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“For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!
Shines that high light whereby the world is saved;
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee.”
John Hay.
On Picket Duty.
I hope the friends of Liberty will encourage Byington’s excellent plan of preparing and publishing a series of cheap tracts popularizing the fundamental principles of Anarchism. The tract which he now offers us is in every way admirable and will do much good if properly distributed.
Whenever the pseudo-individualist papers defend government, they talk about the necessity of protecting the right to life and property. But how about those who are prevented from acquiring property by this same protecting government, and whose misery is so great that life has no value to them? What use have these for government? None whatever, and that is why bombs are thrown. As long as government regards itself as a servant of the monopolists, whose lives and plunder it is bound to protect, neither the masters nor the servant will be safe from the attacks of the desperate victims and their friends. What is wanted is a protective organization, or several organizations, that would secure equal liberty and opportunity, — that would protect men in their legitimate freedoms and restrain all aggressions. Such an organization the State never can be.
The newspapers tell us that in the present war between Japan and China the sympathies of Americans are with the former. As a matter of fact, Americans know nothing and care less about Corea or the other alleged issues of the war. But the “good” Americans, the Americanists, the professional patriots, are doubtless on the side of Japan, because, unlike China, she is “civilized” and “progressive” enough to appreciate the value of Jingoism in elections. A contemporary writes: “It is fairly evident that the war has been under-taken in a Jingo spirit, to divert attention from the difficulties at home. The government has twice had a deadlock with parliament in the past few months, and has twice dissolved it in the hope of getting a more manageable majority. The elections to the new parliament are to be held this month, and the government has obviously been willing to get a pliant majority by appealing to the war spirit and thus overshadowing the immense difficulties of domestic policy which, confront the nation.” This is a sure sign of a high degree of political progress.
The fact that the majority of trade-unionists favor compulsory arbitration and similar tyrannical measures shows that the cause of true liberty would gain little from any change that labor, by violence or any other means, could bring about. In referring to the Debs insurrection (as the plutocratic press called it) and the attitude of organized labor towards it, I declared that not much longer will the people submit to the system of violence, robbery, and fraud that the plutocrats call “law and order.” There is indeed plenty of evidence on every hand that the people are in no mood for abject surrender to monopoly and its tool, the government. But is there any evidence, any ground for hope, that the system which the people will set up, and which they will call and enforce as “law and order,” will not be one of violence, robbery, and fraud? Dissatisfaction with the present order does not argue readiness for a better order. To be ready to fight is well, but the people neither know what to fight nor what to fight for. Alas! between the rich knaves and the poor fools there is little to choose. I hate the former as much as I pity the latter, but I fear them both alike.
“Liberty regulated by law” is a favorite phrase of the shallow writers who undertake to instruct the multitude in political philosophy. They tell us further that without law liberty is simply impossible, for the moment law is withdrawn, chaos and conflict ensue. Liberty does not require regulation. To regulate liberty is to infringe upon it. Among people inclined to invasion, it is necessary to defend or protect liberty; but it is never necessary to regulate liberty. Any law that is not simply an expression of a freedom, a statement of a corollary of the law of equal liberty, is an invasion. To withdraw such law is not to expose liberty to, but to free it from, danger. Those who talk about law regulating liberty are dimly conscious of the fact that there can be no liberty in society unless all are equally free. To express the idea of equal freedom, they use the nonsensical formula of liberty regulated by law. They feel that the liberty of one does not necessarily imply the equal liberty of all others, and that it is necessary to prevent some people from destroying the liberties of their fellows. Such defence of equal freedom is not the function of law, however. Law is the worst aggressor and enemy of liberty. Abolish the invasive law and defend equal freedom both against lawful infringement and lawless assaults.
Well, we have at last the Democracy’s tariff bill. It is a tariff which everybody is ashamed of, — everybody except the few “Senators from Havemeyer,” the tools of the Sugar Trust, and the Populist congressmen, who are more interested in the income tax than in the principles of free trade. Not only is there no relationship between the tariff plank of the Chicago Democratic platform and the Sugar Trust bill, but even the bill favored by the House and the President in no wise corresponded to the pledges of the national platform. It is true that parties are not expected to carry out pre-election promises, yet the habit of pointing to progressive declarations in platforms as evidence of merit and superiority persists even among the radical elements. Would the Single Taxers have supported the Democratic party if they had been promised such a bill as is now offered us? Is there anything of free trade in it? It cannot even boast of that humbug and meaningless catch-phrase, “free raw materials.” So thoroughly protectionist is the bill that the more sensible Republicans recognize the folly of denouncing it. They regret, of course, that they are deprived of the tariff issue, and are by no means eager to welcome the Democratic converts to protection, but they have ceased to pretend that the bill is any nearer to free trade than McKinleyism itself. Republican protection is dead; long live Democratic protection!
The financial authority of the New York “Sun” is usually as shallow in his optimism as Dana himself, but he is evidently beginning to feel that the facts are dead against him, and he seems to be ready to cease humbugging his readers. Here is what he says in a recent review of the industrial situation: “It begins to look as if we had come to a halt in this country in the continued expansion of industry and the increasing demand for labor, and that a reverse process was about to commence. A full year has now elapsed since last summer’s financial and industrial crisis, and no indications of a recovery from it are yet visible. Should this recovery be delayed, as now seems probable, a year or more longer, Ricardo’s iron law must necessarily assert itself, and the market price of labor will not only cease to afford the American laborer a surplus above his customary expenditure, but will fall below it. The result will be a cessation of immigration, which has already begun, and a decrease in the number of laborers from an excess of deaths over births.” What a cheerful prospect! And what do the dear monopolists imagine the laborers will do about it? Of course, violent strikes are not to be thought of, boycotts are criminal, and denunciation of monopoly and capitalism hardly better than bomb-throwing. But tell us, pray, what is the laborer to do? Bow to the inevitable? Ah! you forget, however, that not everything is inevitable which suits you. Labor may yet discover the true solution of its problem, — that of liberty, — and then you will have to bow to the inevitable.
“In abolishing rent and interest, the last vestiges of old-time slavery, the Revolution abolishes at one stroke the sword of the executioner, the seal of the magistrate, the club of the policeman, the gunge of the exciseman, the erasing-knife of the department clerk, all those insignia of Politics, which young Liberty grinds beneath her heel.” — Proudhon.
The appearance in the editorial column of articles over other signatures than the editor’s initial indicates that the editor approves their central purpose and general tenor, though he does not hold himself responsible for every phrase or word. But the appearance in other parts of the paper of articles by the same or other writers by no means indicates that he disapproves them in any respect, such disposition of them being governed largely by motives of convenience.
Woman Suffrage and Liberty.
To the Editor of Liberty:
“Y’s” argument against woman suffrage, on the ground that women, being more tyrannical than men, will still further restrict our liberties when they obtain the ballot, seems to me to be in the wrong direction.
Women possibly may be more tyrannical than men, but if they are, it would seem to be correlated with the separation and subordination of women, which has retarded their development compared with that of men.
