the political road-builders. You and we are located on this patent road. Every time that we put a spade into our ground we find that the natural bed is almost perfect. It is hard, yet elastic and absorptive, and in every way adapted for commerce and transportation, if it had only been left to the care of those who use it, and who have most at stake in its serviceability.
But the patent road we find to be a perfect nuisance. We are constantly being levied upon by force to support it and repair it. Every day we, or some of our neighbors, “get stuck” upon it and our property is ruined and disabled. It is hard to walk and ride upon. It is uneven. It is full of gullies and holes, and is in every way a constant source of damage to our lives and possessions.
But, whenever we complain and appeal to the political road-builders, they are very polite and sympathetic. They hear our grievances, and straightway the jobbing contractors behind them set about to repair the road at our expense in their own way. The taxes increase, but the road grows worse. Some of us begin to suspect that the whole scheme is a put-up job to rob us, but then the thought that it is the work of our legislative governors restrains us from wicked, anarchistic designs. And yet the thought that underneath their artificial patent road there is a perfect natural bod constantly haunts us. “if they had only let us alone,” some of us cry, “and not built up their artificial swindle over the natural bed in the first place, all would have been well.”
But by and by two or three resolute dwellers along the road begin to ask themselves: “By what right do these swindling political patent-road-builders meddle with the natural bed? By what sacred right are these robbers privileged to eternally impose upon us? Why should they have any authority above us in these matters?” etc.; and, upon looking into the matter deeply, they find that the robbers have no solid claim to authority in natural justice.
Now, then, for radical, heroic treatment! On some fine morning they start out with plow and pick and dynamite to “tear down” the useless and costly superstructure. But scarcely have their plows penetrated the patent road and touched hard-pan when the other plundered neighbors arrive upon the scene. “Hold on!” they cry with one accord; “you are wonderfully expert at tearing down, but you don’t say what you propose to substitute. We are aware that the patent-road-builders and their road are terribly rotten, but you don’t propose anything better.” The fact is that they have become so imbued with the idea that nothing can be properly done without resolutions, bills, committees, votes, and all the red-tape hocus-pocus of the State that these superstitious falsely educated, state-craft-ridden neighbors are ready to pounce upon their only true friends, who desire to go straight down to hard-pan and abolish the robbing swindlers.
The reply of the hard-pan men to their deluded neighbors is very simple. They are constructing something better in the very fact and act of tearing down. Removing the rotten superstructure is in and of itself building something better. While they are putting the plow down to hard-pan, they do not forbid these who choose from using the old superstructure till their work is done. They simply ask their neighbors to take hold and hasten its removal, instead of standing idle and finding fault, if not denouncing them in their righteous work. When the old rotten swindle is out of the way, then whatever new arrangements are necessary to complete the usefulness of the natural road can be easily fixed upon and executed by mutual consent.
But the old superstructure must come down before any construction is possible. The road of equitable commerce is already there, if the patent innovation can only be gotten out of the way. These political patent-road-builders are simply usurpers, who persistently block the way and tax their fellow men to sustain their nuisances. In waging war against natural equity and true government it is they who are the real de-structionists. If our friends will only wean themselves from the old delusion of confounding the cart with the horse, they will then easily see that the friends of Liberty are the only real constructionists. We hope we have made our point plain.
Dear friends: suppose the natural road-bed from Boston to Lowell were of the very best quality. Nature had made it most admirably adapted for travel and transportation. But, seeing a chance to put up a job and rob the public, certain designing rogues, hired by a few thieving contractors, have succeeded, through the vile arts of politics, in covering this natural pavement with a certain patent invention, gotten up by the political road-builders. You and we are located on this patent road. Every time that we put a spade into our ground we find that the natural bed is almost perfect. It is hard, yet elastic and absorptive, and in every way adapted for commerce and transportation, if it had only been left to the care of those who use it, and who have most at stake in its serviceability.
But the patent road we find to be a perfect nuisance. We are constantly being levied upon by force to support it and repair it. Every day we, or some of our neighbors, “get stuck” upon it and our property is ruined and disabled. It is hard to walk and ride upon. It is uneven. It is full of gullies and holes, and is in every way a constant source of damage to our lives and possessions.
But, whenever we complain and appeal to the political road-builders, they are very polite and sympathetic. They hear our grievances, and straightway the jobbing contractors behind them set about to repair the road at our expense in their own way. The taxes increase, but the road grows worse. Some of us begin to suspect that the whole scheme is a put-up job to rob us, but then the thought that it is the work of our legislative governors restrains us from wicked, anarchistic designs. And yet the thought that underneath their artificial patent road there is a perfect natural bod constantly haunts us. “if they had only let us alone,” some of us cry, “and not built up their artificial swindle over the natural bed in the first place, all would have been well.”
But by and by two or three resolute dwellers along the road begin to ask themselves: “By what right do these swindling political patent-road-builders meddle with the natural bed? By what sacred right are these robbers privileged to eternally impose upon us? Why should they have any authority above us in these matters?” etc.; and, upon looking into the matter deeply, they find that the robbers have no solid claim to authority in natural justice.
Now, then, for radical, heroic treatment! On some fine morning they start out with plow and pick and dynamite to “tear down” the useless and costly superstructure. But scarcely have their plows penetrated the patent road and touched hard-pan when the other plundered neighbors arrive upon the scene. “Hold on!” they cry with one accord; “you are wonderfully expert at tearing down, but you don’t say what you propose to substitute. We are aware that the patent-road-builders and their road are terribly rotten, but you don’t propose anything better.” The fact is that they have become so imbued with the idea that nothing can be properly done without resolutions, bills, committees, votes, and all the red-tape hocus-pocus of the State that these superstitious falsely educated, state-craft-ridden neighbors are ready to pounce upon their only true friends, who desire to go straight down to hard-pan and abolish the robbing swindlers.
The reply of the hard-pan men to their deluded neighbors is very simple. They are constructing something better in the very fact and act of tearing down. Removing the rotten superstructure is in and of itself building something better. While they are putting the plow down to hard-pan, they do not forbid these who choose from using the old superstructure till their work is done. They simply ask their neighbors to take hold and hasten its removal, instead of standing idle and finding fault, if not denouncing them in their righteous work. When the old rotten swindle is out of the way, then whatever new arrangements are necessary to complete the usefulness of the natural road can be easily fixed upon and executed by mutual consent.
But the old superstructure must come down before any construction is possible. The road of equitable commerce is already there, if the patent innovation can only be gotten out of the way. These political patent-road-builders are simply usurpers, who persistently block the way and tax their fellow men to sustain their nuisances. In waging war against natural equity and true government it is they who are the real de-structionists. If our friends will only wean themselves from the old delusion of confounding the cart with the horse, they will then easily see that the friends of Liberty are the only real constructionists. We hope we have made our point plain.
1/14/20
Samuel Johnson.
Liberty hears with regret of the death of Samuel Johnson. Of the religious radical who, since the death of Parker, have come into notice as apostles of Reason in Religion, Mr. Johnson, less widely known than many others, easily stood foremost. In breadth of view, clearness of thought, he had among the radical writers no superior. His many and carefully prepared contributions to the “Radical” show the vigor and temper of his mind. A transcendentalist of most consistent parts, he knew always where he stood, and was never found lapsing into uncertainty and compromise. The materialist found in him a man with both the courage of his convictions and the “preparedness” to state them. He knew his own ground thoroughly. Probably no writer has presented the transcendental philosophy with more satisfaction to transcendental believers than did Mr. Johnson in an elaborate paper published in the “Radical Review,” nearly five years ago. For nineteen years he was the preacher to a Free Society in Lynn. He was a firm believer in individual, personal influence and power, and instinctively avoided the organizing, sectarian purposes and plans so beguiling to others. The bond of organized religious propagandism, however liberal in protestations, was to his mind still a fetter. To swap the “Lordship of Christ” for the mastership of even a tacit understanding among radicals as to matters of belief was to make no signal advance. The mind, to be free, must follow its own laws with not even the implied duty of social argument. Each man must do his own work in his own way on his own ground, and without fear or favor. For this duty of freedom, this absolute necessity for independent activity, he ever did valiant and successful battle. And herein, more than in any other fact of his life, does Liberty rejoice. In spirit Mr. Johnson was ever a Liberty’s side. But not always could he see o’er what seemingly dangerous passes the aspiring dame led. If he did not follow her to the length of her leading, it was not that he lacked the courage, but that, to his ardent vision, the goal had been touched. Nevertheless, in his philosophy the foundations of Liberty were laid deep and strong. Sincerity, honesty of thought and expression ennobled and strengthened his whole life. Not shrinking from the world, as some mistakenly have said, but retiring to his appointed tasks that he might well and faithfully do them, he toiled happily and unremittingly. Twenty years and more he had worked upon the three large volumes devoted to the “Oriental Religions,” two of which, published by J. R. Osgood & Co., are before the public,— “India” and “China.” This last-named volume is well worthy the widest circulation. It treats of the Chinese people, their religion, philosophy, government, their whole social life and history, in the most learned and intelligent manner, and has the most practical of bearing upon this now exciting question in American politics. From its pages one learns that the much hated “heathen Chinee” is, in nearly all the essentials of real manliness, quite beyond the imitation even of his Christian detractors.
Mr. Johnson’s death occurred suddenly, and gave a sad surprise to his many personal friends. A brave, true man, whose memory Liberty will ever cherish! Had he begun life to-day with the same fervent zeal and clear-sightedness that characterized his anti-slavery career thirty years ago, there is no doubt where he would have taken his stand and what new battles he would have helped Liberty fight. But age and death, foes and destroyers of us all, chained and claimed him. Much he did, yet much remains behind. In his day and generation he did Liberty noble service. But nobler, higher, profounder meanings the ages unveil, and we who still live must needs press forward into their newer and stronger light.
These lines of Emerson he loved to quote, and now that his lips are still, his voice silent, Liberty to his memory repeats them, and adopts them as her own.
Mr. Johnson’s death occurred suddenly, and gave a sad surprise to his many personal friends. A brave, true man, whose memory Liberty will ever cherish! Had he begun life to-day with the same fervent zeal and clear-sightedness that characterized his anti-slavery career thirty years ago, there is no doubt where he would have taken his stand and what new battles he would have helped Liberty fight. But age and death, foes and destroyers of us all, chained and claimed him. Much he did, yet much remains behind. In his day and generation he did Liberty noble service. But nobler, higher, profounder meanings the ages unveil, and we who still live must needs press forward into their newer and stronger light.
“Freedom all-winged expands,
Nor perches in narrow place,
Her broad van seeks unplanted lands.”
These lines of Emerson he loved to quote, and now that his lips are still, his voice silent, Liberty to his memory repeats them, and adopts them as her own.
Americans, Attention!
In our issue of January 21, No. 13, appeared an appeal of the Nihilists for pecuniary aid, not in behalf of the movement itself, but for the material relief of those who are now suffering in consequence of their participation in the struggle for Liberty in Russia. The special appeal then printed was a translation of that which had been issued to the people of France. To-day, in another column, we printed the appeal that has been issued directly to the English-speaking race and especially to Americans. In it is stated the fact, which we now take pleasure and pride in announcing, that the Editor of Liberty has been duly appointed the American delegate of the Red Cross Society of the Will of People to organize the subscription in this country, and receive, acknowledge, and transmit such responses to the appeal as American sympathy and American love of Liberty shall show its willingness to make. He assumes the trust thus placed in his keeping with clear sense of the honor conferred and full realization of its importance. He adds his voice to those of Vera Zassoulitch and Pierre Lavroff, who in turn speak authoritatively for the best elements of Russian life, and, with all the earnestness at his command, asks every one whom it may reach to give the utmost that he or she can spare to succor the Siberian exiles and their suffering families. The appeal is to the human heart, regardless of individual opinions. Let it not be said that the citizens of the freest country in the world failed to do their best to heal the wounds inflicted upon such of their brethren as have heroically struggled to cast off the chains placed upon them by the most absolute and cruel of autocracies.
We are in possession of stamped and numbered subscription lists issued by the Central Committee of the Red Cross. To any responsible person in any part of America who shall signify his willingness to devote a portion of his time to working up the subscription, one of these lists, together with copies of the printed appeal, will be forwarded. Especially do we urge our readers to take a hand, and an active one. in the glorious work. Individual subscriptions may be sent directly to Benj. R. Tucker, Box 3366, Boston, Mass.; also any requests for further information. All amounts received, with the names of the donors, will be acknowledged in these columns, and promptly transmitted, at least possible cost, to the Central Committee.
