Untitled

A recent issue of the Springfield “Republican” contained a labored article in which it was maintained that the mathematical custom of neglecting infinitesimals cannot be safely followed in politics. In illustration it was argued that the Chinese should be excluded notwithstanding this fact that we have five hundred Caucasians to each Mongolian. But, curiously enough, a subsequent paragraph contained these words: “Barbarism neglects the infinitesimal, the individual, the petty. The savage gorges himself so long as he has food, and starves until he has it again. He knows nothing of slow accumulation and patient saving; he acquires wealth in mass, if at all, and lacks the percentage virtues. Rudely civilized society in a less degree deals only in the gross. . . . . As civilization progresses, smaller coin comes in, closer reckonings are made, until it is the man who looks out for the nickel who succeeds.” Now it is well known that the Chinese surpass all other peoples in slow accumulation, patient saving, and the percentage virtues. The “Republican,” then, assumes the awkward position of advocating the exclusion from our shores of the very people whose virtues it commends to Americans and who, by its own standard, have reached a higher point in the scale of civilization than any other element from which our population is increased.

A Disgusted Politician.

Within the borders of that political pigmy known as Rhode Island, the land of Roger Williams and “soul liberty,” it is a crime to have been born a foreigner, in that it deprives the citizen of a vote unless he is a land-grabber to the extent of $134. The bottom motive of this discrimination is to put the laboring masses entirely at the mercy of the manufacturing barons who run the machine.

Certain misguided friends of “equal rights,” however, have so much agitated the matter that the legislature recently appointed a committee to hear their grievances, the committee, of course, being a jury packed in the interest of the manufacturers’ ring. During the hearing one of the protestants against the injustice entered into a laborious argument to prove that a minority rules in Rhode Island. The chairman of the committee, a tool of the ring, named Sheffield, after he had listened long enough in disgust to the logic and the facts, suddenly shouted out contemptuously: “A minority rules in Rhode Island! Doesn’t a minority rule in every State in Christendom?”

And yet there were scores of intelligent reformers present who looked up in surprise, as if they had just learned something now. It is astonishing, but true, that we have sane men on every hand who still believe that in a republic a majority rules. Of course a majority has no better right to rule than a minority; but supposing that the majority theory has any virtue in equity, it is utterly preposterous to assume that even that right was ever long established in fact anywhere. Even a professional politician like Sheffield could not patiently listen to a man so “fresh” as to argue seriously on such a point.

Royal Rubbish.

Upon the occasion of the celebration of his eighty-sixth birthday last week the German emperor made a very notable speech in reply to an address by a deputation of conservatives from the Reichstag. He said the times were very serious; anarchy threatened both sovereign and people. The worst doctrines were promulgated, and well-intentioned people were led astray. He therefore considered it necessary to again remind the country what the crown of Prussia was. It was a symbol of absolute authority given by God, and not to be taken away by man.

This latter remark is said to have made a deep impression upon those who heard it. No wonder it did; and this deep impression, stripped of diplomatic hypocrisy and translated into plain and profane English, probably was that Wilhelm was a damned old fool,— an impression, however, which is no very new one in Germany.

Yes, there is no mistaking the signs of the times. The doctrines of anarchistic socialism are being promulgated throughout the world, and in Germany especially are rapidly absorbing the social democracy. It is a harmless thing for Wilhelm to fall back on God with his shaky old traps of despotism. God has had to shoulder worse rubbish than he. By natural limitation this royal old coon of Hohenzollern must soon come down. His successor will probably again seek to repair the throne with divinity finishings but the old concern is worm-eaten and bound to crumble and rot. It must come down, and the royal tribe must go. This “God-given” trick is becoming very diaphanous. Take away your army of a million blind-folded butchers, Wilhelm, and let us see how long God will back you against man.

Another Ingersoll in the Field.

The Talmage-Ingersoll controversy has called out the following letter from the colonel’s brother in defense of his father and the colonel himself:

Rev. T. D. Talmage, D.D.