By mingling with people at large, at the ballot box and otherwise, men learn toleration; so, by mingling with men as companions at the ballot box, as well as in all the walks of life, women gain comradeship with men, which means equality, which means liberty.
Of course, for the ballot itself I care nothing, but that women should care to do at all what men do, on the ground of their common humanity and as equal individualities, that is wherein woman suffrage tends liberty-ward.
Besides, I am not so sure that women are naturally more tyrannical than men. Two things tend to make them artificially so: one the cant that is current among men about “woman’s influence,” holding them up as creatures altogether too bright and good to do anything but be bullied; the other, the excessive censoriousness of women toward each other upon the question of chastity. Both of these will go when men and women are comrades; the men will learn that women do not enjoy having to pose as etherial stage fairies any more than men would, and the women will mind their own business as men do with regard to each other’s private affairs.
But surely the ballot, as well as the bicycle, tends toward liberty. John Beverley Robinson.
Mr. Robinson is not sure that women are naturally more tyrannical than men: Would he refuse them the ballot if he were sure? He does not directly indicate what his position would be, but the argument he brings forward would logically compel him to second woman’s demand for suffrage even if he felt absolutely certain that woman suffrage would entail a reversion to intolerable political slavery. It seems to me that this logical reductio ad absurdum ought to open his eyes to the unsoundness of his argument. It is doubtless true that “by mingling with men at the ballot box, women gain comradeship with men,” and this is a desirable result, both in itself and on account of its bearing on the struggle for freedom, but the question is whether the result will not have to be purchased at too dear a price, — whether the loss will not more than offset the gain. You propose to give women the ballot because indirectly and gradually their political experience and association with men will liberalize them and make them a progressive force in politics: but if the direct and immediate result of their “enfranchisement” will be a crushing blow to progress and liberalism, it is obviously foolish to invite certain disaster for the sake of remote and uncertain benefits. The question whether women really are more tyrannical than men, is thus seen to be very important. All à priori considerations lead to the conclusion that women’s faith in the efficacy of coercive legislation and regulation is far more blind and absolute than that of men. Spencer has attempted to demonstrate, on biological and psychological grounds, that women naturally are and must always be extremely conservative, but it is not necessary to seek support in disputed theories. Woman’s “separation and subordination” have certainly made her narrow, illiberal, and short-sighted. Her “excessive censoriousness upon the question of chastity” is simply one of the special manifestations of her illiberality and conservatism. Those who maintain that women are not more tyrannical than men will find it very difficult to explain why women should be dissatisfied with conditions which have in no way hampered or retarded their development, and to indicate to what factors the progressive liberalization of both men and women has been due. If the restrictions to which women have been subjected have not caused bad moral effects, there is no evil in the restrictions, and women have no grievance.
But let us admit for the sake of the argument that women are not more tyrannical than men; certainly no one will claim that they are less tyrannical. On what ground, then, can Mr. Robinson, whose efforts are directed toward “disfranchising” men, — toward abolishing majority rule (the only political system under which the ballot has significance and vitality), favor the extension of the suffrage to women? The ballot is inconsistent with equal freedom, and therefore Mr. Robinson would deprive men of it. Now be proposes to give it to women in the hope that it will prove a liberalizing and civilizing agent in their hands. Manifestly these two positions are inconsistent. If the ballot will liberalize women, it will continue to liberalize men, and there is no propriety in attempting to take it away from them. If, on the other hand, it is productive of more evil than good in the hands of men, it will have the same tendency in the hands of women.
It is important that women should “mingle with men as companions,” but the ballot-booth is not the only place creating an opportunity for such mingling; in all “the other walks of life” mingling is not only possible, but wholly advantageous. The objections I have raised are not against mingling, but against mingling at the ballot-box. The difference between the bicycle, the office, the school, the parlor, on the one hand, and the ballot-box on the other, is just this: all the former indirectly tend toward political liberty without in any way neutralizing or offsetting or overbalancing that tendency, while the ballot tends toward coercion and tyranny strongly and directly, and but slightly and indirectly in the opposite direction. Y.
The Compulsory-Arbitration Menace.
Some say that the railroad strike was started with the intention of creating public sentiment in favor of compulsory arbitration. It has certainly given a great impulse to that movement; but the evil is partly offset by the occasion it has given to some papers, among them the Philadelphia “Press” and the New York “Independent,” to say in the most unequivocal phrases our language affords that “there can be no compulsory arbitration in a free country.”
I believe this to be the most dangerous idea now before the country. There is no experiment in labor legislation so likely to be tried, for everybody favors compulsory arbitration. Labor unions favor it, apparently believing that the justice of their cause will compel any arbitrators to give them what they want. State Socialists favor it, because they know it is a long step their way. Conservatives, especially religious people, favor it most of all because there is nothing they detest so much as disorder; and strikes are always disorderly, while arbitration, of course, is quite orderly.
No idea prominently before the public, short of the full Socialist programme, would immediately introduce so much of the tyranny of State Socialism. Nationalization of railroads and telegraphs would be a bagatelle to it. It would also be difficult of repeal, for it would diminish the expression of social discontent, and thereby would produce the impression of giving general satisfaction. I see only one good thing about the prospect: it might, by blocking much of the fragmentary work of the unions, help force laborers to turn their attention to the problem of monopoly-making laws, as the only remaining way out.
Compulsory arbitration is supported in so many quarters that opposition to it almost anywhere is as unexpected as it is welcome. If conservative organs like the “Independent” can help save labor from its own folly in this matter, conservatism will not have lived in vain. Stephen T. Byington.
Surrendering the Right to Strike.
The loss of a great strike is, no doubt, a serious blow to labor organizations. But compulsory arbitration would be absolutely disastrous.
If two parties engage in a dispute, arbitration is a sensible and economical method of settling the difficulty. But if any good is to come of it, both parties must be willing to arbitrate, and must be satisfied with the board of arbitration. If both parties agree beforehand to submit to the decision of the judges, there is no violation of freedom in enforcing the judgment should either party attempt to violate it. Once appoint a board of compulsory arbitration, and its duty will be to compel all parties to submit to its rulings, whether they are just or unjust. It is only in cases where one party, or even both parties, are unwilling to arbitrate that compulsion becomes necessary. It matters not who the unwilling party may be. To tyrannize over a capitalist is as bad as to tyrannize over a laborer.
If labor organizations imagine that they will be able to gain any advantage over capital by these means, they had better disabuse their minds of such ideas at once. It is very pretty to rant about the fair-mindedness of American citizens, but such talk is only cant. Is it to be expected that such a board will be composed of men superior in intelligence or honesty to United Slates judges, or with any better conception of the rights of labor than congressmen or the president? Surely we may gather from the experience of the last few weeks some idea of what their decisions would be. When judges imprison men for advising others to stop work, — what may we not expect from a board of arbitration? To make such a board effective, it must be given power to enforce its commands, and to imprison those who disobey.