Let us add that the appeal which we formerly published occasioned, by its issuance in France, the expulsion of Pierre Lavroff, one of its signers, from French territory by the new ministry, which professes to be governed in its policy by the principle of Liberty. Lavroff has long lived the life of quiet student in Paris, spending most of his time in the libraries, and his expulsion is another evidence of the hypocrisy of the pretence that any other principle that authority can lie at the foundation of any form of government whatsoever. Before leaving France, he addressed a letter to Clémeceau, from which we quote the following passages, leaving till another time the burning comments of the radical press of Paris upon this latest outrage:
I have just been notified of the decree expelling me from French territory.
Having scarcely busied myself at several years with the affairs of France, I did not consider myself so dangerous to “public safety” of the republican country in which I took up my residence some five years ago. But I do not complain. A revolutionary socialist, it is with me axiom that existing society cannot be society of justice and liberty; if it pleases the government of French republic to furnish new proofs in support of my theory, it would ill become me to exhibit astonishment. It acts according to the logic of its situation as a government. . . . .
It intends, in expelling me to-day, to show a mark of friendship for the government of the Russian empire; but, in view of the weakness and inferior intelligence of the latter, this act of compliance is not unlikely to be found more disinterested than we could have desired. Who knows how many other concessions to political combinations will follow to-morrow? It is inevitable. . . . .
Driven rudely from a country which I loved and where I have made friends, I have only to submit to the decree, still deeming it thoughtful on the part of a minister not to have relegated me to some interior stronghold, or not to have conducted me to the frontier, manacles on wrists and in prison wagon, as happened a year and half ago to several of my friends, who had mingled as little as I in the struggles of French political parties.
I submit, then, to the decree of the ministry, and shall probably have left France when you read this letter. But it is for you and your friends, representatives of the French people and managers of their journals; for you, who, by talent and political influence, are the natural guardians of the interests and honor of your country,— it is you ti take heed whether the government of the French republic is not allowing itself to glide too quickly into a path fatal to the principles of liberty and democracy, whether the danger, from the moral and political point of view, does not become more imminent with every hour.
In quitting France, probably forever, I shall always preserve the memory of those who struggle within her boundaries for the triumph of the principles of republican radicalism.
We are in possession of stamped and numbered subscription lists issued by the Central Committee of the Red Cross. To any responsible person in any part of America who shall signify his willingness to devote a portion of his time to working up the subscription, one of these lists, together with copies of the printed appeal, will be forwarded. Especially do we urge our readers to take a hand, and an active one. in the glorious work. Individual subscriptions may be sent directly to Benj. R. Tucker, Box 3366, Boston, Mass.; also any requests for further information. All amounts received, with the names of the donors, will be acknowledged in these columns, and promptly transmitted, at least possible cost, to the Central Committee.
Let us add that the appeal which we formerly published occasioned, by its issuance in France, the expulsion of Pierre Lavroff, one of its signers, from French territory by the new ministry, which professes to be governed in its policy by the principle of Liberty. Lavroff has long lived the life of quiet student in Paris, spending most of his time in the libraries, and his expulsion is another evidence of the hypocrisy of the pretence that any other principle that authority can lie at the foundation of any form of government whatsoever. Before leaving France, he addressed a letter to Clémeceau, from which we quote the following passages, leaving till another time the burning comments of the radical press of Paris upon this latest outrage:
I have just been notified of the decree expelling me from French territory.
Having scarcely busied myself at several years with the affairs of France, I did not consider myself so dangerous to “public safety” of the republican country in which I took up my residence some five years ago. But I do not complain. A revolutionary socialist, it is with me axiom that existing society cannot be society of justice and liberty; if it pleases the government of French republic to furnish new proofs in support of my theory, it would ill become me to exhibit astonishment. It acts according to the logic of its situation as a government. . . . .
It intends, in expelling me to-day, to show a mark of friendship for the government of the Russian empire; but, in view of the weakness and inferior intelligence of the latter, this act of compliance is not unlikely to be found more disinterested than we could have desired. Who knows how many other concessions to political combinations will follow to-morrow? It is inevitable. . . . .
Driven rudely from a country which I loved and where I have made friends, I have only to submit to the decree, still deeming it thoughtful on the part of a minister not to have relegated me to some interior stronghold, or not to have conducted me to the frontier, manacles on wrists and in prison wagon, as happened a year and half ago to several of my friends, who had mingled as little as I in the struggles of French political parties.
I submit, then, to the decree of the ministry, and shall probably have left France when you read this letter. But it is for you and your friends, representatives of the French people and managers of their journals; for you, who, by talent and political influence, are the natural guardians of the interests and honor of your country,— it is you ti take heed whether the government of the French republic is not allowing itself to glide too quickly into a path fatal to the principles of liberty and democracy, whether the danger, from the moral and political point of view, does not become more imminent with every hour.
In quitting France, probably forever, I shall always preserve the memory of those who struggle within her boundaries for the triumph of the principles of republican radicalism.
To The American People.
The public prints have told you of political trials in Russia and of the monstrous judgments daily pronounced in her courts. But they have told you nothing of the cruel sufferings of the condemned; and the victims whose names are recorded by them are but a fraction of the crowds that go to their doom in darkness and silence. Before the vast and ever widening discontent of the Russian people, authority in Russia is terror-stricken and amazed; and it lays hands, by tens of thousands, on our youth, and sends them, men and women alike, into hopeless banishment. The deserts in the north of the Empire, from the dreary wastes round the White Sea to the frozen shores of Eastern Asia, are scattered over with bands of exiles, the flower of the Russian race. They are prisoned everywhere: in wretched hamlets, in the depths of trackless and inhospitable forests, in remote tribal camps in Eastern Siberia, where hardly a word of their native tongue is spoken or understood. And they have to endure not only the moral tortures of isolation and inactivity, but the physical pangs of hunger and cold. There is scarce a means of livelihood that is not denied them; and though to each the State allots a pittance for his support,— twelve shillings a month if he is nobly born; seven shillings a month if he is not,— there are of late so many of them that it is never paid until long overdue. Month after month goes by, and many an exile dies for lack of bread before he has received a single farthing.
They are mostly young and energetic; they have faith in the coming of better times; they are brave and strong enough to make little of the trials that are imposed upon them by the desperate necessities of their time and of the duties to which they are called, if they had but is hope that they might one day to life and work among their friends. But their strength is wasted by misery and hardship, and they die easily and soon.
Money alone is needed: that much suffering may be spared and many sufferers may be saved. To raise it, and afterwards distribute it among our prisoners, we have formed a Red Cross Society of the People’s Will. It bears no part whatever in our war against authority. Its relation to the Revolutionary Party is that of the Red Cross Society of Geneva to an army in the field. There is only one difference,— that the Red Cross Society of the People’s Will shares in each and every one of the dangers of the force it would succor and relieve.
Such funds as it may raise will be devoted to but one use. Not a penny but will be spent upon political exiles and political prisoners. It will make no distinction in favor of persons or opinions. All who suffer and are in need will receive of it alike.
The Society esteems it a duty to appeal not only to the men and women of Russia, where to be charitable to political convicts is to run the risk of suffering beside them, but to the men and women of the freer and happier countries of Western Europe and America.
To this end it has appointed two of its members to work of organizing sections abroad, and of gathering in such sums as may be bestowed in favor of the ends it has in view. These delegates are Vera Zassoulitch and Peter Lavroff. Their instructions are as follows: —
(1) To appeal directly to subscribers, by means of numbered and stamped subscription lists, signed by the delegates themselves and containing an account of all sums received.
(2) To beg all journals and organs of public opinion to assist the Society by opening subscription lists and receiving and paying in subscriptions.
(3) To publish accounts of all subscriptions received and of manner of their employ.
(4) To appoint receivers in countries to which no delegate has been named, whose signature shall have equal authority with that of the delegates themselves.
Benj. R. Tucker, Editor of Liberty, P. O. Box 3366, Boston, Mass., is the delegate for America.
It is earnestly requested that subscriptions be only paid (1) to one or other of the delegates; (2) to persons accredited by the possession of subscription lists, as described above; or (3) to the editors of such journals as shall consent to receive subscriptions for the Society.
They are mostly young and energetic; they have faith in the coming of better times; they are brave and strong enough to make little of the trials that are imposed upon them by the desperate necessities of their time and of the duties to which they are called, if they had but is hope that they might one day to life and work among their friends. But their strength is wasted by misery and hardship, and they die easily and soon.
Money alone is needed: that much suffering may be spared and many sufferers may be saved. To raise it, and afterwards distribute it among our prisoners, we have formed a Red Cross Society of the People’s Will. It bears no part whatever in our war against authority. Its relation to the Revolutionary Party is that of the Red Cross Society of Geneva to an army in the field. There is only one difference,— that the Red Cross Society of the People’s Will shares in each and every one of the dangers of the force it would succor and relieve.
Such funds as it may raise will be devoted to but one use. Not a penny but will be spent upon political exiles and political prisoners. It will make no distinction in favor of persons or opinions. All who suffer and are in need will receive of it alike.
The Society esteems it a duty to appeal not only to the men and women of Russia, where to be charitable to political convicts is to run the risk of suffering beside them, but to the men and women of the freer and happier countries of Western Europe and America.
To this end it has appointed two of its members to work of organizing sections abroad, and of gathering in such sums as may be bestowed in favor of the ends it has in view. These delegates are Vera Zassoulitch and Peter Lavroff. Their instructions are as follows: —
(1) To appeal directly to subscribers, by means of numbered and stamped subscription lists, signed by the delegates themselves and containing an account of all sums received.
(2) To beg all journals and organs of public opinion to assist the Society by opening subscription lists and receiving and paying in subscriptions.
(3) To publish accounts of all subscriptions received and of manner of their employ.
(4) To appoint receivers in countries to which no delegate has been named, whose signature shall have equal authority with that of the delegates themselves.
Benj. R. Tucker, Editor of Liberty, P. O. Box 3366, Boston, Mass., is the delegate for America.
It is earnestly requested that subscriptions be only paid (1) to one or other of the delegates; (2) to persons accredited by the possession of subscription lists, as described above; or (3) to the editors of such journals as shall consent to receive subscriptions for the Society.
Vera Zassoulitch.
Peter Lavroff.
1/13/20
On Picket Duty.
We are now prepared to furnish the portrait of Michael Bakounine (published in Liberty several weeks ago) separately and on large, heavy paper. It ought to adorn the library walls of every true radical. Consult our advertising column for further information.
The Philadelphia “Press” refers to the British house of commons as a “band of chuckle-headed dullards.” So exact an appreciation of the tools of the governing classes is worthy of Liberty, who hastens to acknowledge her encouragement at hearing her opinions echoed by her influential contemporaries.
On another page will be found along extract from a newly published pamphlet on “Natural Law,” written by that veteran but ever young reformer and philosopher, Lysander Spooner. The whole pamphlet is a powerful and closely argued statement of the philosophy of Liberty, showing the unrighteousness of the government of man by man. It is, however, but an, introduction to a large volume intended to be exhaustive of the subject. Nevertheless it is an integral, and not a fragmentary portion of the work, and maybe read with satisfaction and profit by all. Liberty trusts that each of her readers and friends will pay immediate heed to the advertisement in another column, and order a copy forthwith.
Elsewhere may be found resolutions adopted by active and earnest coworkers in Jersey City in support of the act of George Hendrix in defacing the monument erected by Cyrus W. Field in honor of Major Andre. Against these resolutions Liberty feels bound to protest. We fully agree that Mr. Cyrus W. Field is a thoroughly contemptible being, whose soul, if he has one, will shrivel in hell, if there is one. But, as long as he shall remain on earth, he will have rights, the same rights that every other man has, and in his exercise thereof Liberty will ever defend him even against her own friends. Among these rights is the right to worship any god or man he pleases and in his own way. Whoever disturbs or interferes with him in such worship strikes an unwarrantable blow at freedom of expression, and in so far is false to Liberty. We heartily join in condemnation of the illegal arrest of Mr. Hendrix, not only as the act of a compulsory government which is not entitled to arrest anybody, but as a denial of one of the prerogatives which said government itself pretends to guarantee to its citizens. Still we remember that, if Mr. Hendrix is guilty, his arrest is simply one outrage of Liberty in return for another. The monument erected at Tappautown should be allowed to stand inviolate until taken down by Mr. Field impelled by a sense of his own shame. This, first, for a principle’s sake, because Mr. Field had a right to erect it, and, second, for policy’s sake, because while it stands, it will commemorate ehieny, not the act of Andre, but the folly and servility of his small-souled admirer. Remember! He is no fit soldier of Liberty who refuses to accord Liberty to his enemy.