Sir: — I have before me a copy of the Cincinnati “Enquirer” containing the report of a sermon delivered by you on the 5th instant, upon the “Meanness of Infidelity.” In the course of your remarks you say that you had just received a letter from some one informing you that the Rev. John Ingersoll, father of R. G. Ingersoll and myself, “was abstemious to a fault, and the family suffered accordingly. The children were commanded to eat, drink, and dress sparingly. He never spoken kind word of his wife, who was a noble Christian woman, nor of his children, within the knowledge of persons now living here, who were familiar with the family. At last the mother died. She was cared for by friends in her sickness, and on the day of her interment gentle hands carried her form, and rested it for a time on the catafalque. Mr. Ingersoll, to the astonishment of all present, deliberately removed his cravat and gloves, stepped on the rostrum, and delivered a eulogy over the body. He attempted to extol her virtues and panegyrize her conduct. It was the first time he had ever been known to speak well of her in public.”

Now, reverend sir, “will you be kind enough to tell your informant, for me, that he or she is a malignantly cruel, heartless, and infamous liar? Our father was poor; I will not deny it. In the, days of my childhood a minister was forced to practise strict economy to support a family and educate his children upon a salary of $500 a year. We had abundance to eat and were well clothed, and certainly no man ever better enjoyed ministering to the wants of his family than did our loved and honored father. I believe him to have been an eminently good and conscientious man — I do not say faultless. As for Robert, I will say he was as good and obedient a boy as I ever knew, but all this is neither here nor there. He denies that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and gives his reasons. Here you take issue with him. Now, is it not possible to successfully combat his errors without opening the tomb and spattering with calumny our loved and honored dead? Speaking of your father and mother you say: “Would it not have been debasing in me to hook the horses to the ploughshare of contempt to turn up the mould of their graves?” True. Now let me ask you if you don’t think that the Golden Rule requires you to unhook your horses before you ruthlessly turn up the sacred dust that hides from the light of day our father’s snow-white hair. But “Ingersol assails the belief of the father.” Well, sir, had your father been an infidel, would you know, entertaining the views you do, combat his opinions? That would probably be a very different thing. Ingersoll says he can not believe that God, the father of us all, ever commanded the Jews to wage wars of extermination against their neighbors, and was delighted at the sight of a babe’s blood trickling down the handle of a Jewish spear. Moses said when a woman gave birth to a son thirty-three days were necessary to purify her, but, if she gave birth to a daughter, sixty-six days were necessary. Ingersoll says that looks to him like nonsense, and he really can not believe that God ever ordered any such thing. He says he cannot believe that God, who winked at polygamy and established slavery, ever ordered a man to be pounded to death with stones simply for picking up sticks on the Sabbath day. He says he can not believe that God ever gave express permission to one part of his family to sell diseased meat to the other.

When David says of somebody, “Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children,” he says it is impossible for him to believe that either the words or thought were inspired by the good God. Now, if you will draw your theologic belt one hole tighter and answer these things, you will do everybody a favor. You ask Ingersoll to retire to his chamber, lock his door, and read the fourteenth chapter of John. It is good reading. Let me ask you to read the fifteenth Psalm: “Lord, who shall abide be Thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill?” “He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor death evil to his neighbor, nor taketh ups reproach against his neighbor.” With all due respect, I am yours,

John L. Ingersol.

Prospect Hill, Waukesha Co., Wis.

The Andre Monument.

The following resolutions were passed at a recent meeting of the Jersey City group of the International Working People’s Association:

We resolve that we protect against the illegal arrest and imprisonment of citizen Hendrix on a charge of defining a monument erected by traitor Field in memory of spy Andre.
We further resolve that it is a blow aimed at the rights of freemen more deadly than the cannon balls of George the Third.
We further resolve that this dastardly outrage in arresting citizen Hendrix on such charge is an insult to the Rebels of 1776 and to the freemen of to-day.
We further resolve, in the name of Justice and Solidarity, to give our moral and material support to citizen Hendrix or any other person whomsoever who may be imbued with such a spirit of patriotism.

A Heroine of the Commune.

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.

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.