We are told that public officers are our servants, yet as soon as we even so much as criticize their acts we are thrust into jail for contempt of court. Contempt of court? Yes, they realize what contempt a fair-minded man must feel for their actions as soon as he subjects them to criticism. But surely it is a little novel for a man’s servants to imprison him because he holds them in contempt. Such servants are worse than masters, they are slave drivers. Shall we then place additional powers in their hands? “Get back to work, you common cattle, and feel thankful that we permit you to live at all. We wouldn’t if we could get along without you.” This will be the substance of the verdicts of the compulsory arbitration committee. For what can labor offer to such men for a decision in its favor? Absolutely nothing. Capital, on the other hand, can give them wealth, honor, social position, political preferment, and everything their hearts hold dear. They are not such fools as to hesitate over such offers.
The State always has been, and always will be, on the side of organized injustice, because it is itself organized injustice. To give it power to compel arbitration is to sacrifice the greatest victory organized labor has ever gained, — the right to strike. F. D. Tandy.
The “American Architect” does not go beyond the most patent facts and every-day experience in its answer to the question why latter-day strikes are almost invariably attended by violence and lawlessness. The old and original idea of a strike, it says, was a peaceful appeal to the facts as regards the labor market. The employer would assert that he could not afford to pay more, and that he could find men to do the work for the wages; this the employees would deny, and would quit work to see on which side the truth lay. If the master was able to get men for his money, the strike was a failure; if not, it was a success. When the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers first came into prominence by tying up the Eastern Railroad, they won, and won peaceably, because the company was actually unable to get skilled engineers to take the places of the strikers. But since that time the supply has so greatly increased, and strike after strike has thrown so many out of work and into other occupations temporarily, that a peaceful strike would now be nonsensical. The same is the case with nearly all other skilled trades, and with all unskilled labor. The condition of the labor market is now such that the idea of a peaceful trial of strength between men and employers is completely abandoned. Strikers hope for success at present only as they hope to be allowed to frighten or club away the men who are ready and anxious to take their places. Now, this is a condition, not a theory, and the mere statement of the facts suffices to show how futile and unreasonable it is to condemn the violence of the strikers. It is not choice, but necessity, sheer despair, that their violence is to be ascribed to. The only alternative that remains open to them, in their present state of intelligence, is absolute submission to the tender mercies of capital, non-resistance to its encroachments and aggressions. Doubtless the plutocratic editors would not hesitate to commend this latter course, but would they ever dream of adopting it themselves? The philosophical observer must perceive that, once the conditions of equitable dealing are broken, ethical principles cannot be strictly applied. The aggressed-upon will inevitably practise counter-aggression, and one wrong will beget another. If our semi-individualists had any real regard for truth and consistency, or any love for fairness, they would cease to prate about free contract and voluntary exchange, and realize that there is something rotten in an industrial order in which a peaceful strike is impossible and ridiculous. It ought to be obvious à priori that such a condition is utterly inconsistent with the hypothesis that labor has no grievance against society and legislation.
The great trial of the thirty Anarchist-Communists in Paris ended in the acquittal of all the defendants on the charge of inciting to crime. Two or three, it is stated, were convicted of theft. Sixty questions were submitted to the jury by the judge, but it took them only two hours to arrive at their verdict. It may easily be inferred how weak the prosecution’s case was if an ordinary bourgeois jury could not see their way clear to the infliction of even a mild punishment. As a matter of fact, the defendants had been guilty of nothing except the theoretical propaganda of their views. The French press, without exception, commends the verdict and ridicules the blunder of the government in arraigning journalists and thinkers innocent of any crime. In view of this fiasco it is very amusing to re-read the comments and predictions in which some of our own venomous and mendacious newspapers indulged when the first news of the approaching trial reached them. The New York “Times” wrote: “The crimes of the thirty are of very different kinds, and it is creditable to the ingenuity of the French lawmakers that they should have been able to comprehend all these kinds of malefactors in a single statute. The wild and active Anarchist, when he makes an attempt at massacre or plunder, is already sufficiently provided for. The Anarchist who commits ordinary crimes, such as theft and arson, under extraordinary pretexts, such as that he is opposed to the existing constitution of society, is a new type and deserving of a special punishment. Then there is the third kind, the representatives of which describe themselves as ‘publicists’ and ‘men of letters,’ who are simply disreputable ‘newspaper men’ anxious to turn a dishonest penny.” So confident was this wretched trader in small political ideas that the thirty would be convicted that it spoke with regret about the expiration of the sentences. It is needless to say that it was struck speech-less by the actual verdict. For the prostitutes of American newspaperdom to talk about “disreputable newspaper men anxious to turn a dishonest penny” is decidedly cool. The whole civilized world knows that the average American newspaper man is the most unprincipled and disreputable “trader” in the capitalistic market.
Mr. Walker raises several questions in his communication on the strike. So far as the question of Cleveland’s interference in the strike is concerned, it is sufficient to point out that eminent judges and lawyers are not as sure as Mr. Walker that the interference was legal and constitutional. Governor Altgeld is a lawyer and ex-judge, and his long messages to the president make out a strong case. Judge Tuley and several congressmen and governors thoroughly endorsed Governor Altgeld’s position. Even Judge Cooley, who came out in support of Cleveland, plainly intimated that the question required settlement and that Cleveland had established a valuable precedent. Where the authorities thus differ, it is rash for Mr. Walker to assume such a positive position. That Cleveland sought to enforce Federal law, everybody knew, but that is immaterial. Altgeld, in his second protest, elaborately argued that the president could not order troops into a State for any purpose without communication with the governor. With reference to the question of the peculiar sacredness of the mails, it is sickening to see what outrages are committed in the name of the “United States Mails,” and it would be a great blessing to degrade them to the level of apples and hogs. Liberty did not denounce the attempt to protect property and the liberty of the scabs, but the flimsy pretext under which a military despotism was temporarily established. Cleveland rushed to the aid of monopoly at a time when local authority saw no justification for ordering out the militia. Governor Altgeld was doubtless perfectly willing to afford all due protection to the railroads and their employees; he simply declined to be a tool and lackey of capital. He would make no distinction between letters and apples, and there ought to be none. There are other things in Mr. Walker’s letter calling for comment, but as he has made the same points in a letter which has appeared in “Lucifer” and elicited an excellent reply from the editor, Mr. Harman, I content myself with reproducing elsewhere some pertinent passages from the latter’s editorial.
Illustrations of the ignorance and puerility of our newspapers are by no means rare, but such a characteristic display of their qualities and properties as that made by them in connection with the French “Anti-Anarchist” law deserves more than the ordinary amount of attention. They could not discover a single weighty objection to the law; everybody who opposed it was a crank and a mischievous conspirator. The government was entirely reasonable in its demands, and there was not the slightest danger of abusing the sweeping provisions of the law. All this was contended “on general principles,” not one of the papers revealing a real understanding of French politics. Now it turns out that not only is the entire progressive division of the French press hostile to the new law, but even the more intelligent correspondents of our own newspapers, and all of the English correspondents in Paris, write of it in terms of severest condemnation and utter contempt. The poor editorial writers realize that they have written themselves down perfect asses, but they hope that the indifference of their readers to foreign affairs will protect them from the natural consequence of their stupid blunder. The American press has indeed nothing to lose; no discriminating and educated reader ever turns to a newspaper sermon with the expectation of gaining light or knowledge. Elsewhere in this issue I reprint two interesting extracts from letters of Paris correspondents on the anti-dynamite legislation.