Patrick Ford has issued through his journal, the “Irish World,” a strong personal declaration on the Irish land question. As a whole it is manly and has the right ring. To be sure, it contains one rhetorically resonant passage glorifying the “Holy Catholic Church” and her infallibility and pledging the writer to a total change of his opinions the instant the “Mother of the Living” shall announce her antagonism thereto, perhaps the most eloquent piece of self-stultification to utter which any man ever soared to the skies with his voice or grovelled in the mire with his intellect. But such things are to be expected from Patrick Ford, the Catholic and slave of superstition. Patrick Ford, the reformer and light-spreader, in whom alone Liberty takes interest, is quite another person. He declares afresh and in unmistakable terms his adherence to the “No Rent” standard, and rebukes, in words that would shame any but shameless men, those who would nullify the grand work already achieved for Ireland by abandoning the Land League with victory almost within its grasp to engage in a hopeless struggle for “home rule” and Irish independence. Home rule, forsooth! As if that were not as bad as any rule! As if Ireland had not suffered too much from the rule already! What she needs now is no rule, anarchy, with which will come peace. For where there is no rule there will be no monopoly; and where there is no monopoly there will be no rent; and where there is no rent there will be no disturbing land question, and every other question of human welfare will be started on the road to its speedy solution.
Of the absolute correctness of the principle, and advisability of the policy, of free trade there can be no reasonable doubt, but it must be thorough-going free trade,— no such half-way arrangement as that which the so-called “free traders” would have adopted. David A. Wells, Professor Perry, and all the economists of the Manchester school are fond of clamoring for “free trade,” but an examination of their position always shows them the most ardent advocates of monopoly in the manufacture of money; the bitterest opponents of free trade in credit. They agree and insist that it is nothing less than tyranny for the government to clip a large slice out of the foreign product which any one chooses to import, but are unable to detect any violation of freedom in the exclusive license given by the government to a conspiracy of note-sharing corporations called national banks, which are enabled by this monopoly to clip anywhere from three to fifteen per cent out of the credit which the people are compelled to buy of them. Such “free trade” as this is the most palpable sham to any one who really looks into it. It makes gold a privileged product, the king of commodities. And as long as this royalty of gold exists, the protectionists who make so much of the theory of the “balance of trade” will occupy an invulnerable position. While gold is king, the nation which absorbs it — that is, the nation whose exports largely exceed its imports — will surely govern the world. But dethrone this worst of despots, and that country will be the most powerful which succeeds to the largest extent in getting rid of its gold in exchange for products more useful. In other word, the republicanization of specio must precede the freedom of trade.
The Philadelphia “Press” refers to the British house of commons as a “band of chuckle-headed dullards.” So exact an appreciation of the tools of the governing classes is worthy of Liberty, who hastens to acknowledge her encouragement at hearing her opinions echoed by her influential contemporaries.
On another page will be found along extract from a newly published pamphlet on “Natural Law,” written by that veteran but ever young reformer and philosopher, Lysander Spooner. The whole pamphlet is a powerful and closely argued statement of the philosophy of Liberty, showing the unrighteousness of the government of man by man. It is, however, but an, introduction to a large volume intended to be exhaustive of the subject. Nevertheless it is an integral, and not a fragmentary portion of the work, and maybe read with satisfaction and profit by all. Liberty trusts that each of her readers and friends will pay immediate heed to the advertisement in another column, and order a copy forthwith.
Elsewhere may be found resolutions adopted by active and earnest coworkers in Jersey City in support of the act of George Hendrix in defacing the monument erected by Cyrus W. Field in honor of Major Andre. Against these resolutions Liberty feels bound to protest. We fully agree that Mr. Cyrus W. Field is a thoroughly contemptible being, whose soul, if he has one, will shrivel in hell, if there is one. But, as long as he shall remain on earth, he will have rights, the same rights that every other man has, and in his exercise thereof Liberty will ever defend him even against her own friends. Among these rights is the right to worship any god or man he pleases and in his own way. Whoever disturbs or interferes with him in such worship strikes an unwarrantable blow at freedom of expression, and in so far is false to Liberty. We heartily join in condemnation of the illegal arrest of Mr. Hendrix, not only as the act of a compulsory government which is not entitled to arrest anybody, but as a denial of one of the prerogatives which said government itself pretends to guarantee to its citizens. Still we remember that, if Mr. Hendrix is guilty, his arrest is simply one outrage of Liberty in return for another. The monument erected at Tappautown should be allowed to stand inviolate until taken down by Mr. Field impelled by a sense of his own shame. This, first, for a principle’s sake, because Mr. Field had a right to erect it, and, second, for policy’s sake, because while it stands, it will commemorate ehieny, not the act of Andre, but the folly and servility of his small-souled admirer. Remember! He is no fit soldier of Liberty who refuses to accord Liberty to his enemy.
Patrick Ford has issued through his journal, the “Irish World,” a strong personal declaration on the Irish land question. As a whole it is manly and has the right ring. To be sure, it contains one rhetorically resonant passage glorifying the “Holy Catholic Church” and her infallibility and pledging the writer to a total change of his opinions the instant the “Mother of the Living” shall announce her antagonism thereto, perhaps the most eloquent piece of self-stultification to utter which any man ever soared to the skies with his voice or grovelled in the mire with his intellect. But such things are to be expected from Patrick Ford, the Catholic and slave of superstition. Patrick Ford, the reformer and light-spreader, in whom alone Liberty takes interest, is quite another person. He declares afresh and in unmistakable terms his adherence to the “No Rent” standard, and rebukes, in words that would shame any but shameless men, those who would nullify the grand work already achieved for Ireland by abandoning the Land League with victory almost within its grasp to engage in a hopeless struggle for “home rule” and Irish independence. Home rule, forsooth! As if that were not as bad as any rule! As if Ireland had not suffered too much from the rule already! What she needs now is no rule, anarchy, with which will come peace. For where there is no rule there will be no monopoly; and where there is no monopoly there will be no rent; and where there is no rent there will be no disturbing land question, and every other question of human welfare will be started on the road to its speedy solution.
Of the absolute correctness of the principle, and advisability of the policy, of free trade there can be no reasonable doubt, but it must be thorough-going free trade,— no such half-way arrangement as that which the so-called “free traders” would have adopted. David A. Wells, Professor Perry, and all the economists of the Manchester school are fond of clamoring for “free trade,” but an examination of their position always shows them the most ardent advocates of monopoly in the manufacture of money; the bitterest opponents of free trade in credit. They agree and insist that it is nothing less than tyranny for the government to clip a large slice out of the foreign product which any one chooses to import, but are unable to detect any violation of freedom in the exclusive license given by the government to a conspiracy of note-sharing corporations called national banks, which are enabled by this monopoly to clip anywhere from three to fifteen per cent out of the credit which the people are compelled to buy of them. Such “free trade” as this is the most palpable sham to any one who really looks into it. It makes gold a privileged product, the king of commodities. And as long as this royalty of gold exists, the protectionists who make so much of the theory of the “balance of trade” will occupy an invulnerable position. While gold is king, the nation which absorbs it — that is, the nation whose exports largely exceed its imports — will surely govern the world. But dethrone this worst of despots, and that country will be the most powerful which succeeds to the largest extent in getting rid of its gold in exchange for products more useful. In other word, the republicanization of specio must precede the freedom of trade.
10/1/19
The Coming Revolution.
The coming revolution will bear a character of universality which will distinguish it from all preceding revolutions. It will be no longer one country that will rush into the fray, but the combined nations of the world. Formerly a localized revolution was possible, but now, with all the bonds of union and the commerce between all the countries of Europe, it will be impossible to confine a revolution if it lasts a certain time. This will be more certainly the case now than it was even in 1848, in consequence of the freer interchange of idea which takes place at the present time, and which it is our duty and our interest to develop and encourage by way of preparation for the international revolution, which must consume the old society of Europe before we can build up the new social edifice.
In 1848 the insurgent towns placed their trust in changes of government, or in constitutional reforms, but such would not be the case at the present time. The working man of Paris, Lyons, or Marseilles, will not wait to receive the accomplishment of his desires from any government, not even from the free commune; he will set to work himself, and say to himself, “That will be so much the more finished and done with.” The Russian people will not wait for a constituent assembly to give them the land they cultivate; they will take it themselves, and at once. It will be the name with Italy and Spain; and, if a certain number of German workingmen allow themselves to be bamboozled by half-hearted or treacherous leaders of their party in Parliament who urge them to wait for constitutional reforms, the example of their neighbors will not be long in teaching them the true revolutionary road. To sum up briefly, the approaching revolution will be effected by the people, “without waiting for it to fall from on high like manna from heaven.” Friends! we who are the people have had to make many sacrifices in the past, and we will have to make them; unjust sacrifices extorted from us against our will, and sacrifices which we earnestly desire to free ourselves from; sacrifices of time and health, of comfort, of instruction, of home affections, and of all that constitutes the happiness of life and makes it worth living. Yet we have another sacrifice to make, and, until we do so cheerfully, I fear that we shall not play our part in the great work of emancipation. We must sacrifice one by one, or, better still, altogether, those prejudices, those thousand prejudices, which we have inherited, and which are the only heritage that most of us have received. But among these prejudices there is one which deserves all our attention, not only because it is the basis of our modern institutions, but because we find traces of it in nearly all the social theories which have been put forward by reformers. The prejudice I refer to is that which consists in putting faith in representative government, or government by proxy. Toward the end of the last century the French people overturned the monarchy, and the last of the absolute kings expiated on the scaffold, not only his own crimes, but also those of his predecessors. Well, it would appear that at the very time whet: everything which was good or great or lasting in the revolutionary work had been accomplished, thanks to the energy and on the responsibility of individuals or of groups, and thanks also to the weakness of the central power,— it would seem, I say, that at that very time the people were preparing to return under the yoke of a new power. And such was the one. Under the influence of governmental prejudices, and deceived by the appearance of Liberty supposed to be enjoyed by the people: of England and America under the constitutions of those countries, the French people hastened to give itself constitutions which it has never wearied or changing. Later, the example of France has been followed by all the nations of Europe, with the single exception of Russia; all, at different times, have shaken off the yoke of despotic personal rule to place themselves under the thumb of assemblies of representatives even under the Commune of 1871 a decided tendency to parliamentarism was at times shown. Happily, however, a new light is breaking upon the eyes of the people with reference to this matter, and they are beginning to see that the best way to be free is not to be too much represented, not to abandon everything either to Providence or to their deputies, but to conduct and administer their affairs themselves.
London, December, 1881.
In 1848 the insurgent towns placed their trust in changes of government, or in constitutional reforms, but such would not be the case at the present time. The working man of Paris, Lyons, or Marseilles, will not wait to receive the accomplishment of his desires from any government, not even from the free commune; he will set to work himself, and say to himself, “That will be so much the more finished and done with.” The Russian people will not wait for a constituent assembly to give them the land they cultivate; they will take it themselves, and at once. It will be the name with Italy and Spain; and, if a certain number of German workingmen allow themselves to be bamboozled by half-hearted or treacherous leaders of their party in Parliament who urge them to wait for constitutional reforms, the example of their neighbors will not be long in teaching them the true revolutionary road. To sum up briefly, the approaching revolution will be effected by the people, “without waiting for it to fall from on high like manna from heaven.” Friends! we who are the people have had to make many sacrifices in the past, and we will have to make them; unjust sacrifices extorted from us against our will, and sacrifices which we earnestly desire to free ourselves from; sacrifices of time and health, of comfort, of instruction, of home affections, and of all that constitutes the happiness of life and makes it worth living. Yet we have another sacrifice to make, and, until we do so cheerfully, I fear that we shall not play our part in the great work of emancipation. We must sacrifice one by one, or, better still, altogether, those prejudices, those thousand prejudices, which we have inherited, and which are the only heritage that most of us have received. But among these prejudices there is one which deserves all our attention, not only because it is the basis of our modern institutions, but because we find traces of it in nearly all the social theories which have been put forward by reformers. The prejudice I refer to is that which consists in putting faith in representative government, or government by proxy. Toward the end of the last century the French people overturned the monarchy, and the last of the absolute kings expiated on the scaffold, not only his own crimes, but also those of his predecessors. Well, it would appear that at the very time whet: everything which was good or great or lasting in the revolutionary work had been accomplished, thanks to the energy and on the responsibility of individuals or of groups, and thanks also to the weakness of the central power,— it would seem, I say, that at that very time the people were preparing to return under the yoke of a new power. And such was the one. Under the influence of governmental prejudices, and deceived by the appearance of Liberty supposed to be enjoyed by the people: of England and America under the constitutions of those countries, the French people hastened to give itself constitutions which it has never wearied or changing. Later, the example of France has been followed by all the nations of Europe, with the single exception of Russia; all, at different times, have shaken off the yoke of despotic personal rule to place themselves under the thumb of assemblies of representatives even under the Commune of 1871 a decided tendency to parliamentarism was at times shown. Happily, however, a new light is breaking upon the eyes of the people with reference to this matter, and they are beginning to see that the best way to be free is not to be too much represented, not to abandon everything either to Providence or to their deputies, but to conduct and administer their affairs themselves.