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.

Vera Zassoulitch.

Peter Lavroff.

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 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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

Light from the Laborers.

The following are the resolutions passed by the mass meeting of trades unions recently held in New York, and referred to at greater length in another column:

Resolved, That labor has the chiefest interest at stake in every cause affecting economic administration in all countries, since labor is asked to feed, clothe, and fatten landlords, usurers, monopolists, politicians, and all the unproductive army who enslave it.

Resolved, That the issue between landlord and tenant in Ireland, and in every other country, is but one of the phases of the labor question; that, since rent is an immoral tax on productive labor, its infliction upon the oppressed of any land makes labor in every other country its natural ally and defender.

Resolved, Therefore, that the working people of every other country, irrespective of race, language, creed, and color, are morally bound to stand by Ireland in this her hour of need, and that the voice of this mammoth gathering of the trades unions of America should be seconded in every country where the voice of labor is not utterly stifled by savage absolutism and repression.

Resolved, That, while we recognize Ireland to be the most woful victim of landlordism, through especially iniquitous laws and governmental administration, we are chiefly assembled to emphasize the fact that the bottom causes of landlordism — land monopoly and rent — are not local, but universal curses, inflicted upon labor, and against which labor is everywhere called upon to wage an uncompromising war of extermination.

Resolved, That we, nevertheless, recognize in the heroic no-rent stand in Ireland that this long-persecuted and rent-ridden isle is fighting the grandest battle and wielding the most effective artillery that ever confronted landlordism; that her battle is humanity’s battle; that her cause is labor’s cause; and its workingmen of America here represented do, therefore, heartily endorse her righteous methods, and solemnly promise her every means of support, co-operation, and sympathy within their power.

England and the Czardom.

The following is the closing portion of an interesting letter received, not long since, by Liberty, from one of her numerous friends across the Atlantic:

As one who has lived in Russia, And as a stanch admirer of Michael Bakounine, I thank you for the portrait you have given us of this most excellent man, earnest-patriot, and unflinching enemy of despotism. Further, I have to than you for the straightforward, manly way in which you have referred to him, setting off his likeness in the most honorable frame the Apostle of Anarchy could desire,— a record of his own brave deeds. His escape from Siberia should alone be enough to deserve undying fame. But for such unselfish pioneers of Liberty, you and I would still be as his countrymen are.

Before this reaches you the English magazines for December will be in your hands. May I ask your attention to an article in “Fraser” on “The New Departure in Russia” by O.K.? You have doubtless seen some of this lady’s pen-and-ink performance before, but I doubt if she has ever written anything so daring in untruth and reaction previously. To me it is clear that this article is written for reproduction in Russia. It will be read by some thousands in this country alone, the grater number of whom will be influenced by party passion in their judgment, and not at all by a knowledge of the subject. For I regret to say that the whole demeanor of England towards Russia is a ludicrous anachronism. Russia is a slow and conservative country. Its government, as every one knows, is autocratic, despotic, damnable. And yet this is the power, above all others, that Liberal England takes under its wing, shields, defends against the attacks of the Tories, who alone seem to recognize (of course, for their own purposes) the systematic coercion and intriguing determination by which it continually penetrates further into the territory of independent tribes, oppressing them — hitherto free- with the same kind of bondage as that which, with cruel consistency, it inflicts upon its own people. Surely, parties in this country should change their relative positions! As a radical I am disgusted with what I see every week in our press — slavish adulation of Russian institutions and an utter absence of truthful exposures on the part of the Liberal papers, while on the other hand, the Conservative press, led by the “Telegraph,” loses no opportunity of venting party spleen on a government and on institutions which are essentially of a conservative nature. I earnestly trust that English Liberals will soon perceive the foolish attitude they have assumed, bravely admit their error, and consistently withdraw from the positions. Meantime, I am obliged to support a party I otherwise detest, in so far as its foreign policy in this particular is concerned.