That the plutocratic “Evening Post” should demand the railroading into jail of strikers, boycotters, Coxeyites, and other popular agitators, is perfectly natural, but its campaign against the professors, novelists, clergymen, and editors whose crime consists in sympathizing with the victims of the present system and dreaming or hoping for a new and better order of society, is a gratuitous attack upon free speech and liberalism that even the mild bourgeois type of individualist must shrink from. Says this brazen mouthpiece of monopoly: “It is becoming a question whether we shall not have to lock up some of the college professors and clergymen who are inciting the ignorant to violence. The Rev. Myron W. Reed, who has been preaching in Denver, Col., of late years, addressed a meeting held by the Debsites and said, among other things, that Jesus Christ was an Anarchist, and so was he (Reed); that a man who does not belong to a union, and stands ready to take another man’s place at less wages, is an enemy, a spy, and an obstructor, and ought in some peaceable way to be removed; and that, unless something is speedily done for the laboring classes this country will be plunged into one of the greatest revolutions the world has ever seen.’ This sort of talk is so near inciting to violence that it is hard to see where it falls short, and the fact that a man prefixes Rev.’ or Prof.’ to his name is no reason why he should not be stopped when be provokes the masses to lawlessness.” So the plutocratic “Post” would imprison people for talk that is “near” inciting to violence, and doubtless it would not have to be so very near, either. Presumably mere dissatisfaction with present conditions is “near” enough to render one liable to imprisonment under “Post” notions of “law and order.” If present laws do not provide for the punishment of such enemies of society as the Rev. Mr. Reed, new laws must be enacted, cries the “Post.” No offender should be allowed to escape. Besides the Denver clergyman, the “Post’s” list of dangerous rebels includes Prof. Richard T. Ely and Prof. George Herron, of Iowa College, Prof. Ely’s indictment charges him with justifying boycotting, sustaining “walking delegates,” and denouncing “scabs.” Surely, this is terrible. Is it wise to have such a man at large? Prof. Herron is equally dangerous. In an address at the commencement exercises of his university he said: “At no time since the age of the Roman State has law received so much attention as today. Yet all know there is no justice in the courts. If there is Anarchy everywhere, it had its origin in the courts.” Truly, it is a real misfortune that, as the “Post” points out, “the framers of our laws did not contemplate the appearance” of such wretches and did not provide for their punishment. Manifestly “this is one of the reforms which must be taken in hand” without delay. Now, will it be near inciting to violence to intimate that such fellows as Godkin are responsible for the blind and brutal reprisals which generally attend a revolt of the masses? The most philosophical and calm of lovers of freedom is sometimes tempted to agree with the dynamiteurs that the only answer to Godkinian unscrupulousness and arrogance is a bomb.
In Liberty of July 14 I emphasized the distinction, which my friend Traubel had seemed to ignore; between the tyranny of government which it is proper to combat by force if we have it and the so-called tyranny of creed and custom which, not imposing itself by force, it would be improper and tyrannical to resist by force even if we had it. I concluded my paragraph with the assertion that “Anarchism does not directly fight folly or vice.” This statement it is necessary to explain lest it may bring against me from others the same complaint which I lodged against Mr. Traubel when I declared that he “invites a suspicion of unsoundness by what he omits to say.” Not, indeed, that I have much fear of it, for I have rarely known the fools who criticise Liberty to take advantage of a real opportunity, or even a semblance of one; they generally choose, instead, the most obviously invulnerable points in Liberty’s defences against which to butt their stupid heads. But I do not wish to give excuse for misunderstanding, and it has occurred to me that some unusually keen critic might claim, with some show of reason, that the statement that “Anarchism does not directly fight folly” is inconsistent with the profession, always so prominent in these columns, that Anarchism places its chief reliance upon a campaign of education. For what, indeed, is the attempt to educate others in the philosophy of Anarchism but a direct fight with that appalling folly which supposes the State to be a necessity of society? I hasten to admit, therefore, that Anarchism does directly and most vigorously fight all that vast mass of folly which consists of political views at variance with the doctrine of equal liberty. Of course it does not fight it by physical force; to say nothing of the fact that the Anarchists do not yet possess such force to a degree sufficient for the purpose, it would in any case be Archistic for them to use it against the verbal expression of Archistic ideas. True, the governments of the world are doing their best to justify us in such a course by passing laws which punish more severely those who advocate physical force than those who use it; but we are not in the habit of following Archistic examples.
Free competition is an absurdity in any market in which government is a competitor. I say this in answer to Mr. Bilgram, who in his latest essay on the money question claims that government has a right to engage in the business of issuing money, and to Mr. Ballou, who in his review of this essay admits the claim. Since government, having the power of compulsory taxation, can always afford to carry on at a loss, for an indefinite period, any business in which it may engage, it can crush any competitor simply by selling at less than cost and recovering the losses from the taxpayer. It is as if Smith were given the privilege of picking Brown’s pocket to enable him to sell goods at less than cost and thereby drive Jones out of business. On such terms it is ridiculous to talk of free competition between Smith and Jones, even though Jones enjoys equally with Smith the right to engage in business. But these are always the terms on which a government does business. I do not see how Mr. Ballou, who as an Anarchist must consider the very existence of government a denial of equal liberty, can admit that government is entitled to do that which necessarily implies its existence. Until governments are no longer governments, having become purely voluntary associations instead, Mr. Ballou, as an Anarchist, and Mr. Bilgram, as a champion of free competition, are equally bound to deny their right to issue money.
Mr. Bilgram’s reference to the “rational object of legal tender laws,” in his review of Mr. Brough’s new work on money, is rather vague. Surely he does not wish to be understood as holding that without legal tender laws no popular agreement imparting a definite meaning to the term “dollar” is possible. Commerce does not depend on government for its facilities and conveniences. The abrogation of legal tender’ laws need not, and would not, imply an abrogation of the definite agreement without which no contracts could be made and enforced. There are no international legal tender laws, yet international commerce manages to grow without them. Nor can Mr. Bilgram mean that the legislators have had the rational object he specifies in view in enacting the various legal tender laws. Even conservative economists recognize that the objects of the legislators have been entirely different. In this connection the editorial from the “Century” on legal tender laws will be read with satisfaction. Surely we are making rapid progress when such opinions as those expressed therein are promulgated in a leading magazine. I commend the “Century’s” editorial to the poor and ignorant “Critic,” which imagined it had discovered in Mr. Brough’s book an utterly wild and crazy notion of the effect of legal tender laws. Literary ladies will have to beware of rushing into print with their school-text-book knowledge of finance.
Mr. Walker’s impressive reference to the “duty” of whatever government happens to be in existence to protect liberty and property is rather droll. Of course, the existing governments will protect such property and liberty as they graciously allow their subjects to retain in some sort of fashion. The property and liberty of the monopolists naturally have the first lien on governmental protection, and no prodding is needed to make government perform its “duty” in the premises. But why Anarchists should be concerned with this protection, passes my comprehension. We do not talk about the highwayman’s duty to protect his victim, and there is just as much incongruity in Anarchistic talk about the duty of the chief plunderer and invader, the State, to protect its victims. To denounce it for such protection as it does afford would be absurd, but it is equally absurd to praise it for alleged performance of “duty.”