H. Droege.
London, December, 1881.
The End of a Religion.
Under the above title, Henri Rochefort, the day after the civil burial of M. Herold, the eminent French freethinker, recently dead, who for so many years was prefect of the department of the Seine and consequently administrator of the municipal affairs of Paris, commented upon the services in the following words, translated from “L’Intransigeant”:—
The civil burial of M. Herold is the most serious service that that senatorial functionary ever rendered in his life, or rather in his death, to the cause of the Republic and of liberty of conscience.
His conduct in persisting in his freethought even to the tomb and including it was the more meritorious in that he was born a Protestant, and that the adepts of that religion, which calls itself reformed although it has a horror of reforms, are devotees even more fanatical than the Catholics.
Littré, in dying under the auspices of the church, forever compromised his memory. Herold has just assured his. The example that he, prefect of the Seine, has had the courage to set to the city whose affairs he administered will do more to scatter the mass pf absurdities agglomerated under the name of Christianity than all our articles and all our preaching. Not ten years ago the absence of the priest from the obsequies of a citizen was considered by the least devout as an eccentricity in bad taste, and by the faithful as the last word of scoundrelism. Such prefects as the Ducros and the Nadaillacs could post decrees with impunity, obliging bodies intended for civil burial to be taken away at five o’clock in the morning, at the same hour as the rubbish heaped before our doors.
Relatives were not even allowed to follow to their last resting-place the bodies of these pestiferous persons, and there was talk of adding a corner for them to the cemetery set apart for the executioner’s victims.
The old St. Simonian, Félicien David, having refused the aid of holy water and of the last prayers, the detachment which accompanied the hearse of this officer of the Legion of Honor received from its colonel an order to turn back as soon as he learned that they were proceeding directly from the house of the dead to Pere-Lachaise.
To-day, the first magistrate of the capital of France disdainfully rejects the aspergill, the De profundis, the mass for the dead, even though in music; and all those who, but a few years ago, would have veiled their faces before an atheism so pronounced,— the president of the senate, the prefect of police, I the president of the chamber of commerce, the governor of Paris, the president of the Republic in the person of his representative,— have marched in the procession with the air of people scandalized not the least in the world, talking of matters quite other than the eternal flames which the deceased nevertheless could not escape.
Now there is no room for delusion concerning the significance of a civil burial. It is no longer simply the negation of the bagatelles of Catholicism, such as the immaculate conception, the infallibility of the pope, the real presence of Jesus Christ in a wafer of flour which serves to make angels and which might serve quite as well to make pancakes; it is the rejection in toto of all the dogmas on which rests the immense mystification which is the basis of the Christian as of every other religion. No more immortality of the soul, no more last judgment, no more paradise, no more creator: uncreated matter, whence the body came and whither it returns. For the great argument of the priests is this:
“Who could have created the world, if not God?”
But they have never answered the question with which the atheists ever confront them:
“If nothing can create itself unaided, tell us, then, who created God ?”
These are the theories that have been sanctioned by the senators, deputies, high dignitaries, and official personages who ranged themselves around M. Herold’s tomb.
Though some may not have attached to this deeply serious fact all the importance which it merits, surely the clergy have measured its potent consequences.
Henceforth civil burial, no longer a matter of private conviction merely, is a constituent part of the public morals. Yesterday religious obsequies were the rule. To-morrow they will be the exception.
The civil burial of M. Herold is the most serious service that that senatorial functionary ever rendered in his life, or rather in his death, to the cause of the Republic and of liberty of conscience.
His conduct in persisting in his freethought even to the tomb and including it was the more meritorious in that he was born a Protestant, and that the adepts of that religion, which calls itself reformed although it has a horror of reforms, are devotees even more fanatical than the Catholics.
Littré, in dying under the auspices of the church, forever compromised his memory. Herold has just assured his. The example that he, prefect of the Seine, has had the courage to set to the city whose affairs he administered will do more to scatter the mass pf absurdities agglomerated under the name of Christianity than all our articles and all our preaching. Not ten years ago the absence of the priest from the obsequies of a citizen was considered by the least devout as an eccentricity in bad taste, and by the faithful as the last word of scoundrelism. Such prefects as the Ducros and the Nadaillacs could post decrees with impunity, obliging bodies intended for civil burial to be taken away at five o’clock in the morning, at the same hour as the rubbish heaped before our doors.
Relatives were not even allowed to follow to their last resting-place the bodies of these pestiferous persons, and there was talk of adding a corner for them to the cemetery set apart for the executioner’s victims.
The old St. Simonian, Félicien David, having refused the aid of holy water and of the last prayers, the detachment which accompanied the hearse of this officer of the Legion of Honor received from its colonel an order to turn back as soon as he learned that they were proceeding directly from the house of the dead to Pere-Lachaise.
To-day, the first magistrate of the capital of France disdainfully rejects the aspergill, the De profundis, the mass for the dead, even though in music; and all those who, but a few years ago, would have veiled their faces before an atheism so pronounced,— the president of the senate, the prefect of police, I the president of the chamber of commerce, the governor of Paris, the president of the Republic in the person of his representative,— have marched in the procession with the air of people scandalized not the least in the world, talking of matters quite other than the eternal flames which the deceased nevertheless could not escape.
Now there is no room for delusion concerning the significance of a civil burial. It is no longer simply the negation of the bagatelles of Catholicism, such as the immaculate conception, the infallibility of the pope, the real presence of Jesus Christ in a wafer of flour which serves to make angels and which might serve quite as well to make pancakes; it is the rejection in toto of all the dogmas on which rests the immense mystification which is the basis of the Christian as of every other religion. No more immortality of the soul, no more last judgment, no more paradise, no more creator: uncreated matter, whence the body came and whither it returns. For the great argument of the priests is this:
“Who could have created the world, if not God?”
But they have never answered the question with which the atheists ever confront them:
“If nothing can create itself unaided, tell us, then, who created God ?”
These are the theories that have been sanctioned by the senators, deputies, high dignitaries, and official personages who ranged themselves around M. Herold’s tomb.
Though some may not have attached to this deeply serious fact all the importance which it merits, surely the clergy have measured its potent consequences.
Henceforth civil burial, no longer a matter of private conviction merely, is a constituent part of the public morals. Yesterday religious obsequies were the rule. To-morrow they will be the exception.
Nobodies.
Judging from the daily papers, one would infer that the great mass of the people in this community, or in this Commonwealth, are nobodies, and that only a small percentage of our population is of actual account. A lot of leading politicians who contrive to hold all the offices and run the government for the anonymous millions of their fellow-citizens,— these people are somebodies. The daily papers are full of their movements, sayings and doings. When they die, column or two are devoted a to their biographies and obituaries. We are told how “smart” they were, and how sumptuously they lived at the public expense. A short time ago “Horace Gray” was the current topic of the obsequious and laundry press for days, until one became slightly bored with it, and refused to peruse articles, paragraphs, and despatches [sic] devoted to it. Newspaper readers were fairly surfeited with “Horace Gray.” A great many people about us are daily entering the mists of death, who scarcely get a mere mention in the newspaper press, whose departures, indeed, do not create a ripple. But let two or three prominent lawyers, judges, or governors shuffle off the mortal coil of life, and straightway we learn that a gloom overspreads our entire community. We poor devils of survivors, who are nobodies, mere anonymous rubbish, are told that we are bereaved, orphaned, and left without salaried guides, because the Hon. So-and-So has ceased to draw his quarterly stipend from the treasury of the city or Commonwealth, and the Hon. X. Y. will no more travel at the national expense to Washington to represent us in Congress. It turns out that most of these famous men of the newspapers were and are “pushing” people. Then, again, the death of a prominent man is a real godsend to the newspapers, of which they make the most by spreading it over as much space as possible. Indeed, every incident and every notorious individual are magnified and dilated by the press out of all proportion to its or his importance. The advent of the long-haired, poetic lunatic, or “crank,” known as Oscar Wilde, upon our shores is discussed by the press as if it was an event of first-rate importance. In this way the press is doing all it can to confound the public judgement and render it incapable of just discrimination.
B.
A Fable.
The cat and the dog had a quarrel,
Each claiming its tail-wag most moral,
And going it strong
That the other was wrong,
And never could hope for the laurel.
Puss argued in elegant phrases:
“The tail wasn’t made to give praises,
And wag when you’re grateful,
But savage and hateful,—
And then you should shake it like blazes.”
Then answered the clog: “Why not state your
Belief to our next Legislature.
And get them to grant you
A ‘HEARING’ — Why can’t you? —
They’d soon make a change in my nature.”
Willoughby W.
Crumbs from Liberty’s Table.
As civilization advances, the necessity of law diminishes. — Bullion.
Men, in a free country, have the right not to work if the terms offered by their employers do not suit them. The condition of being employed is as voluntary as the condition of employing. The right to strike is just as sacred to the laborer as the right of suddenly discharging a thousand men is to the capitalist. The military force is not maintained for the purpose of destroying either right. — New York Sun.
It is a mistake to suppose that by an equal distribution of wealth is meant equality in quantity. The question, “Who is the Somebody?” is not based upon the fact that some people have more wealth than others, but upon the fact that Somebody has the wealth which somebody else has produced, and consequently ought to own. An equal distribution of wealth means such a distribution as will give to each producer his equitable proportion of what he has assisted to produce. If one man creates $100 worth of wealth in a day and another $10, it would not be equitable to give each half of the whole — i.e. $55. But neither is it equitable to give one $105 and the other only $5. But it is equitable to give $10 to the one who produced $10 and $100 to the one who produced $100, loss their fair proportion of taxes. — New York Truth.
Men, in a free country, have the right not to work if the terms offered by their employers do not suit them. The condition of being employed is as voluntary as the condition of employing. The right to strike is just as sacred to the laborer as the right of suddenly discharging a thousand men is to the capitalist. The military force is not maintained for the purpose of destroying either right. — New York Sun.
It is a mistake to suppose that by an equal distribution of wealth is meant equality in quantity. The question, “Who is the Somebody?” is not based upon the fact that some people have more wealth than others, but upon the fact that Somebody has the wealth which somebody else has produced, and consequently ought to own. An equal distribution of wealth means such a distribution as will give to each producer his equitable proportion of what he has assisted to produce. If one man creates $100 worth of wealth in a day and another $10, it would not be equitable to give each half of the whole — i.e. $55. But neither is it equitable to give one $105 and the other only $5. But it is equitable to give $10 to the one who produced $10 and $100 to the one who produced $100, loss their fair proportion of taxes. — New York Truth.
A Gentleman Who Objects to Liberty.
Mr. Tucker, sir I have just received a copy of your paper called Liberty. I have read some if it. two peices I will call your Attention to — —
gods wicked partners . . and the one a game two can play at Now if you have such stuff in your Heart keep it there and do not corupt the world with it — —
I don’t think such a paper fit for outhouse use
[We are happy to say that Mr. Cheney’s closing sentiment commands our unqualified approval. — Editor Liberty.]
gods wicked partners . . and the one a game two can play at Now if you have such stuff in your Heart keep it there and do not corupt the world with it — —
I don’t think such a paper fit for outhouse use
Eli Cheney
kinderhooK Feb 22nd 1882[We are happy to say that Mr. Cheney’s closing sentiment commands our unqualified approval. — Editor Liberty.]