Excuse a man’s hobby, dear friend Tucker, when it does no harm to others, but rather good. Russia is my hobby. It is a large one, and I find much in it to admire. If it could only succeed in establishing a republic and in disbanding its two great armies, the Tchinóvnikes (officials) and Soldátes (soldiers),— the curse of every country, but especially the curse of Russia,— a vast slice of this earth would be returned to its primitive use,— that of furnishing and abode for a naturally happy, jovial, contented people, a people not naturally cursed with “earth-hunger,” whose great fault for some centuries has born the belief that life is not worth living without a czar and attendant satellites.

With best wishes, I am sincerely yours,

Paskiarechki.

London, December 8, 1881.

A Review of German Socialism.

At the last elections to the German Reichstag thirteen candidates of the Social Democracy were successful. This fact has added to the world-wide interest in German socialism, but the lamentable ignorance and misapprehension concerning that movement still prevail. Its true history and real significance are concisely and admirably set forth in the following outline sketch, which is borrowed from “Le Révolté”:

When the bold and success-crowned agitation of Lassalle had once started the labor movement in Germany, there immediately appeared a goodly number of talented men, capable of appreciating with statesmanlike clairvoyance the movement in its full extent and all its consequences and of comprehending the advantages in the future which it offered to the champions of the new party. These men at once ranged themselves by the side of the Universal Society of German Laborers (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbiter-Verein).

After the premature death of Lassalle, and in consequence of the questionable management of President Schweitzer, a crisis occurred, from which, nevertheless, the labor movement emerged triumphant, though divided into two hostile factions:

(1) The party of the Lassallians, under the leadership of Hasenclever and Hasselmann, whose journalistic organ was the “New Social Democrat.” This party confined itself to an orthodox observance of the doctrines expounded by Lassalle.

(2) The Party of Eisenach, under the leadership of Liebknecht and Bebel,— the former having converted the latter from an advocate of the ideas of Schultze-Delitzsch (industrial credit, &c.) and a deadly enemy of socialism into a well- grounded socialist. This party, with the aid of its Journal, the “Popular State” (Volksstaat), more as core developed communistic ideas, always in the direction of authority and centralization by the Popular State, a phrase expressive of the ideal of Messrs, Marx and Engels and their faithful disciple, Liebknecht.

The war of Prussia against Austria and the victory of the former country, combined with the annexation of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, led to the establishment of the Confederation of North Germany (Norddeutscher Bund) and the Parliaiment of North Germany (Norddeutsches Zollparlament). To popularize these political automata, viewed with disfavor by the people, the iron chancellor (so Bismarck was called) gave the people universal suffrage in parliamentary elections, which Lassalle bad previously demanded in elections to the Prussian Chamber.

Then it was that the Social Democrats seized with enthusiasm upon “this new weapon for the enfranchisement of the people from the yoke of class-rule;” then it was that these hostile brethren sought for ascendency each over the other, and that such accusations as “sold Prussians” (the Lassallians) and “agents welfes” (the Party of Eisenach) — that is, agents in the pay of the ex-king of Hanover — multiplied.

The Franco-German war, with the reconstruction of the German Empire and the transformation of the Parliament of the North Germany into the Parliament of the Empire (Reichstag) on a basis of universal suffrage, extended still further the parliamentary agitation of the Social Democrats. And in spite of the excellent pamphlet by Liebknecht “On the Political Attitude of the Social Democracy, Especially in Relation to the Reichstag,” in which he showed very clearly the impossibility of the enfranchisement of the people by parliamentary methods and the inconvenience to laborers of participation in elections, and while crying: “No peace with the present régime! And war on the doctrine of universal suffrage!” the Party of Eisenach, under the leadership of this same Liebknecht, gave all its efforts to the enlistment of German Workingmen in the parliamentary struggle and to the choice of the largest possible number of socialistic deputies as members of that parliament where “one can only sacrifice his principles” because “principles are indivisible, and must be either completely maintained or completely sacrificed,” for “he who treats with the enemy parleys, and he who parleys compromises.”