The Government and the Strike.
To the Editor of Liberty:
Referring to the relation of the mails to the A. R. U. strike, you say:
“The ‘United States Mails’ are words inspiring awe, and obstruction to a mail train, which plutocratic judges construe to mean any train to which a mail car is attached, brings the strikers within the jurisdiction of the Federal government. But private mails would be no more sacred than private apples or hogs or rails.”
Are we to understand from this that whatever government may exist is under no obligation to protect private apples or hogs or rails from violence, or that, as a matter of fact, it does not at least attempt to protect them nowt Suppose that the monopoly of mail carrying is taken from the national government, — as it should be, — will not the national government still be in duty bound to protect the private mail carriers who will have taken the place of the semi-public mail carriers of the present time? And is it not true that national troops were called out as much to protect railroads, their employees, their shippers, and all others whose comfort, property, or lives depend upon the orderly flow of interstate commerce, as they were to secure the regular transmission of the mails? And all these industries and all these men and women are private, not official. What warrant, then, is there for the assumption that the denationalization of the mail service will remove either the excuse or the necessity for national protection of interstate mails? There is no valid reason why the citizen of one State should be dependent wholly upon the inefficient executive of another State for protection of his property or his person. I have yet to learn that President Cleveland sent national troops into any State to protect the people of that State against domestic violence, or to protect State citizens at all. That he could not constitutionally do without the invitation of the governor. He did send troops into various States to uphold Federal law and to protect United States citizens. To do this he had no occasion to await the invitation of Altgeld or Markham. Neither have troops been sent against strikers, as strikers. E. C. Walker.
“The Natural Law of Money.”
Mr. William Brough’s work under the above title is In many respects an improvement over most of the modern treatises on money. The author clearly recognizes that the well known Gresham Law is operative only between those issues of money which are legal tender, and that the silver dollar passes current at a value exceeding its metal value only because as yet a gold dollar can be received for it at the United States Treasury. He rejects the notion that money can be made only by the flat of the law, and would therefore abolish all legal tender laws, leaving to the people the choice of using either gold or silver as a medium of exchange.
The author evidently overlooks one rational object of legal tender laws. The present unit of account being the “dollar,” a mutual agreement as to what shall constitutes dollar is necessary, and the rational object of legal tender laws is to give expression to the popular agreement which imparts a definite meaning to this otherwise meaningless word. Even apart from the confusion which an indiscriminate use of several value units would produce, no end of trouble would result from an abrogation of a definite agreement that a dollar shall be equal to a definite amount of a definite commodity. It is true, however, that the rational object of legal tender laws, — i. e., a mutual agreement that a dollar shall mean so many grains of gold, — has been completely obliterated by the dogmas of modern political economy, and shamefully abused by modern legislation, and it is perfectly proper to expose and condemn this abuse.
Mr. Brough’s argument is, however, considerably marred by such statements as these; “It is not money, but wise monetary legislation, that the country now needs There is a limit to the amount of money that may be used productively, but there is no limit to the amount of capital that may be used productively. . . . . In lending money, the rate of interest is influenced, first, by the degree of safety with which the loan may be made; and, secondly, by the scarcity or abundance of money at the time the loan is made. But underlying these two changing conditions is the relative proportion of capital to opportunities for profitable investment of capital, which is the governing condition in fixing what may appropriately be termed the normal rate of interest. . . . . It is a very common mistake to suppose that more money is needed where it is really capital that is needed within the twenty years following the close of our civil war we had a remarkable example of the beneficial effects produced by the introduction of foreign capital into a country.”
These quotations show conclusively that the author is acquainted with the natural laws of money about as well as the modern professors of political economy are with the laws that govern the distribution of wealth. With these professors he shares the erroneous opinion that capital can be productive and that the money lender receives interest because capital returns a profit. He fails to see that a persistent income can ac true to a non-producer only through an abuse of the power of the government, and he has yet to learn that under natural laws neither money nor capital can return profitable interest. Hugo Bilgram.
Legal-Tender Money in History.
[The Century, August.]
What is the meaning of the term “legal tender,” as applied to money? “The Century Dictionary” defines it as “currency which can lawfully be used in paying a debt.” A briefer and common definition is “compulsory circulation,” and this is the term applied to such money habitually in most South American countries, curso forzado, Edward Atkinson, in a recent very interesting pamphlet, cites legal tender among some examples of words of which the meaning has been perverted to the vitiation of public thought, and says legal tender should be defined as “an act by which bad money may be forced into use so as to drive good money out of circulation.” He has made a search through history for legal-tender acts, and concludes from his discoveries “that no decree and no statute of legal tender ever originated anywhere except for the purpose of forcing a debased coin into circulation, or for the purpose of collecting a forced loan by making paper substitutes for coin a legal tender for debts.”
This conclusion must be confirmed by everybody else making like research. The first case of legal tender on record, Mr. Atkinson thinks, was in Greece, in the sixth century before Christ, when Solon debased the coin so that one hundred new drachmæ were worth no more than seventy-three of the old ones. Another case occurred in Rome, when the Senate reduced the weight of the copper money of the Republic during the second Punic war. Philip le Bel, of Spain, about 1506, debased the pound sterling, and enforced the circulation of the depreciated money based upon it by decree of legal tender. Prof. James B. Thayer, of the Harvard Law School, is cited by Mr. Atkinson as authority for the statement that the that appearance of legal tender in English history was in the time of Edward III. (1312–1377), who debased the coin, and by a decree of the crown made it a penal offence to refuse the debased money. A little more than three hundred years later, in 1689, James II. of England made a similar experiment. He was then reigning in Dublin, whither he had returned after abdicating and fleeing to France, and was seeking to regain his throne with the aid of an Irish parliament, He was confronted with an empty treasury, and conceived the notion, according to Macaulay, that “he could extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the simple process of calling a farthing a shilling.” He reasoned that since the right of coining money belonged to the royal prerogative, the right of debasing the coinage must also belong to it.
During our Revolutionary war the Continental currency was made a legal tender, and one of the most formidable obstacles with which the patriot cause had to contend was the debased money which was thus given a forced circulation. Readers of the “Century’s” Cheap-Money series remember the disastrous results which followed the efforts of the State government of Rhode Island, between 1785 and 1787, to enforce its decrees making the money of the Rhode Island Paper Bank legal tender. Business of all kinds was paralyzed, money ceased almost entirely to circulate, the State’s credit was ruined, and its prosperity dealt a blow from which it did not recover for many years. France, as was shown in the same series, went through the same experience twice — once with John Law’s money, between 1718 and 1720, and again with its assignate and mandate, between 1789 and 1796. So also did Alabama with its State Bank in 1823–42; Michigan, with its “wildcat” banks in 1837–39; Mississippi, with its Planters’ Bank, in 1833–40; and the Argentine Republic, with its Hypothecary Banks, in 1884–90. All these diversified forms of debased money were made legal tenders, and their circulation was forced by all the powers of the governments which had issued them. No one can examine historical evidence upon this point and not be convinced that every act of legal tender has been passed to force into circulation a form of money which would not otherwise circulate at all. Sometimes this has been the assumed necessity of a great war like that of the Revolution, and later, of the Rebellion, but oftener it has been the outcome of ignorance or something worse.