Anarchy and Universal Suffrage.
The following is an extract from a masterly discourse recently delivered by Elisée Reclus, the eminent geographer, before the Section of Outlaws at St. Etienne, a branch of the International Working People’s Association:
There are socialists and socialists, many will observe, and of the various schools which is to prevail? Certainly, if one trusts solely to appearances, there seems a great variety of forms, but this is only an illusion. At bottom there are but two principles confronting each other: on one side, that of government; on the other, that of anarchy: Authority and Liberty. The names in which parties enwrap themselves are of no consequence. Just as under the pretended republicans of today we find petty dictators, so many Louis Fourteenths in miniature, so we discover Anarchists beneath all revolutionists. The governmentalists, be the chief of State king, consul, emperor, president, council of three or of ten, wish to hold the power in their hands, dispose of offices, salaries, and honorary titles, and award decorations and favors; they wish to be the masters, and to start every initiative from above: they one and all proceed on the idea that they are animated by a supernatural power to think, wish, and act for their subjects. All claim obedience to their decrees and laws; like the popes and ancient kings by divine right, they are infallible. Look at your representatives and the representatives of your representatives,— that is, your ministers! Do they not scorn an imperative commission as an insult offered to their dignity? Have they not devised for themselves special legislation which places them outside of the laws enacted for common mortals? By recommendations, endorsements, and demands for office, honors, and favors are they not inevitably accomplices of all the servants of preceding governments? Bureaus, administrations, legislation,— all remain the same: the mechanism has not changed: what matters it if the mechanicians have changed their clothing? The word Republic is certainly a fine one, since it means the “Public thing” and would seem to attribute to all who call themselves republicans a spirit of disinterested solidarity in the defense of the common cause; but the name has lost its real meaning since it was captured by the governmentalists, and indicates no longer a change of system, but only a change of persons.
On the other hand, all revolutionary acts are, by their very nature, essentially anarchistic, no matter what the power which seeks to profit by them. The man, weary of injustice, who throws himself into the fray for the triumph of the right becomes, at least for the moment, his own master; his associates are his companions, not his superiors; he is free while the struggle lasts. From time to time history brings us face to face with grand revolts, and, if we try to distinguish the various elements confounded therein and assign to each its rôle, we see that the active factor, the only one productive of results instrumental in the progress of humanity, is the anarchistic element,— that is, the element proceeding from individual initiative, from personal wills leagued together without the intervention of a master. From time immemorial authority has desired to maintain routine, and from time immemorial the anarchistic intervention of revolt has been needed to destroy barriers and give air to the stifled people. All history is nothing else than the series of revolutions by which the individual gradually extricates himself from servitude and labors to become his own master by destroying the State. What matters it if the majority of historians relate the opinions of kings and princes and describe their governmental expedients, their efforts to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the people? They misconstrue the life of humanity. In the same way a physician sees in the life of a men only the history of his diseases.
The old motto of the revolutionists, handed down to us from century to century, which he finally become an official formula, but a formula void of meaning under any government whatsoever,— “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” or rather, Solidarity,— proves that anarchy has always been the ideal of successive generations. Can the word Liberty have a meaning if it does not imply the integral development of the individual in such a manner that he may have all the physical strength, health, and beauty compatible with his race, enjoy all the knowledge that his native intelligence can acquire, and choose without hindrance the labor best befitting him? So, the word Equality is but a lie if private property, inheritance, industrial speculations, and the possession of power involve the contrast between wealth and poverty, condemning one class to privation, disease, and sometimes vice, while another lives in comfort, having health, facilities for study, and the joys of science and art. Finally, fraternal Solidarity can be born only among men freely associated, grouping themselves according to their inclinations, and distributing the common task with it view to their talents and mutual convenience. Any other solidarity is that of the wolf and the lamb, of the master and his slaves.
But, they tell us, the health of the social organism is only a chimera! The grand words Liberty, Equality, Solidarity are only words, good to figure on the pediments of buildings, but without practical application. And mental sluggards, like the privileged classes, cling to the existing order, however bad it is, as if it could offer them the slightest guarantee of stability. But can this society he truly said to have a real existence? Is it not dependent upon the constant change, the incessant modification of its tottering equilibrium? Is that a viable society where more than nine-tenths of its members are condemned to die before old age for want of comfort and harmony, where interests are so divided that wise cultivation of the soil and a truly scientific disposition of its products are impossible, where nearly half the wealth is lost through disordered distribution, and where the manufacturers, driven by competition or by the necessity of living, occupy themselves in adulterating products, lowering the standard of merchandise, and even in changing food into poison? Is that a society where so many thousands of women have no choice except between suicide, robbery, and prostitution? In so far as it is a society of rulers and proprietors it is only struggle and disorder, and really constitutes that which in current phraseology is commonly called “anarchy.” Fortunately the true anarchy — that is, the rebellion of individuals and the free association of the rebels — comes to introduce into this diseased organism a few principles of cure and renovation. It was in spite of the divine authority with which priests claim to be armed that free minds gained the right to think in their own fashion and freed themselves from the stupid fear of hell and the silly hope of heaven. It was in spite of the holiness with which tradition had invested kings and governments of all sorts that the people, by revolution after revolution, finally tore from their masters at least a few fragments of Liberty and the factitious recognition — pending something better — of their rights of sovereignty. In the family, where the husband and father was formerly absolute master, it has also been by continual insurrections at the fireside that the wife and child have at last got possession of some of the personal rights which the law always denied them, but which public opinion is beginning to concede to them. Likewise, if language develops and improves, it is in spite of academic routine; if science takes huge strides and achieves marvellous [sic] results by its industry, it is in spite of the professors and official savants; and it is also by successive revolts that art conquers new territories. Thus I ever vivify the ancient legend of the miraculous fruit which gives the knowledge of good and evil: it is the fruit that the tree of science bears. According to the priests, it is from this fruit of which the sons of men have eaten that all evil comes; according to the revolutionists, on the contrary, it is from this fruit of knowledge that all good has come. Without the spirit of revolt we should still be wild animals, nibbling the grass and devouring the roots of the earthly paradise. All progress, all life upon earth is the work of incessant rebellion. Isolated, the rebels are consecrated to death, but their example is not lost, and other malcontents rise up after them; these unite, and from defeat to defeat finally arrive at victory.
Nevertheless, many people think, or pretend to think, that the book of revolutions is closed forever, thanks to what is commonly called universal suffrage. We are to find a safety-valve in the right to vote granted thirty-three years ago by the provisional government. . . . . .
But French males and majors vote in vain; they can only choose masters, petty kings who can avenge themselves for a single day of humiliation by years of insolence and irresponsible government. The elections over, the government makes war and peace without consulting the rabble of its subjects; notwithstanding the elections, millions of wretches wallow in the mire of misery, millions of laborers remain at the mercy of capital, which pens them up in its mines and factories; the uncertainty of the future is a load upon all. Has universal voting dispersed the corporations of robbers who speculate on labor and gather in all the profits? Has it diminished the number of merchants who sell by false weights and of advocates who plead indifferently for the just and the unjust? The plainest result of the substitution of so-called universal suffrage for restricted suffrage and suffrage exercised at the royal will is the increase of that hideous class of politicians who make a trade of living by their voice, paying court first to the electors and then, once in office, turning to those above them to beg for offices, sinecures, and pensions. To the aristocracy of birth, capital, and official position is added another aristocracy, that of the stump. Of course men are to be found among the candidates who are moved by good intentions and who are firmly resolved not to prove false to the programme which they have mapped out during the campaign; but, however good their intentions, they none the less find themselves on the day after the voting in circumstances different from those of the night before. They are a part of privileged class, and, in spite of themselves, they become men of privilege. Invested by their fellow-citizens with the power to know everything and decide everything, they imagine themselves, in fact, competent to deal with all questions; their science is universal; they are at once savants, engineers, manufacturers, merchants, generals, admirals, diplomats, and administrators, and the whole life of the nation must be elaborated in their brains. Where is the individual strong enough to resist this flattery of the electors? Heir of kings and, like kings, disposing of affairs with a supreme comprehension, the deputy ends like kings, seized with the vertigo of power: proportionately he lifts his whims into laws, surrounds himself with courtiers whom it pleases him to despise, and creates self-interests directly antagonistic to those of the multitude which he is reputed to represent.
So far, our profession as electors has consisted only in recruiting enemies among those who call themselves our friends, or even among those who pretend to belong, as we do, to the party or social revendication. Must we untiringly continue this task of dupes, incessantly till this cask which empties as rapidly, forever try to climb this rock which tumbles back upon us? Or should we busy ourselves with our own work, which is to establish, by ourselves and without delegation, a society of free and equal men? To justify their participation in electoral intrigues, some revolutionary socialists claim to have no object in view except agitation. Passions being more excited during electoral struggles, they would take advantage of this fact to act more forcibly on the minds of the people and gain new adherents to the cause of the revolution. “But does not the election itself mislead all these passions? The interest excited by elections is of the same order as that felt at the gaming-table. The course of the candidates at the balloting is like that of the horses at a hippodrome: people are eager to know who will win by a length or half-length; then, after the emotions excited by the struggle, they think the business finished until the races of the following year or decade, and go to their rest as if the real work was not yet to do. The elections serve only to start the revolutionists on a false scent and consequently waste their strength. As for us Anarchists, we remain in the ranks, equals of each other. Knowing that authority always results sadly to him who exercises it and to those who submit to it, we should feel ourselves dishonored were we to descend from our condition of free men to enroll ourselves on the list of mendicants of power. That business let us leave to the prideless people who like to crook the spine.
Besides, what need have we to enter a society not our own? In vain they tell us that the establishment of an anarchistic society is impossible; such a society already exists: once more, it is by moving that we have proved movement to be possible. In spite of the hostile conditions forced upon us by bourgeoise [sic] and capitalistic society, anarchistic groups are springing up everywhere; they have no need of presidents or of privileged representatives; woman is not the inferior of man, nor is the foreigner deprived of the rights which the Frenchman enjoys; all these factitious distinctions made by institutions and laws have disappeared from our midst. Each employs himself according to his faculties, labors according to his strength without demanding additional reward for his superior merit. And while the so-called governing classes know how to set us no other example than that of trying to succeed at any price in extracting their incomes from the toll of another, in the ranks of the so-called governed classes are to be seen the rudiments of a world no longer that of priests and kings. There you find strength, because there you find labor and solidarity! But it is not enough to have strength; it is also necessary to have the confidence of its possession and the wisdom not to apply it hap-hazard, as has been done hitherto, in revolutions of caprice, in which blind instinct played the largest part. That, companions, was the special word that I had to say to you. Prepare yourselves for the grand struggle!
There are socialists and socialists, many will observe, and of the various schools which is to prevail? Certainly, if one trusts solely to appearances, there seems a great variety of forms, but this is only an illusion. At bottom there are but two principles confronting each other: on one side, that of government; on the other, that of anarchy: Authority and Liberty. The names in which parties enwrap themselves are of no consequence. Just as under the pretended republicans of today we find petty dictators, so many Louis Fourteenths in miniature, so we discover Anarchists beneath all revolutionists. The governmentalists, be the chief of State king, consul, emperor, president, council of three or of ten, wish to hold the power in their hands, dispose of offices, salaries, and honorary titles, and award decorations and favors; they wish to be the masters, and to start every initiative from above: they one and all proceed on the idea that they are animated by a supernatural power to think, wish, and act for their subjects. All claim obedience to their decrees and laws; like the popes and ancient kings by divine right, they are infallible. Look at your representatives and the representatives of your representatives,— that is, your ministers! Do they not scorn an imperative commission as an insult offered to their dignity? Have they not devised for themselves special legislation which places them outside of the laws enacted for common mortals? By recommendations, endorsements, and demands for office, honors, and favors are they not inevitably accomplices of all the servants of preceding governments? Bureaus, administrations, legislation,— all remain the same: the mechanism has not changed: what matters it if the mechanicians have changed their clothing? The word Republic is certainly a fine one, since it means the “Public thing” and would seem to attribute to all who call themselves republicans a spirit of disinterested solidarity in the defense of the common cause; but the name has lost its real meaning since it was captured by the governmentalists, and indicates no longer a change of system, but only a change of persons.