The two factions of the Social Democracy were soon compelled to see that they principally injured themselves in fighting each other so furiously, while really having in view common object. Both desired social reform through the State. Little by little they came together, and in 1875 at the congress of Gotha they achieved a consolidation in the Socialistic Workingmen’s Party, after which they rapidly advanced from one “electoral-victory” to another.

It undoubtedly will seem very strange to our readers that the Liebknechts and their fellows while seeing so clearly the futility of participation in elections, should nevertheless have dared to urge (and with success) the laboring masses into the electoral path. But, on the one band, while continually achieving these apparent successes in the election of socialistic deputies, they could and did say to the workingmen: “OH!, we are obliged to take part in the elections, not to be deputies, but only to count voices, to ascertain the number of our followers, which it is impossible to find out otherwise, and, above all, to profit by the general excitement attending an electoral campaign in successfully developing our principles at political rallies; “and on the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the German workingman, long accustomed to blindly follow a few men either in one direction or another, could not easily shake off this habit, it having entered, so to speak, into his blood.

The workingman saw in all these agitators and editors of socialistic sheets — founded one after another and paid for out of his pocket — sincere friends of the people, incapable of harboring any other thought than the immediate enfranchisement of the people. He forgot that these men, undoubtedly devoted with all their hearts to the interests of the party when they joined it,— whose speeches were always denunciatory of the selfishness of the bourgeoise,— must necessarily, by the security of the position created for them, view the situation less darkly from the simple fact that they no longer ran the labor’s risk of being thrown at any hour upon the pavement at the mercy of an employer,— one of the chief cause of the social revolution.

And finally, it must be said, it was easier for the workingman to follow the advice of eloquent men than to take upon himself the heavy burden of thinking for himself and investigating for himself the grave questions then coming to the fore.

But while the number of votes for the socialistic candidates kept on increasing at every election, it became evident that already there were a certain number of laborers who were scarcely Social Democrats, but Anarchists rather, for not only did they repudiate electoral tactics, but denied also this pretended beneficence of the Popular State; they were opponents of all authority, of all submission of minorities to majorities.

No doubt there had been in Germany for a long time learned men who, in their social studies, had occupied themselves with anarchistic theories; nevertheless, the fruits of these studies had scarcely seen the light and had not entered the heads of the laborers. Not until 1875 did a few German workingmen embrace and publicly defend the anarchistic ideas.

As was to be expected alter the methods employed by the Social Democrats against the Anarchists in other countries, the most distinguished men of the Social Democratic party of Germany and Switzerland were not slow in beginning a deadly struggle against these sincere and disinterested workingmen, whom they were pleased to honor with such titles as “mad-men,” “lunatics,” “hired agents of sedition,” “spies,” and many other pleasant appellations. Their hatred of them was the greater inasmuch as many of these “madmen” had formerly been for many years very zealous agitators for this party of “scientific socialism,” and therefore were acquainted — to the sorrow of the leaders — with troublesome facts that had occurred within the committees.

The foundation of an Anarchistic Journal in the German language at Berne in 1876 was not calculated to appease the anger of these system-making gentlemen. With all possible variations they repeated the most infamous slanders against the Anarchists. And, in spite of that, it was impossible to stifle the movement by such means. The Anarchists soon found adherents in several such German cities as Berlin, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Munich, and other places. Then at the universal socialistic congress of Gand in 1877 two German delegates appeared to defend anarchistic principles. There it was that, one of the delegates having said, in reply to the reproaches of Grenlich “that it was easy to preach anarchistic ideas in free Switzerland, but that they should do the same in Germany,” “Yes, that is just what we mean to do,” Liebknecht, rising excitedly, cried out: “Dare, then, to come into Germany to attack our Organization, and we will annihilate you by every possible means!”

They tried hard to keep this promise, but unsuccessfully. The anarchistic idea spread through Germany further and further.