Good money needs no act of legal tender to make it circulate. Mr. Atkinson makes an unanswerable argument on this point by citing the fact that the great international commerce of the world has been carried on from its beginning to the present time without international acts of legal tender.
Anarchist Letter-Writing Corps.
The Secretary wants every reader of Liberty to send in his name for enrolment. Those who do so thereby pledge themselves to write, when possible, a letter every fortnight, on Anarchism or kindred subjects, to the “target” assigned in Liberty for that fortnight. All, whether members or not, are asked to lose no opportunity of informing the secretary of suitable targets. Address, Stephen T. Byington, East Hardwick, Vt.
The “Sunday School Times” did not print any of our letters, but devoted a leading editorial to answering them. It said some excellent things about the danger of assuming that a plea for liberty is the same as a plea against order, and then pointed the moral by making itself an unsurpassable example of that danger.
It has seemed to me that the Anarchist movement was the weaker for its lack of cheap tracts. To do my share toward filling the gap I have had my “Lessons in Words of One Syllable,” from Nos. 290 and 291 of Liberty, reprinted as a leaflet of the size of a postal card. I will send 100 copies for 25c., 30 for 10c., 10 for 5c. Send in your orders before you forget it., for these prices leave me no margin to pay for a standing advertisement. If I can sell enough of this thousand to bring me out whole, I will think of getting out more cheap and short leaflets. We need tracts cheap enough to be scattered broadcast, and short and striking enough to be read through by the casual reader. My tract is not perfection, but I know of none in print that goes further toward this ideal.
Suggestion No. 10. — As to that paper that you are watching, waiting to see it say something that can be made the excuse for a bombardment by the Corps. Give it a start yourself by writing it a letter on the line that will best reach it; then, if that is published, send me the paper containing it, and the Corps will come in to back you.
Target, section A. — The “Shoe and Leather Reporter,” of Nashville, Tenn., had in June an editorial condemning strikes and Coxey, and saying that “we are very sorry to see the sad condition of the poor, but, after all, nobody can help it.” It says, “The Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, — they go by turns by all those titles, — are in favor of making spoil of the hoards of the rich. If they could succeed in their nefarious designs, the money would be in worse hands than it is now. The extremely wealthy are for the most part narrow-minded, selfish, and parsimonious; but they are not coarse, brutal, and vulgar. Consequently they are far less pernicious to society than the bomb-thrower and assassin, who occasionally exhibit their ferocity in our populous communities. Money in the pockets of any one of those imported miscreants would be worse than wasted. It would only serve as a stimulant to laziness and intemperance.”
Section B. — The “Times,” Washington, D. C., a daily which takes the side of labor, says we must have “a peaceful method of revolutionizing existing conditions — and what shall it be?” Stephen T. Byington.
“The garden of the laws is full of ironical plants, of unexpected Mowers and by no means its slightest charm is this subversion of the natural order, whereby appear at the end of stems and branches fruit just the opposite of that which is promised by the essence of the tree or bush. The apple-tree bears figs, and the cherry-tree medlars: plants yield sweet potatoes, and hollyhocks salsify. It is delicious.” Séverine.
The Beauties of Government.
The readers of Liberty are urgently invited to contribute to this department. It is open to any statement of facts which exhibit the State in any phase of its fourfold capacity of fool, meddler, knave, and tyrant. Either original accounts based upon the writer’s own knowledge, or apparently reliable accounts clipped front recent publications, are welcome.
The Treasury’s “Anti-Anarchist” Bill.
[Boston Advertiser.]
The published letters from Superintendent Stump, of the Bureau of Immigration, to the “Advertiser” regarding, the case of the Anarchist Mowbray have been followed by an introduction of just such a bill as we advocated. In connection with that very ease. It will be remembered that Mowbray eluded the inspection officials at New York and was able to snap his fingers at the law. The “Advertiser” immediately laid the matter before the Treasury Department, and in reply received from the Immigration Bureau a promise that some bill would be framed to meet the defects of the present law. That promis now made good in the bill which has been introduced In the Senate by the Committee on Immigration. Senator Hill, of New York, has charge of the measure, but we violate no confidence in saying that the bill was drawn by officials of the Treasury Department and is Secretary Carlisle’s plan for dealing with such cases as that of Mowbray in the future.
The aim of the treasury bill, as provided in the first section, is “that no alien Anarchist shall hereafter be permitted to land at any port of the United States, or be admitted into the United States; but this shall not be construed as to political refugees or political offenders.” Provision is made for special inquiries regarding the antecedents of the alleged Anarchist and for the submission of evidence as to the common reputation and character of the Immigrant. All this is important so far as it goes, but, as we have pointed out in the case of Mowbray, that Anarchist could have been kept from landing under existing laws. The trouble was that as soon as he had slipped past the invectors and had reached New York, there was no law under which he could be deported. The treasury bill, as reported in the Senate by Mr. Hill, meets the difficulty by a new provision, which answers the purpose for which section 11 of the law of 1891 was enacted.
The new provision stipulates that the secretary of the treasury shall be “authorized, in case he shall be satisfied that an alien has been allowed to land, or has come into the United States contrary to the immigration laws, to issue a warrant and cause such alien to be taken into custody and returned to the country whence he came, at the expense of the importing vessel; or, if he entered from an adjoining country, of which he is not a citizen, then to the country of his nativity at the expense of the United States.” Provision he also made that “in such cases the secretary may authorize any immigration official to summon witnesses, administer oaths, and take testimony, to be submitted to him, and inspectors of immigration may execute such process and make arrests and convey to port of departure all such persons ordered deported.” So far its the enforcement of existing immigration laws is concerned, the new bill rills a “long-felt want”; but even a more stringent regulation is submitted to meet the case of Anarchists.
In the section following the one containing the provisions just quoted, there is a further stipulation that “In cases where, upon the trial and conviction of any foreign-born and unnaturalized person of any crime or misdemeanor in any United States court, or court of record of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, the presiding judge shall certify that from the evidence produced at the trial he is satisfied that such alien is an Anarchist, or that he is not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and well disposed to the peace and good order of the same, and that his remaining in this country will be a menace to the government, or to the peace and well-being of society in general, such convict, in addition to other punishments adjudged, shall be taken before a commissioner of immigration, at a port of entry, who shall order his deportation, at the expense of the United States, to the country from which he came.” If the Anarchist returns to this country, he is to be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than four years in the penitentiary and afterwards shall be again deported.
Repressive Legislation in Germany.
[Press Cable Message.]
Berlin. — Emperor William’s first interview with the Chancellor, after returning from the North, concerned recent cabinet discussions of the steps to be taken for the repression of Socialism and Anarchism. The discussions were reported at length by the Chancellor. They impressed his Majesty with the necessity of acting at once against the revolutionists.