On the other hand, all revolutionary acts are, by their very nature, essentially anarchistic, no matter what the power which seeks to profit by them. The man, weary of injustice, who throws himself into the fray for the triumph of the right becomes, at least for the moment, his own master; his associates are his companions, not his superiors; he is free while the struggle lasts. From time to time history brings us face to face with grand revolts, and, if we try to distinguish the various elements confounded therein and assign to each its rôle, we see that the active factor, the only one productive of results instrumental in the progress of humanity, is the anarchistic element,— that is, the element proceeding from individual initiative, from personal wills leagued together without the intervention of a master. From time immemorial authority has desired to maintain routine, and from time immemorial the anarchistic intervention of revolt has been needed to destroy barriers and give air to the stifled people. All history is nothing else than the series of revolutions by which the individual gradually extricates himself from servitude and labors to become his own master by destroying the State. What matters it if the majority of historians relate the opinions of kings and princes and describe their governmental expedients, their efforts to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the people? They misconstrue the life of humanity. In the same way a physician sees in the life of a men only the history of his diseases.
The old motto of the revolutionists, handed down to us from century to century, which he finally become an official formula, but a formula void of meaning under any government whatsoever,— “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” or rather, Solidarity,— proves that anarchy has always been the ideal of successive generations. Can the word Liberty have a meaning if it does not imply the integral development of the individual in such a manner that he may have all the physical strength, health, and beauty compatible with his race, enjoy all the knowledge that his native intelligence can acquire, and choose without hindrance the labor best befitting him? So, the word Equality is but a lie if private property, inheritance, industrial speculations, and the possession of power involve the contrast between wealth and poverty, condemning one class to privation, disease, and sometimes vice, while another lives in comfort, having health, facilities for study, and the joys of science and art. Finally, fraternal Solidarity can be born only among men freely associated, grouping themselves according to their inclinations, and distributing the common task with it view to their talents and mutual convenience. Any other solidarity is that of the wolf and the lamb, of the master and his slaves.
But, they tell us, the health of the social organism is only a chimera! The grand words Liberty, Equality, Solidarity are only words, good to figure on the pediments of buildings, but without practical application. And mental sluggards, like the privileged classes, cling to the existing order, however bad it is, as if it could offer them the slightest guarantee of stability. But can this society he truly said to have a real existence? Is it not dependent upon the constant change, the incessant modification of its tottering equilibrium? Is that a viable society where more than nine-tenths of its members are condemned to die before old age for want of comfort and harmony, where interests are so divided that wise cultivation of the soil and a truly scientific disposition of its products are impossible, where nearly half the wealth is lost through disordered distribution, and where the manufacturers, driven by competition or by the necessity of living, occupy themselves in adulterating products, lowering the standard of merchandise, and even in changing food into poison? Is that a society where so many thousands of women have no choice except between suicide, robbery, and prostitution? In so far as it is a society of rulers and proprietors it is only struggle and disorder, and really constitutes that which in current phraseology is commonly called “anarchy.” Fortunately the true anarchy — that is, the rebellion of individuals and the free association of the rebels — comes to introduce into this diseased organism a few principles of cure and renovation. It was in spite of the divine authority with which priests claim to be armed that free minds gained the right to think in their own fashion and freed themselves from the stupid fear of hell and the silly hope of heaven. It was in spite of the holiness with which tradition had invested kings and governments of all sorts that the people, by revolution after revolution, finally tore from their masters at least a few fragments of Liberty and the factitious recognition — pending something better — of their rights of sovereignty. In the family, where the husband and father was formerly absolute master, it has also been by continual insurrections at the fireside that the wife and child have at last got possession of some of the personal rights which the law always denied them, but which public opinion is beginning to concede to them. Likewise, if language develops and improves, it is in spite of academic routine; if science takes huge strides and achieves marvellous [sic] results by its industry, it is in spite of the professors and official savants; and it is also by successive revolts that art conquers new territories. Thus I ever vivify the ancient legend of the miraculous fruit which gives the knowledge of good and evil: it is the fruit that the tree of science bears. According to the priests, it is from this fruit of which the sons of men have eaten that all evil comes; according to the revolutionists, on the contrary, it is from this fruit of knowledge that all good has come. Without the spirit of revolt we should still be wild animals, nibbling the grass and devouring the roots of the earthly paradise. All progress, all life upon earth is the work of incessant rebellion. Isolated, the rebels are consecrated to death, but their example is not lost, and other malcontents rise up after them; these unite, and from defeat to defeat finally arrive at victory.
Nevertheless, many people think, or pretend to think, that the book of revolutions is closed forever, thanks to what is commonly called universal suffrage. We are to find a safety-valve in the right to vote granted thirty-three years ago by the provisional government. . . . . .
But French males and majors vote in vain; they can only choose masters, petty kings who can avenge themselves for a single day of humiliation by years of insolence and irresponsible government. The elections over, the government makes war and peace without consulting the rabble of its subjects; notwithstanding the elections, millions of wretches wallow in the mire of misery, millions of laborers remain at the mercy of capital, which pens them up in its mines and factories; the uncertainty of the future is a load upon all. Has universal voting dispersed the corporations of robbers who speculate on labor and gather in all the profits? Has it diminished the number of merchants who sell by false weights and of advocates who plead indifferently for the just and the unjust? The plainest result of the substitution of so-called universal suffrage for restricted suffrage and suffrage exercised at the royal will is the increase of that hideous class of politicians who make a trade of living by their voice, paying court first to the electors and then, once in office, turning to those above them to beg for offices, sinecures, and pensions. To the aristocracy of birth, capital, and official position is added another aristocracy, that of the stump. Of course men are to be found among the candidates who are moved by good intentions and who are firmly resolved not to prove false to the programme which they have mapped out during the campaign; but, however good their intentions, they none the less find themselves on the day after the voting in circumstances different from those of the night before. They are a part of privileged class, and, in spite of themselves, they become men of privilege. Invested by their fellow-citizens with the power to know everything and decide everything, they imagine themselves, in fact, competent to deal with all questions; their science is universal; they are at once savants, engineers, manufacturers, merchants, generals, admirals, diplomats, and administrators, and the whole life of the nation must be elaborated in their brains. Where is the individual strong enough to resist this flattery of the electors? Heir of kings and, like kings, disposing of affairs with a supreme comprehension, the deputy ends like kings, seized with the vertigo of power: proportionately he lifts his whims into laws, surrounds himself with courtiers whom it pleases him to despise, and creates self-interests directly antagonistic to those of the multitude which he is reputed to represent.
So far, our profession as electors has consisted only in recruiting enemies among those who call themselves our friends, or even among those who pretend to belong, as we do, to the party or social revendication. Must we untiringly continue this task of dupes, incessantly till this cask which empties as rapidly, forever try to climb this rock which tumbles back upon us? Or should we busy ourselves with our own work, which is to establish, by ourselves and without delegation, a society of free and equal men? To justify their participation in electoral intrigues, some revolutionary socialists claim to have no object in view except agitation. Passions being more excited during electoral struggles, they would take advantage of this fact to act more forcibly on the minds of the people and gain new adherents to the cause of the revolution. “But does not the election itself mislead all these passions? The interest excited by elections is of the same order as that felt at the gaming-table. The course of the candidates at the balloting is like that of the horses at a hippodrome: people are eager to know who will win by a length or half-length; then, after the emotions excited by the struggle, they think the business finished until the races of the following year or decade, and go to their rest as if the real work was not yet to do. The elections serve only to start the revolutionists on a false scent and consequently waste their strength. As for us Anarchists, we remain in the ranks, equals of each other. Knowing that authority always results sadly to him who exercises it and to those who submit to it, we should feel ourselves dishonored were we to descend from our condition of free men to enroll ourselves on the list of mendicants of power. That business let us leave to the prideless people who like to crook the spine.
Besides, what need have we to enter a society not our own? In vain they tell us that the establishment of an anarchistic society is impossible; such a society already exists: once more, it is by moving that we have proved movement to be possible. In spite of the hostile conditions forced upon us by bourgeoise [sic] and capitalistic society, anarchistic groups are springing up everywhere; they have no need of presidents or of privileged representatives; woman is not the inferior of man, nor is the foreigner deprived of the rights which the Frenchman enjoys; all these factitious distinctions made by institutions and laws have disappeared from our midst. Each employs himself according to his faculties, labors according to his strength without demanding additional reward for his superior merit. And while the so-called governing classes know how to set us no other example than that of trying to succeed at any price in extracting their incomes from the toll of another, in the ranks of the so-called governed classes are to be seen the rudiments of a world no longer that of priests and kings. There you find strength, because there you find labor and solidarity! But it is not enough to have strength; it is also necessary to have the confidence of its possession and the wisdom not to apply it hap-hazard, as has been done hitherto, in revolutions of caprice, in which blind instinct played the largest part. That, companions, was the special word that I had to say to you. Prepare yourselves for the grand struggle!
Untitled
It should have been stated some time ago in these columns that that energetic and intelligent Liberal, Mr. E. C. Walker, has changed his place of residence, and may be addressed hereafter at Norway, Benton County, Iowa. Mr. Walker is doing an excellent work in the West. To be sure, the Liberal League, which organization be actively represents, is somewhat conservative, but he is a thorough radical himself, and can be depended upon to sow seed of the right sort.
Stilson Hutchins, editor of the Washington “Post,” was talking recently with a party, of which Gail Hamilton was one, about the Mormons. Hutchins took a decided stand against them, when Gail broke in, saying: “The only difference, Mr. Hutchins, between you and the Mormon men is that they drive their team all abreast, and you drive yours tandem.”
The national house of representatives voted a few days ago to remit the duties paid on the importation of copies of the revised edition of the New Testament. This is a triumph for free trade, but a blow at free thought. The contradiction, however, is not unnatural. Consistent loyalty to Liberty is inconsistent with the nature and functions of the State.
Stilson Hutchins, editor of the Washington “Post,” was talking recently with a party, of which Gail Hamilton was one, about the Mormons. Hutchins took a decided stand against them, when Gail broke in, saying: “The only difference, Mr. Hutchins, between you and the Mormon men is that they drive their team all abreast, and you drive yours tandem.”
The national house of representatives voted a few days ago to remit the duties paid on the importation of copies of the revised edition of the New Testament. This is a triumph for free trade, but a blow at free thought. The contradiction, however, is not unnatural. Consistent loyalty to Liberty is inconsistent with the nature and functions of the State.
“Governments,” says the Chicago “Express,” “cannot, if they would, give men their liberties.” Yes, they can; but in doing so they would commit suicide. The only purpose of government is to deprive men of their liberties.
It is to be noticed that the advocates of compulsion invariably wish to do all the compelling themselves. To being compelled they are as averse as Liberty herself. “My archy or an-archy,” said Proudhon; “there is no middle ground.”
A peddler was arrested lately in Oakland, California, for selling Paine’s “Age of Reason” without a license, but the jury acquitted the prisoner under the statute allowing the unlicensed sale of religious literature.
It is to be noticed that the advocates of compulsion invariably wish to do all the compelling themselves. To being compelled they are as averse as Liberty herself. “My archy or an-archy,” said Proudhon; “there is no middle ground.”
A peddler was arrested lately in Oakland, California, for selling Paine’s “Age of Reason” without a license, but the jury acquitted the prisoner under the statute allowing the unlicensed sale of religious literature.
The State Its Own Outlaw.
But for our firm conviction that the State is doomed by its own depravity, we should be exceptionally at some of the features of the anti-Mormon bill. This infamous instrument of outrage upon the rights of conscience not only provides that a person shall be punished for practising [sic] his religion, but literally makes it a crime for him to believe that his religion is true.
A winning point, however, for the Mormons, if they only knew how to utilize it, is the fact that the crime of believing that polygamy is sanctioned by God is to be punished by dismissing the religious martyr from full fellowship with the State. If the Mormons were only bright enough to accept the penalty as an honor, and be thankfully rid of fellowship with an organization composed of such thieves and bigots, they would be on the way to do humanity a great service.
Of course the State is so lost to shame and decency that it continues to tax by force those whom it by force expels from the machine; but this should all the more animate the Mormons to wage an uncompromising war of abolition upon so shameless an institution. Those who are expelled from full fellowship with the State because of their religious opinions can do no better service than to strike hands with those who are forced into fellowship with it against their will, and move for its utter abolition.
So far as being deprived of fellowship with such a State is concerned, the Mormons should immediately send a memorial to Congress, thanking it for the honor conferred, and reminding it that enforced obligation to pay taxes under such circumstances rests on the same moral basis as ordinary brigandage, and can only be tolerated so long as fate permits the victim to remain the under dog.