The year 1878 followed, and the attempts of Hoedel and Nobiling on the life of the emperor. The Reichstag voted the famous laws against the “extravagances” of the Social Democracy, the law which suppresses the whole socialistic press and all socialistic societies and assemblies; the law which permits the dissolution and prohibition of every assembly in which there may be a Socialist; the law which allows the regional authority to ask permission of the federal council to declare the minor state of siege, in order that each suspected citizen may be expelled as dangerous to the general safety. One would suppose that, after the commission of such an act by the Reichstag, the Social Democrats would have abstained from attendance on a parliament which tramples under foot the last vestiges of equality and justice. Far from that, the majority of the socialistic deputies, under the pretext of defending “every inch” of legal ground still left to them, continued to sit among their implacable enemies, ready to assent to all measures, even the most violent, against the Socialists.

Nevertheless, everybody did not agree with them, and after the exceptional law a good portion of the Social Democrats separated themselves from the legal party,— among them Hasselmann and Most. Another portion declared themselves against further participation in elections, proclaiming revolutionary tactics. Others withdrew altogether, and withdrew, and, from fear of the persecutions which socialistic agitation involves. A large portion of the socialistic laborers still remain in the legal path, as the last elections prove; in spite of that it may be affirmed that a considerable number of workingmen have abandoned the idea of the enfranchisement of the people by legal means.

The club of German communists at London has founded the social-revolutionary journal, “Freiheit” (Freedom), whose first editor, Johann Most, was condemned at London for an article on the death of Alexander II. On every occasion, and lately á propos of the German elections, this journal has declared itself in favor of electoral absention and revolutionary propagandism. But it must not be forgotten that its founders have often improved an opportunity to declare themselves revolutionary Social Democracts in order to fix it in their readers’ minds that their object, also, is the Popular State. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that from the beginning the journal has permitted free discussion in its columns,— and perhaps that is the reason why the “Freiheit” becomes more and more anarchistic, and why the ideas discussed in its pages draw further away from the authority theory in each successive number. Indeed, nothing else was to be expected for in free discussion the anti-authority theory will always triumph over authority ideas of whatever sort. In spite of the continual prosecutions brought by the police against every man suspected of receiving it, the “Freiheit” is widely read in Germany. Besides the journal thousands of tracts on different subject have been scattered throughout Germany,— for instance, “To Our Brothers in the Barracks” (destined exclusively for circulation in the army), “The Revolutionary Social Democracy,” “The Madness of Property,” “Electoral Absention,” and many others.

It is certain that such an agitation often calls for victims from our ranks, and we should be carried too far, were we to attempt to count all our companions who have had to suffer for their zeal; let it suffice to remind our readers of the late trials at Leipzig.

Another proof that our brother in Germany are not only laboring to organize the masses for the revolution, but also repudiate the whole idea of authority, so inimical to the definitive enfranchisement of humanity, is the attitude of the German delegates to the revolutionary congress at London.

Let the bourgeoisie do what it will, let the summit of the oppressive class strive to suppress our agitation, let “our friends,” the editors of the “Social Democrat” and the other “great men” of the parliamentary party, treat us as “madmen,” “spies,” and “hired agents of sedition,” and libel us in any way that pleases them,— none of these things shall prevent our ideas from spreading, new adherents from joining us every day, or even our misfortunes from finding us unexpected friends.

We are sure that the day will come when champions of the Popular State will no longer be able to command even the 280,000 votes now remaining to them out of the 800,000 of which Braun d’Altona was the representative. We, the Revolutionary Anarchist of Germany, shall do our utmost to strip the political intriguers of their remaining strength, and, the old idols once overthrown, the people will understand that there is no necessity for creating new ones; relieved of all prejudices and of that bad habit of allowing themselves to be led, they will freely organize themselves to the final struggles, for the truly GREAT REVOLUTION, and, the struggle over, will know how to organize for other purposes without the aid of all these “scientific” men who pretend to have found the philosopher’s stone in the Popular State.

A Glorious Meeting.

The mass meeting of trades unions in Cooper Union, New York, on January 30, was the most significant and gratifying move that has been made since the so-called Irish land war began.