Chancellor von Caprivi did not help the Emperor to this decision; in fact, he is known to have held back from it. He advised the Emperor to wait at least until the subject could be discussed in the Federal Council and the opinions of the federated governments could be obtained. He argued that the Imperial government could lose nothing by thus informing itself, and might be saved the chagrin of committing itself to a bill that could not be passed. At first the Emperor seemed inclined to accept the Chancellor’s advice; then he changed his opinion suddenly, and directed Caprivi to prepare drafts of repressive laws to be submitted to the Reichstag and Prussian Landtag. These bills, he told the Chancellor, should be drawn to alter the existing laws as to political meetings, seditious publications, and public utterances or printed matter calculated to cause or incite to disorder.
The “Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,” of August 4, says: “We do not doubt that both the upper and the lower House of the Landtag will readily pass such measures, but the Reichstag will become the arena of a fierce battle, with the event quite uncertain for the government.”
Apparently Caprivi has taken the reversal of his policy quietly, although beneath the surface the crisis may be maturing. The exact terms of the proposed measures are not known; even their scope is in doubt. Dr. Miguel and Count Botho zu Eulenburg have called with one voice for repression, but when it comes to determining the lengths to which the government shall go, their demands differ greatly. Eulenburg, an ultra Tory, desires to revive the old Bismarckian laws, with a few draconic amendments for the disciplining of Anarchists. In this particular he has gone over to the “Kreuzzeitung” party completely and planted himself squarely on the ground of the Chancellor’s worst enemies. Miguel desires a milder measure, coupled with a reform of judicial procedure. The Free Conservatives have joined the Tories in backing Eulenburg. Miquel’s support is rather doubtful, as the Liberals are afraid of repressive laws, and the Radicals oppose them bitterly.
A New Theory — the Police Must “Know” the Nature of Meetings.
[New York Sun.]
Captain Kitzer, of the Cedar Street Precinct, stopped a meeting which was to have been held at the Labor Lyceum, Willoughby avenue, near Myrtle avenue, Brooklyn. Wilfred Mowbray, the London Anarchist, was advertised to speak on “The Breaking Down of the Social Madhouse,” and the meeting was to have been held under the auspices of the International Workingmen’s Association.
Herr Most, who was advertised to speak, did not appear, but Editor Mowbray did. He disappeared when Captain Kitzer headed a detail of police to see that his order preventing the meeting was enforced: It was rumored that the police of Newark, N. J., had secured a warrant for Mowbray’s arrest on a charge of making incendiary remarks in a speech delivered lately in that city.
Of this the Brooklyn police knew nothing. The presence of the police caused a crowd to collect. Those who had come to the Lyceum to attend the meeting were loud in condemning the police’s action. Captain Kitzer said:
“This morning I was waited on by some one who asked permission to hold the meeting. I said they had every right to hold it so long as there was no intent to violate the law. This evening, when I called there to learn the object of the meeting, a party, who gave his name as Scheasler, and who acted as a representative, told me that I was not the captain of the precinct, and that if I was, it was none of my business.
“I accordingly ordered a detail to see that the meeting was not held there, or anywhere else in my precinct. When the police cannot know the nature of a meeting, which is a public one, and which they have reason to know, as I have, is not to be of a law-abiding nature, then I believe that it is the duty of the guardians of the law to see that the law is not put in jeopardy.”
Mowbray, who reappeared later on, said:
“I come from a country which is a monarchy, where the police are supposed to be the servants of the people. In this country, which is supposed to be free, it appears that the people are the servants of the police.”
His remark was made in the hearing of Captain Kitzer.
Only Knaves and Fools Good Citizens.
[Press Cable Message.]
The authorities in Saxony have adopted a course of rigorous action under existing laws. The magistrates of Leipzig recently refused the applications of several Social Democrats to be admitted to all the rights and privileges of citizens, basing their refusal on the ground that the characters of the applicants offered insufficient guarantee of their interest for the community’s welfare and of their ability to contribute to the same.
How Government “Prevents” Dynamite.
[Frees Cable Message.]
The Hamburg government has suppressed a society of freethinkers whose members are chiefly young Anarchist suspects. A Munich Socialist club, called the Free Debaters, was dissolved recently, mainly because the members sympathized openly with the Berlin Anarchists who masquerade as independent Socialists.
Too Zealous Even for the Government.
[Press Dispatch.]
Rome, Aug. 1. — The government has issued a circular letter to prefects instructing them to refrain from prosecuting Anarchists and Socialists who are keeping within the limits of the new law.
[Refraining is all right, but why need instructions to refrain from prosecuting men who keep within the limits of law?]
Quarantine and Logic.
[The Missionary Herald.]
At last the tops of cocoanut trees peer above the waves in the horizon and after a few hours more you enter the lagoon of Jaluij — the headquarters of the German protectorate, and, I have sometimes thought, one of Satan’s favorite seats. As we approach the little German village, the captain fastens a yellow rag to the rigging and the port physician comes on board to ask if we have any sickness on the vessel. We tell him “No,” and I anxiously inquire if they have much sickness on shore. My question is so civil that he has to answer it, but he looks wonderfully disgusted and hurries back to the land.
What! The Law Atheistic?
[Press Dispatch.]
Montgomery, Ala., June 21. — A decision has been handed down by the supreme court of Alabama in the case of Sylvester Festorozzi and others, executors of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Mobile, sent up from the Chancery Court. Some time ago a prominent Roman Catholic died.at Mobile and bequeathed $2,000 to be used for saying masses for his soul. The court holds the bequest void because there is no living beneficiary of the trust endeavored to be created, the soul not being an entity in law.
Does the Law Repudiate the Bible?
[Lucifer.]
J. B. Wise, of Clay Centre, Kan., who was imprisoned at Leavenworth, charged with violating the postal laws, has been released on bail. His trial in the Federal Court will probably come off in October next. His offence is sending a postal card to a clergyman with whom he was having a controversy on religious questions. On the postal card was written a verse from the Hebrew Bible, without comment. In a recent letter Mr. Wise explains that be used a card because he had no postage stamp to put on a letter, and that he sent the quotation expecting an explanation thereof, — as he had frequently done before. The case has received much attention and will doubtless result in good by calling attention to the danger of allowing the champions of a dead or dying theology to imprison their opponents by means of “obscenity” laws when no longer able to enforce laws against blasphemy or heresy.
Another Victim of Comstockism.
[Truthseeker.]
Mrs. Lois Waisbroker, editor and publisher of “Foundation Principles,” Topeka, Kansas, was arrested on August 2 at the instigation of R M. McAfee, postal inspector and agent of Comstock’s society for the alleged suppression of vice. Taken before United States Commissioner Mileham, Mrs. Waisbroker waived examination and was released in bonds of $800. We are not advised what the offending publication was in this instance.
Religious Freedom in America.
[Truth Seeker.]
Rev. A. J. Howard, of the Seventh-Day Adventists, and Henry Bullen, a member of his congregation, have been arrested in Ann Arundel [Maryland] county for “Sabbath-breaking.” It is probable that they deserve hanging, at the least, for they were so horribly wicked as to work in their gardens on the first day of the week.
