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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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 Unexpected Compliment.

[From the Detroit “Labor Review.”]

While we belong to exactly the opposite school of social philosophy as does our friend Liberty, yet we cannot but admire its consistency and bold and aggressive attitude. It is refreshing to read a paper that says what it knows and it wants. It is so unlike the thousand and one paper that do not or cannot distinguish between the philosophies of communism and individualism, and who adhere to that bastard political economy that breed monopolies and corruption. We earnestly wish Liberty success, so that the people can readily learn the legitimate and logical conclusions of the two different schools.

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.

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.

The Two Guiteaus.

To the Editor of Liberty:

I was lately riding in the cars with “a God-fearing and a God-serving man,” who represents the old type of orthodox Christian and is a leading pillar in one of our churches. Knowing that he was one of the Rhode Island State Board of Prisons, Charities, and Correction, I asked him, in connection with the Guiteau trial:

“Do you believe in capital punishment, sir?”

“Well, sir,” he replied, “on rational, human, utilitarian grounds I do not, but, inasmuch a God’s will, as expressed in his Holy Word, is above my weak fallible human reason, I am compelled to believe in it, and therefore I believe that Guiteau ought to be hung.”

Now, wherein is this Christian’s position any different from Guiteau’s? In order to make it plain let me put the two positions side by side.

Guiteau.

I do not believe in killing and would not, of myself, harm a fly. I personally bore no ill will to Garfield, but, inasmuch as God’s will is above mine, I obeyed the divine command and killed the president. I am sorry I caused him so much suffering; but God’s will be done, and not mine!

Orthodox Fellow Christian.

I do not believe in judicial killing. It is contrary to my human feelings. I personally would not kill Guiteau, but inasmuch as God’s will will is above mine, I succumb to the divine command. I am sorry for the poor ill-starred fellow in his sufferings, but, in my capacity as a Christian citizen, I obey the divine command and kill him; but God’s will be done, and not mine.

If Guiteau is hung, the Christian State will murder him in accordance with the very same logic which it professes to abhor in him. Is any further comment necessary with your intelligent reader?

Crankus.

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.

Thomas Paine’s Monument.

Thou hast no need of monument of brace,

Or that men pile up granite to the heavens

Lest thy deeds be forgotten, or thy words

Cease to he household memories. For there stands

A monument to thee erect by hate,

Enduring as is time, or love of truth,

And right, and noble deeds. For thy great deeds

Fill all the base with hate, and thy true words —

The inspiration to all noble deeds —

Make heroes of the good, and win their love.

To that cloud-piercing shaft, such adds a stone

Who claims to rule o’er man by right divine;

Or who for favor, wealth, or love of place,

Serves in the ranks that uphold tyrannies,

All who would forge a fetter for a slave,

And drive him to his unrequited toll,

Or fix a brand upon a feeble race

To breed men slaves, like cattle, for the mart,

Or would seal up the eyelids of the mind,

That men may walk in darkness, as of old,

When a blind fate, or ire of gods, made death

The penalty for knowledge. Men have built

Temples and shrines, all decorate with art,

And worshiped one as God, who cares to bring,

Not white-robed Peace, but the avenging sword,

The scourged and crucified, whose mournful cry,

“Oh why, my God, hast thou forsaken me?”

Sound down the ages; yielding up his life

But for his kindred. It was thins to brave

An ignominious death for one who knew

No claim to service or to thy regard,

Save that he was thine enemy,— a king

And the oppressor of his people. Thine

To counsel mercy to the man, but death

To the oppression only, and the claim

To rule by right divine. Thy monument?

It is the love of all the good; thy words

Of wisdom, when the counsellors were dumb;

Of courage, when the spectre of despair

Appalled the bravest. In the tented field

Where, by the campfire, naked peasants’ feet

Or hunger pled more more piteous than words;

Or where the leaders of the host were met

Despondent of the issue, and none dared

Utter the word that trembled on the lips,

Thy voice proclaimed it, and thy eloquent pen

Winged the announcement through all the land.

The starving soldier, by the flickering light

Of the red watch fire, spelled the stirring words,

And every hamlet echoed with the cry,

“The States United, Independent, Free.”

These, also, are thy monuments. But more

Than spires that reach to heaven, or flourishing States

That, with their commerce, whiten all the sear,

It this great lesson that thy life hath taught

“The State is for man, not man for the State;

And all the pomp and circumstance of state

Are but for him, and for his happiness!”

This, thy great truth, is thy best monument.

Simeon Palmer.

The Weakness of Compulsory Credit.

The following extract from a speech recently delivered by Thomas F. Bayard in the United States senate shows that a voice for Liberty is sometimes heard in the halls of power:

I argued and voted against the coercive principle which compelled any citizen of the United States, any person in the United States, artificial or natural, any set to citizen who had their money invested in bank stocks or not in bank stocks, to take any obligation of the government perforce and under compulsion. I believed then, and I believe now, that, whenever it is necessary to accompany your demand for credit by a threat, you weaken that credit and do not strengthen it. I think it is a symbol of weakness, and not of strength, for the government to make either its demand notes or its bonds an enforced legal tender upon anybody. It did not add one silver to the value of the treasury notes issued in time of war. It did not prevent their depreciation one penny when disaster threatened the government that issued them and its credit was threatened to be weakened by disaster. Your bonds are not to be made stronger, they are not to be held with more confidence, by fixing upon them any feature of compulsory acceptance by the banks, or by individuals, or by anybody, foreign or domestic. It is a mistake to suppose so.

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.