The Irish race, by nature of their organism, are easily ridden by superstition. The Pope has always sat in the Irish saddle with greater assurance than in any other. Blood-sucking priests have always found the Irish skin the thinnest to prey upon. With such a people — sympathetic, domestic, and deeply endeared to their traditions — the nationality craze easily finds a lodgment, and short-sighted, designing politicians are ever ready to make use of it in order to divert the attention of the people from the bottom causes of universal industrial slavery.

But this meeting stood on a thoroughly broad and de-nationalizing basis. As the splendid resolutions put it, the Irish cause was “humanity cause;” it was “Labor’s Cause.” Germans, Russians, Americans, Scotch, English, and Irish,— all clasped the brotherly hand in the grand resolve that the curse of landlordism was not local and national, but universal and human (or rather inhuman), and a part of the great scheme of usury against which Labor is everywhere called upon to wage an uncompromising war of extermination.

In asking the Irish to de-nationalize, as far as possible, their grand struggle, we would by no means look lightly upon their exceptional persecutions as a nation. But were these persecutions simply political and national, the Irish would have no especial claim to the co-operation of other nationalities. Since, however, the curse which afflicts them is one which threatens, and actually afflicts, more or less, the working masses of every other nation, they simply assert a just demand when they call upon working people everywhere to stand by them.

To attempt to argue down a superstition is the slowest process. Here and there a level-headed Irishman has sense enough to brush aside the ridiculous nonsense of expecting an “Irish republic” to do better by those who labor than does the ruling British machine. But these men are exceptions, and their voices is easily rub-a-dubbed down by the blatant nationalists.

It is useless to remind these rub-a-dub-dub, Irish republic, national flag enthusiasts that this American republic is severer on the tenant class, under its laws, than is England; but perhaps we can put it in another form with more effect. Place the Irish landlord class of America beside the Irish rent-paying class. Is the former any less merciless to its tenants than is the English landlord in Ireland? If the Irish landlord in this American republic is usurious-blood-hound, would he be anything less in an Irish republic? No, it is the system that must be crushed, and the system thrives just as audaciously under one form of government as another. The fact is that the State, without monopoly and usury as its main pillars, ceases to be the State.

It will take long to get these bottom facts into the heads of the masses, but such meetings as the one in Cooper Union are most gratifying helps in that direction. The masterly genius which moves the “Irish World” was never displayed to greater credit than on that occasion, and Liberty shouts thrice, Bravo! upon the whole affair.

God’s Wicked Partners.

Charles Guiteau claims that he is Lord’s partner, and that the Almighty was accessory before fact to killing of Garfield. For this Mr. Guiteau is bitterly denounced by Christians as a blasphemer and an impious wretch, and regarded with holy horror by the Lord’s anointed. These good people are inconsistent. They have addressed to the throne of grace such remarks as this: “Oh Lord! Thou hast in Thine infinite wisdom seen fit to chasten us by removing our beloved leader and taking him unto Thine own bosom. Humbly we bow before thee, and murmur, Thy will be done!” If such pulpit utterances signify anything and are not mere gospel gush, intended to flatter the Almighty by conveying the impression that the speakers would not for a moment suppose that anything could be done on earth without his knowledge or consent, they mean that the killing of Garfield was the act of God, that the murder was deliberately planned by Omnipotence for some inscrutable reason, and that it was executed in furtherance of and in accordance with some sacred scheme for the good of the World. If the Christian god is omnipotent, he could have prevented the killing, and the fact that he did not do so indicates that he desired the death of President Garfield. Guiteau, according to the Christian doctrine, merely executed the will of God. It cannot be argued reasonably that he was merely the blind instrument of God a that God simply permitted him to follow the course that has wicked passions and malignant heart dictated, leaving him responsible for the deed as for the motives that prompted it: for Guiteau had no personal motive, and has asserted repeatedly that God commanded him to kill Garfield. He was in the confidence of the Almighty from the beginning. If it was God’s will that Garfield should die, God was the instigator of the homicide, and Guiteau was his partner. If the killing was the most damnable and atrocious crime in history, then God is the most atrocious villain the world ever heard of, and Guiteau is no more responsible than the bullet which inflicted the death wound.