A Solution That Does Not Solve.
Mr. Charles H. Barlow of Michigan is a reader of Liberty, but he cannot read it to much purpose; otherwise, he would not write to the Boston “Herald” that “the only way to disentangle the Gordian knot of capital vs. labor” and practically solve the labor problem is to “take the axe” and strike out for the wilderness. This seems to as little better than nonsense. Not that we object to the spread of agriculture, if more agriculture is needed. The axe and spade are good tools, and as many of them should be used as are necessary to supply the people with the articles which they are instrumental in producing. But the same is true of all useful tools. Why “take the axe” more than the saw or the lathe or the steam-engine? Let all of them be used in their proper proportions. But what has this to do with the labor problem of to-day, which is to give to each producer an equivalent for his product? It is of little consequence whether we use spades or saws, if both our crops and our houses are to be stolen from us by the usurer. Mr. Barlow’s remedy, to be a remedy at all, requires each man to produce entirely for himself. But this means an abandonment of the immeasurable benefits of modern commerce for the sake of getting it rid of its evils. Consequently his remedy is not the true one, for the true one must not only preserve, but increase, these benefits by eradicating the evils. The solution offered by Mr. Barlow means either nothing If at all or the abolition of the division of labor, and is strictly on a par with those multitudinous other solutions which propose the abolition of machinery, competition, credit, and all the other industrial and commercial forces by which modern civilization has been developed. The real solution lies not in the destruction of these forces, but in the discovery and application of new principles that shall regulate their action beneficently. These principles, according to Liberty, are Free Men and Free Money, which can he had only by the abolition of the State. The cry, “Take the axe.” is a very specious one. It has a sturdy sound and so captivates the unthinking, but a little examination reveals its hollowness.
7/31/19
Liberty and Method.
The starting-point, from the standard of Liberty, of all sociological investigation is the Individual. How marked and infinite is the diversity of individualities becomes more and more apparent to every close and constant observer of men.
Even the best disciplined mind cannot escape seeing right, justice, and scientific method in reform largely from the standpoint of its own organization and environments. The man of theory and abstractions listens in semi-contempt to the elaborately contrived schemes of the practical man whose very purpose is to put the former’s own theories directly or indirectly into practice. “No,” says he; “you are simply lopping off the branches and wasting your time, and every blow that is not struck straight at the tap-roots is worse than useless. You must strike as I strike and where I strike, or your blow counts for nothing.”
A man may be gifted with giant intellect in certain lines of mental analysis, and yet be all the more prone to that species of mental limitation which, failing to understand an entirely different mental organization, rudely consigns its plans and specifications for the practical application of his own thought to the intellectual waste-basket as utterly useless.
The only man capable of understanding wherein every mind that is willing to work for justice is capable of efficient cooperation in reform is the philosopher, by which is meant that large and fully-rounded man who, having a little of all mental qualities in his composition, can appreciate all. But this rounded balance of qualities is always at the expense of the exceptional power of the specialist, all of whose forces are concentrated upon one method of analysis.
It is quite common to maintain that the well-balanced, rounded philosopher is the intellectually great man. No type of man, however, represents the great man,— not even that which combines to some extent all types. We wish it distinctly understood that, in the ethics and philosophy of Liberty, there is no provision for great men. The “great man” of history is a standing nuisance, and has no place in our system. There is no great nor small in true social economy. Every man is made for his work, and the only person whom it troubles us to dispose of is the man who, if ever designed for any manner or method of work, refuses to do it. But even the idler is neither great nor small. He goes out of the calculation as a nonentity.
At a recent gathering of thinkers in the line of Liberty this very matter of method came into prominence. There was the same purpose in every member of the company, but a marked mental organization in each differing from every other. One gentleman of excellent organizing capacity had a scheme on foot for gradually shaming and driving the State out of existence by absorbing its functions into practical cooperation among employers and their help, and thus finally worrying it out through indirect means. To the abstract thinker before whom the scheme was laid, and who, by the way, has perhaps the keenest intellect on this continent in his line, all this indirect circumvention of the State was utterly futile. The State must be openly attacked and defied at its very citadel. Its guns must be dismounted, and its offices, titles, pretensions, and paraphernalia utterly demolished and abolished, before any scheme can acquire Liberty enough to give it an effectual test.
Now, two such positive and diverse organizations as these minds can never be made to see alike through argument. True conviction is simply the result of seeing, and each man will always see through his own glass. All that argument can ever do is to clean the glasses. The fact is that both are right without mutually knowing it. And we say that, if any man has any practical scheme by which to push the State adrift through individual cooperation, his duty is simply to go straight about its realization. To him, as he is made up, it is the most effectual method. All that we demand is the inexorable condition that his scheme shall entertain no element of compulsion, and that the cost of executing it shall be thrown upon no unwilling shoulders.
As we are made up, we believe that the most manly and effectual method of dealing with the State is to demand its immediate and unconditional surrender as a usurper, and to flatly and openly challenge its assumed right to forestall and crush out the voluntary associative government and regulation of individuals by themselves in all things. But, if others think that indirect methods are preferable, all that they have to do is to set about asserting themselves, as we assert ourselves. By all means accept nobody as authority. All mental popery [sic] is impossible in the very essence of our philosophy. Let each man do his work as to him seems good, in right dead earnest. Then, later, as we come to compare notes, we may fairly judge one another by our fruits, and arrive at harmony through its only legitimate channel,— the largest Liberty of action and method.
Even the best disciplined mind cannot escape seeing right, justice, and scientific method in reform largely from the standpoint of its own organization and environments. The man of theory and abstractions listens in semi-contempt to the elaborately contrived schemes of the practical man whose very purpose is to put the former’s own theories directly or indirectly into practice. “No,” says he; “you are simply lopping off the branches and wasting your time, and every blow that is not struck straight at the tap-roots is worse than useless. You must strike as I strike and where I strike, or your blow counts for nothing.”
A man may be gifted with giant intellect in certain lines of mental analysis, and yet be all the more prone to that species of mental limitation which, failing to understand an entirely different mental organization, rudely consigns its plans and specifications for the practical application of his own thought to the intellectual waste-basket as utterly useless.
The only man capable of understanding wherein every mind that is willing to work for justice is capable of efficient cooperation in reform is the philosopher, by which is meant that large and fully-rounded man who, having a little of all mental qualities in his composition, can appreciate all. But this rounded balance of qualities is always at the expense of the exceptional power of the specialist, all of whose forces are concentrated upon one method of analysis.
It is quite common to maintain that the well-balanced, rounded philosopher is the intellectually great man. No type of man, however, represents the great man,— not even that which combines to some extent all types. We wish it distinctly understood that, in the ethics and philosophy of Liberty, there is no provision for great men. The “great man” of history is a standing nuisance, and has no place in our system. There is no great nor small in true social economy. Every man is made for his work, and the only person whom it troubles us to dispose of is the man who, if ever designed for any manner or method of work, refuses to do it. But even the idler is neither great nor small. He goes out of the calculation as a nonentity.
At a recent gathering of thinkers in the line of Liberty this very matter of method came into prominence. There was the same purpose in every member of the company, but a marked mental organization in each differing from every other. One gentleman of excellent organizing capacity had a scheme on foot for gradually shaming and driving the State out of existence by absorbing its functions into practical cooperation among employers and their help, and thus finally worrying it out through indirect means. To the abstract thinker before whom the scheme was laid, and who, by the way, has perhaps the keenest intellect on this continent in his line, all this indirect circumvention of the State was utterly futile. The State must be openly attacked and defied at its very citadel. Its guns must be dismounted, and its offices, titles, pretensions, and paraphernalia utterly demolished and abolished, before any scheme can acquire Liberty enough to give it an effectual test.
Now, two such positive and diverse organizations as these minds can never be made to see alike through argument. True conviction is simply the result of seeing, and each man will always see through his own glass. All that argument can ever do is to clean the glasses. The fact is that both are right without mutually knowing it. And we say that, if any man has any practical scheme by which to push the State adrift through individual cooperation, his duty is simply to go straight about its realization. To him, as he is made up, it is the most effectual method. All that we demand is the inexorable condition that his scheme shall entertain no element of compulsion, and that the cost of executing it shall be thrown upon no unwilling shoulders.
As we are made up, we believe that the most manly and effectual method of dealing with the State is to demand its immediate and unconditional surrender as a usurper, and to flatly and openly challenge its assumed right to forestall and crush out the voluntary associative government and regulation of individuals by themselves in all things. But, if others think that indirect methods are preferable, all that they have to do is to set about asserting themselves, as we assert ourselves. By all means accept nobody as authority. All mental popery [sic] is impossible in the very essence of our philosophy. Let each man do his work as to him seems good, in right dead earnest. Then, later, as we come to compare notes, we may fairly judge one another by our fruits, and arrive at harmony through its only legitimate channel,— the largest Liberty of action and method.
On Picket Duty. (Vol. 1 No. 16)
The Nihilist appeal lately published in these columns for the tires time in America has resulted rather disastrously for one of its authors, the expulsion of Pierre Lavroff from French territory having been demanded by Russia and granted by the new De Freycinet ministry.
An enthusiastic Chicago correspondent of the Louisville “Courier-Journal” predicts that George C. Miln, the latest acquisition from the pulpit to the infidel ranks, within two years will be “recognized throughout America as the greatest leader known in pure agnosticism, or as the foremost member of the American bar, or as the greatest of living actors.”
The British parliament has again unseated the persistent and plucky Bradlaugh, and he has returned to Northampton to ask its radical cobblers to send him back again, which they are sure to do. Meanwhile some of the newspapers in England are urging the people of the district to pay no more taxes until parliamentary representation is restored to them. Thus all things work together for Liberty. Whether for sound or unsound reasons, it is a good thing for the people to accustom themselves to resisting taxation. The force of habit is strong.
Congressman Crapo, our would-be governor, is president of the Mechanics’ National Bank of New Bedford, and a majority of his associates on the national committee on banking and currency are either presidents or directors of national banks. No wonder they desire the charters extended for twenty years. But, according to the rules of the Massachusetts general court, no legislator is allowed to vote on any question, or serve on a committee to consider any question, in which he has a private interest separate from the public interest. If this is not the case in Washington, it should be.
The “Saturday Evening Express” of Boston recently published a well-written, temperate, and forcible letter from “An Ex-Juryman,” who complained that, while serving on a jury panel at the January term of the superior criminal court for Suffolk county, he was steadily challenged and set aside by the assistant district attorney. Mr. Adams, because in two cases previously tried he had voted for acquittal; and further, that, to prevent attention from being drawn this persistent exclusion of one man, the clerk, when drawing his name from the box, summarily threw it aside without announcing it. Such conduct before a judicial tribunal is simply shameful, but yet it is chiefly important as fresh evidence of the manifold forms of corruption engendered by the State; and of the impossibility of long preserving any good thing within the confines of its devilish influence. Trial by jury, as it originally existed, was a splendid institution, the principal safeguard against oppression; and, could it be restored to its original status, by which the jury was entitled to judge, not only of the fact, but of the law and of the justice of law, it would be well worth the saving. But nothing tending to secure the individual’s rights against invasion can be saved within the State. And yet, as we happen to know, the man who enters this well-founded complaint is a member of a party whose principal object is to endow with omnipotence, or the next thing to it, the institution that has wronged him. In other words, he is a prominent Greenbacker and State Socialist.
Gladstone’s character weakens daily. In regard to Bradlaugh he has shown himself a more contemptible coward than we supposed him to be. On this matter we can do no better than to echo the opinion of the Philadelphia “Evening Telegraph”: “Mr. Gladstone’s attitude towards this Bradlaugh case has been strangely pusillanimous, and has tended not a little to prevent the only proper determination of it from being achieved. The premier has more than once as good as admitted that Bradlaugh’s right to a seat in the house of commons is as good as his own, but he not only refuses to take any active steps for securing him and his constituents I their rights, but gives as much negative aid as he dares to the men who are bent upon violating a principle which cannot be safely violated by any parliamentary majority in this age of the world, in countries like England and America.”
The apathy and cowardice exhibited by the educated classes in relation to all questions of an industrial or social order is one of the most discouraging obstacles in the pathway of the sincere reformer. Their interests are so intimately allied to and dependent upon those of the directly privileged classes that the few among them who succeed in screwing up their courage to a point where they dare to honestly study such problems are rarely brave enough to honestly publish to the world the results of their investigations. The legal and clerical professions, and to some extent the medical; the men of science and art; the journalists, professors, and men of literature,— all who, so far as mental training goes, are best fitted for sociological inquiry stand in solid array, in attitudes either of inert, stolid indifference or of offensive warfare, to resist the progress of Liberty and Justice. And this they do because, with rare exceptions, their names are to be found at the top of the pay-roll of the tyrants and the thieves. Directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, they are subsidized by capital and power. How much the more refreshing and encouraging it is, then, to read words so brave and true as those of Elisée Reclus, printed in another column! M. Reclus’s name stands with the highest — perhaps is the highest — in the field of physical geography. The world over his authority is recognized. But his character being as irreproachable as his genius, and scientific study not having blunted his sympathetic instincts, he has not been able to turn a deaf ear to the claims of plundered labor. The independence of his character has been manifest throughout his life. At the time of the last revolutionary crisis in Paris he unhesitatingly joined the ranks of the Commune and fought therein to escape the vengeance of the bloodthirsty Thiers [sic] he took refuge in Switzerland, where he has since remained, refusing to accept the amnesty that was finally offered. And now, to the consternation of oppressors everywhere, who know the potent influence of a trained intellect when enlisted for the right, he divides his time between the pursuit of scientific knowledge and a dauntless championship, by pen and voice, of the cause of the down-trodden. How eloquent and effective is his work Liberty’s readers may judge by the sample now before them.
The steamer Austrian, from Liverpool, arrived in Boston harbor the other day with a large number of Hungarian emigrants on board. Five of them refused to be vaccinated. Valiant policemen then transferred these refractory and unreasonable beings who preferred to keep their blood pure to the quarantine steamer, and pinioned them, one by one, to the deck, while the doctor performed the objectionable operation. A cheerful welcome this to the “land of the free and the home of the brave!” It would seem that the State, not content with robbing, enslaving, and starving the people, must needs poison them also.
Mr. A. B. Parsons of Chicago writes to us as follows: “Liberty is certainly the ablest advocate of the policy of ‘non-resistance,’ or ‘abstention,’ in this country, but your readers hereabouts would like to have your views in a case where, like that of Greenwood, N. Y., the citizens had refused to pay taxes, and it was therefore proposed to use a ‘cannon charge of buckshot’ to compel them to do so, and as to whether, in such case, it is true ‘Liberty’ to return ‘good for evil.’ or take ‘eye for eye’ and ’tooth for tooth.’” Mr. Parsons’s inquiry is a pertinent one, generally speaking, but in this special instance it is based-on a misapprehension of the facts. There is no insurrection in the town of Greenwood. Of course, in the eyes of Mr. Parsons, if, as we presume, he is a believer in the State, there must be an insurrection there, since Governor Cornell has declared the town in a state of insurrection. God said, “Let there be light,” and, to the devotee of the church, there was light. Governor Cornell says, “Let there be insurrection,” and, to the devotee of the State, straightway there is insurrection. But the true philosopher sees neither light not insurrection resulting from the behests of authority, human or divine. He knows only facts and their teachings, and the fact in this case is that the visitor to Greenwood discovers there, at least in a physical sense, naught but the utmost serenity and peace. It is true that the people of Greenwood, for reasons sufficient to themselves, have declined to pay their taxes, but no “charge of buckshot” can be poured into them, for they offer no resistance to the seizure of property. And this is just what troubles the authorities, as non-resistance almost always does. If they could pour buckshot into them, they could conquer them and bring them to terms. But against their “masterly inactivity” (what a happy phrase is that!) they have no weapon. For, if they seize property to sell at auction, no one will buy it, and, if they bring persons from other towns to bid, the collector, who is with the citizens, resigns his office, whereupon the sale cannot proceed. Of the efficacy of the policy of non-resistance and abstention Liberty could wish no better illustration. So much for Mr. Parson’s special case. Now, if he asks us the general question whether it is always better to “turn the other cheek,” we can only answer that “circumstances alter cases,” and decline to discuss the matter independently of circumstances further than to affirm most emphatically that, until the people shall be utterly stripped of their power to read, speak, write, and print, violence from them can only dull the edge of their most powerful weapon, reason.
An enthusiastic Chicago correspondent of the Louisville “Courier-Journal” predicts that George C. Miln, the latest acquisition from the pulpit to the infidel ranks, within two years will be “recognized throughout America as the greatest leader known in pure agnosticism, or as the foremost member of the American bar, or as the greatest of living actors.”
The British parliament has again unseated the persistent and plucky Bradlaugh, and he has returned to Northampton to ask its radical cobblers to send him back again, which they are sure to do. Meanwhile some of the newspapers in England are urging the people of the district to pay no more taxes until parliamentary representation is restored to them. Thus all things work together for Liberty. Whether for sound or unsound reasons, it is a good thing for the people to accustom themselves to resisting taxation. The force of habit is strong.
Congressman Crapo, our would-be governor, is president of the Mechanics’ National Bank of New Bedford, and a majority of his associates on the national committee on banking and currency are either presidents or directors of national banks. No wonder they desire the charters extended for twenty years. But, according to the rules of the Massachusetts general court, no legislator is allowed to vote on any question, or serve on a committee to consider any question, in which he has a private interest separate from the public interest. If this is not the case in Washington, it should be.
The “Saturday Evening Express” of Boston recently published a well-written, temperate, and forcible letter from “An Ex-Juryman,” who complained that, while serving on a jury panel at the January term of the superior criminal court for Suffolk county, he was steadily challenged and set aside by the assistant district attorney. Mr. Adams, because in two cases previously tried he had voted for acquittal; and further, that, to prevent attention from being drawn this persistent exclusion of one man, the clerk, when drawing his name from the box, summarily threw it aside without announcing it. Such conduct before a judicial tribunal is simply shameful, but yet it is chiefly important as fresh evidence of the manifold forms of corruption engendered by the State; and of the impossibility of long preserving any good thing within the confines of its devilish influence. Trial by jury, as it originally existed, was a splendid institution, the principal safeguard against oppression; and, could it be restored to its original status, by which the jury was entitled to judge, not only of the fact, but of the law and of the justice of law, it would be well worth the saving. But nothing tending to secure the individual’s rights against invasion can be saved within the State. And yet, as we happen to know, the man who enters this well-founded complaint is a member of a party whose principal object is to endow with omnipotence, or the next thing to it, the institution that has wronged him. In other words, he is a prominent Greenbacker and State Socialist.
Gladstone’s character weakens daily. In regard to Bradlaugh he has shown himself a more contemptible coward than we supposed him to be. On this matter we can do no better than to echo the opinion of the Philadelphia “Evening Telegraph”: “Mr. Gladstone’s attitude towards this Bradlaugh case has been strangely pusillanimous, and has tended not a little to prevent the only proper determination of it from being achieved. The premier has more than once as good as admitted that Bradlaugh’s right to a seat in the house of commons is as good as his own, but he not only refuses to take any active steps for securing him and his constituents I their rights, but gives as much negative aid as he dares to the men who are bent upon violating a principle which cannot be safely violated by any parliamentary majority in this age of the world, in countries like England and America.”
The apathy and cowardice exhibited by the educated classes in relation to all questions of an industrial or social order is one of the most discouraging obstacles in the pathway of the sincere reformer. Their interests are so intimately allied to and dependent upon those of the directly privileged classes that the few among them who succeed in screwing up their courage to a point where they dare to honestly study such problems are rarely brave enough to honestly publish to the world the results of their investigations. The legal and clerical professions, and to some extent the medical; the men of science and art; the journalists, professors, and men of literature,— all who, so far as mental training goes, are best fitted for sociological inquiry stand in solid array, in attitudes either of inert, stolid indifference or of offensive warfare, to resist the progress of Liberty and Justice. And this they do because, with rare exceptions, their names are to be found at the top of the pay-roll of the tyrants and the thieves. Directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, they are subsidized by capital and power. How much the more refreshing and encouraging it is, then, to read words so brave and true as those of Elisée Reclus, printed in another column! M. Reclus’s name stands with the highest — perhaps is the highest — in the field of physical geography. The world over his authority is recognized. But his character being as irreproachable as his genius, and scientific study not having blunted his sympathetic instincts, he has not been able to turn a deaf ear to the claims of plundered labor. The independence of his character has been manifest throughout his life. At the time of the last revolutionary crisis in Paris he unhesitatingly joined the ranks of the Commune and fought therein to escape the vengeance of the bloodthirsty Thiers [sic] he took refuge in Switzerland, where he has since remained, refusing to accept the amnesty that was finally offered. And now, to the consternation of oppressors everywhere, who know the potent influence of a trained intellect when enlisted for the right, he divides his time between the pursuit of scientific knowledge and a dauntless championship, by pen and voice, of the cause of the down-trodden. How eloquent and effective is his work Liberty’s readers may judge by the sample now before them.
The steamer Austrian, from Liverpool, arrived in Boston harbor the other day with a large number of Hungarian emigrants on board. Five of them refused to be vaccinated. Valiant policemen then transferred these refractory and unreasonable beings who preferred to keep their blood pure to the quarantine steamer, and pinioned them, one by one, to the deck, while the doctor performed the objectionable operation. A cheerful welcome this to the “land of the free and the home of the brave!” It would seem that the State, not content with robbing, enslaving, and starving the people, must needs poison them also.
Mr. A. B. Parsons of Chicago writes to us as follows: “Liberty is certainly the ablest advocate of the policy of ‘non-resistance,’ or ‘abstention,’ in this country, but your readers hereabouts would like to have your views in a case where, like that of Greenwood, N. Y., the citizens had refused to pay taxes, and it was therefore proposed to use a ‘cannon charge of buckshot’ to compel them to do so, and as to whether, in such case, it is true ‘Liberty’ to return ‘good for evil.’ or take ‘eye for eye’ and ’tooth for tooth.’” Mr. Parsons’s inquiry is a pertinent one, generally speaking, but in this special instance it is based-on a misapprehension of the facts. There is no insurrection in the town of Greenwood. Of course, in the eyes of Mr. Parsons, if, as we presume, he is a believer in the State, there must be an insurrection there, since Governor Cornell has declared the town in a state of insurrection. God said, “Let there be light,” and, to the devotee of the church, there was light. Governor Cornell says, “Let there be insurrection,” and, to the devotee of the State, straightway there is insurrection. But the true philosopher sees neither light not insurrection resulting from the behests of authority, human or divine. He knows only facts and their teachings, and the fact in this case is that the visitor to Greenwood discovers there, at least in a physical sense, naught but the utmost serenity and peace. It is true that the people of Greenwood, for reasons sufficient to themselves, have declined to pay their taxes, but no “charge of buckshot” can be poured into them, for they offer no resistance to the seizure of property. And this is just what troubles the authorities, as non-resistance almost always does. If they could pour buckshot into them, they could conquer them and bring them to terms. But against their “masterly inactivity” (what a happy phrase is that!) they have no weapon. For, if they seize property to sell at auction, no one will buy it, and, if they bring persons from other towns to bid, the collector, who is with the citizens, resigns his office, whereupon the sale cannot proceed. Of the efficacy of the policy of non-resistance and abstention Liberty could wish no better illustration. So much for Mr. Parson’s special case. Now, if he asks us the general question whether it is always better to “turn the other cheek,” we can only answer that “circumstances alter cases,” and decline to discuss the matter independently of circumstances further than to affirm most emphatically that, until the people shall be utterly stripped of their power to read, speak, write, and print, violence from them can only dull the edge of their most powerful weapon, reason.
7/27/18
An Unexpected Compliment.
[From the Detroit “Labor Review.”]
St. James on Liberty.
[From the Memphis “Free Trader.”]
“But whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein, he being, not a forgetful bearer, but a doer the work, this men shall be blessed in his deed.” — General Epistle of St. James.
When the people of the earth are sufficiently Christianized to adopt that “perfect law of liberty and continue therein,” two-thirds of all the sorrow and suffering that afflict humanity will end. It is a melancholy reflection, it is a dark and depressing reflection, that all the blood ever shed on earth, every war, every battle, every murder, every civil wrong, came from that desire which the devil puts into the souls of men, to hold rule over their fellow mortals. This devilish desire to rule others is directly contrary to the “perfect law of liberty” taught by St. James.
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