But God’s inconsistent apologists argue that there is no evidence of the copartnership beyond Guiteau’s own assertions, and that the Almighty would never select as his partner a man who had committed adultery, cheated landladie, and done other disreputable thing Christians abhor. It is strange that God did not select as his partner some trusted preacher of his word — some holy man who never did anything wrong in his life, and whose claim of inspiration would be accepted as true. Why did he not commission some regularly inspired preacher of the gospel, whom he had already called to serve him at a good salary, to murder Mr. Garfield? Was it because he intended to shirk the responsibility and leave his partner in the lurch, and thought he could spare Guiteau better than Beecher or Talmage or some other meck and lowly follower of the cross? Then why did he not select some professional murderer, who by law ought to be hanged anyway, some “Billy the Kid,” or some great military leader with the blood of thousands on his hands?

Guiteau is not half as bad a man, even admitting that he is sane, as some of those who figure in history and the Bible as being on familiar terms with Jehovah. The Lord has had some very wicked partners on earth. One of them led a band of outcasts and cut-throats for forty years, and, acting under direct orders from the head of the firm, occupied himself in murder, rapine, and plunder during a large portion of the time. The partnership between Moses and the Almighty is accepted as a fact upon no better evidence than the alleged statements of Moses himself and there is no proof that Moses was a more truthful man than Guiteau. Ever since the invention of religion certain men have claimed for themselves divine right to rob, murder, and oppress their fellows. They have called themselves kings, emperors, czars,— all partners of the Lord,— and, under authority of the senior member of the concern, have committed colossal crimes, kept hordes of hired murderers busy killing men, robbed millions of human beings of every natural rights, violated every principle of morality, lived most vicious lives, died pious deaths, and gone straight to eternal glory and everlasting bliss. Partners of the Lord have made bonfires of human flesh, broken living human frames upon the rack, and filled the ears of Infinite mercy with the agonized groans of suffering morality. There is no crime however hideous, no outrage however cowardly, no meanness however despicable, that has not been committed by acknowledged partners of the Lord.

No, Guiteau is not too wicked nor too depraved to be an accomplice of the Almighty, and his claim of divine complicity in his deed rests upon ground every bit as good and reliable as John Calvin’s or Moses’s or Kaiser Wilhelm’s. If there were any such thing as consistency in Christianity, it would have to either accept him at his own estimation or admit that he is a lunatic; but there is no such thing, and therefore Christian ministers approve of hanging him, while the read “collects” and pray God to forgive his own partner in crime.

Whilhelm’s Bouncing Boy.

The Emperor Wilhelm of Germany, better known among his subjects as “der alle Hengst,” has concluded at the ripe age of eighty-five that the modern drift of constitutional liberty is all wrong, and will soon lead his royal son to the regency with the notions of Charles I and Louis XIV in his hands wherewith to guide and rule young Germany.

If we mistake not, this bouncing boy will have a big job on his hands before the socialists get through with him. Already they have captured half the army, and, while Bismarck is at his wits’ end to conciliate the laboring masses), the mercantile and educated classes feel insulted at his protective schemes and absolutist tendencies. As if to maliciously overflow the cup of bitterness, Wilhelm now publishes his “rescript,” affirming the maxims of the old monarchists of the Middle Ages.

Well may the blind and infatuated royal cranks tremble at the approach of the day when these newly educated soldier-socialists shall refuse to shoot their fellow proletaires in the streets. In one hand the soldier holds the bayonet, on which is poised the last argument of kings; in the other, the socialistic manifesto disguised under cover of a patent medicine advertisement for the sure cure of the “king’s evil.” The bayonet will yet succumb to the king’s evil, and then where will be Wilhelm’s bouncing boy with the maxims of the Stuarts pasted upon the throne?

The German emperor, in putting himself on the same plane with the czar, similarly endangers his life. He may possibly succeed in making his ministers and officers alone responsible to him, but every royal imitator of the czar will find himself seriously liable, when it is too late, to be responsible to the first brave man who can reach him with a bomb of dynamite. Wilhelm’s bouncing boy had better bethink himself of these things before the old man dies.