No Thinking by Senators.
[Chicago Record.]
A certain gentleman went to Senator Daniel, of Virginia, to remonstrate against a paragraph in the tariff bill, which, he insisted, was not only inconsistent, but absurd and ridiculous, and exclaimed:
“Why, Senator, just think a moment!”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” replied Daniel. “Jones, Gorman, and Brice are doing all the thinking for the Senate on the tariff bill.”
The Power of Judges over Citizens.
[New York Evening Post.]
A member of the Commune, named Tournier, who was condemned at Perpignan, in France, to three months’ imprisonment as a vagabond, received the sentence with the words, “The present government is composed only of Jesuits, and you, gentlemen of the court, are also Jesuits.” The judge asked him to withdraw the words, but Tournier repeated them, whereupon his sentence was extended to three years.
Government as a Scientist.
[Press Dispatch.]
Washington, July 21. — The Secretary of the Interior has rendered an opinion defining the status of certain Alaska Indians. The secretary quotes the report of the superintendent of the eleventh census relating to Alaska, wherein it says that there is room for doubt as to whether the natives of Alaska may properly be designated as Indians, and arrives at the conclusion that Alaska is not an Indian country within the meaning of the law, and, therefore, what are generally known as the aborigines are not Indians.
[Government is getting scientific. We have known for some time that whites and negroes can be naturalized, other races can’t; but I didn’t know that it made such a difference in the legal standing of our non-voting subjects which of the subject races they belong to.]
Relieving the People by Wasting Their Money.
[New York Evening Post.]
The investigation of the “slums,” for which Kyle, the Populist senator from South Dakota, induced Congress to appropriate $20,000, is a good illustration of the follies in legislation which are so common nowadays. The matter was turned over to Commissioner Wright, of the Bureau of Statistics, who has done the best he could, but the result is worse than worthless. The money voted sufficed for work in only New York and three other cities, and the figures were no sooner published than they were attacked by the local press in each place as untrustworthy and misleading. The sole thing to show for it all is consequently the loss of $20,000. Nobody knows any more about the slums than was known before.
The Crime of Freshness.
[New York Sun.]
Justice Feltner in the Yorkville police court yesterday rebuked Policeman Daniel Molloy, of the East Fifty-seventh street station, who arraigned as a prisoner Louis Reinhardt, of 336 East Fifty-second street, whom he accused of disorderly conduct. The defendant told the Justice that he saw the policeman striking a boy with his fist at Second avenue and Fifty-third street on Saturday evening. He told the policeman that he should arrest the lad if he had done wrong, but that he had no right to assault him.
“You’re too fresh,” retorted the policeman. “I’ll run you in.”
“Molloy,” said the Justice, “your province is to arrest, not to assault. In this case you have arrested the wrong man. Be more careful in future. Defendant is discharged.”
Our Wonderful Postal Facilities.
[New York Sun.]
The Post-office Department at Washington makes no distinction between suburban towns and rural villages, and it thus happens that New York business men accustomed to all the promptness of the New York post office, if living only a mile beyond the city limits, must be content at home with the facilities afforded by a fourth-class post office. There are villages on Long Island, Staten Island, in contiguous parts of New Jersey and in Westchester county, where New York business men, resident in those places, must send twice a day to a post office conducted exactly as is such a post office at any cross-roads in the most remote region of the country. Sometimes special delivery letters are held at such post offices until called for, because the postmaster does not understand the full significance of the special-delivery stamp. “I guess he must have it in his pocket,” said the wife of a sub-urban postmaster when inquiry was made for a registered letter, and so it turned out. “That’s right,” said the postmaster, as a resident laid down a stamped letter on the shop counter with a look of some uneasiness, “I don’t generally forget ’em when they’re put there.”
All these things bring a good many letters of complaint to the New York poet office, but as the sub-urban postmaster recognizes no authority short of Washington, complaints to New York elicit from the postmaster the cautious assurance that he has nothing to do with the case.
Wife-beating Punished by a Lecture.
[New York Sun.]
Daniel Barnett, who gave his occupation as an “egg handler” and his residence as No. 865 Park avenue, was arraigned in the Lee avenue police court on a charge of beating his wife, and after a lecture was discharged. “So you’re an egg handler?” said Justice Neu. “Yes, sir,” answered the prisoner. “You should learn to handle your wife as gingerly as you do eggs, or you will go to the penitentiary,” retorted Justice Neu.
[Assault upon a stranger will land a man in prison, but it seems that every husband has a right to assault his wife at least once. The penalty for the first offence is a lecture.]
Punished for Contempt.
[Press Dispatch.]
Albuquerque, N. M., July 13. — Charles Wagg, an engineer on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, who refused to go out on his engine when ordered to do so, was yesterday sent to the county jail for fifteen days by Judge Collins, who held that he was in contempt of court.
A Stupid Edict.
[New York Sun.]
Paris billiard players are indignant at an edict by the Prefect of Police forbidding games for money in cafés. French professional billiards rely almost entirely upon the nightly matches for small stakes in the cafes. One purse after another is made up by the small number of onlookers, and the professionals play for them.
The French “Anti-Anarchist” Law.
[Paris Correspondence Boston Transcript.]
This is the most retrograde piece of legislation that the present century has seen. Whether it is justified or not by the extraordinary circumstances of the times, the fact is indisputable that it undoes all that the great liberal movement has done to obtain freedom of speech and freedom of the press and to shake the police off the back of the individual who may happen to have one or more influential enemies. There can be no doubt that the present government is going to work in good faith, and that it is only actuated by the strong determination to put down Anarchism at any cost; but the fact remains that the weapon which it is forging with the help of Parliament may be put to very different uses and may become an arm of tyranny and terrorism. In the first place, trial by jury being one of the first victories obtained by the people in their struggle for justice under the feudal system, it is an amazing fact that the world should see this principle now attacked by the government of the French Republic, and with the approval of a parliamentary majority. But this is not all. The principle of public trial is equally attacked. A journalist who has written an article in which there is a sentence which may be taken to convey an encouragement to some unknown person to commit an act that would be criminal, will be liable to immediate arrest and will be tried in camera by judges who will apply the letter of the new law to him in all its rigor. They will have the power to send him to New Caledonia or to Cayenne. Moreover, — and this is where the reflections on sealing wax should come in, — if the police, by no matter what means, come to know the contents of a letter pointing to the conclusion that the writer is an Anarchist, or has dealings with Anarchists, he may be arrested and treated in the same manner.
[Paris correspondence London Truth.]
Their precious bill makes even the receiving, or less than the receiving, of a letter from an Anarchist penal, and the penalty may be, after a trial with closed doors, transportation for life. The letter may simply be addressed to you and opened in the post office. The tribunal chosen by the framers of the bill is the correctional. There are no abler and better judges than the French in civil affairs, and no more objectionable judges in all matters with a political trend. The correctional judges are the worst of all. They can be promoted to the highest tribunals, and, as they are ill-paid and ambitious, they hunger for promotion, which the government alone can give. Being called on daily to judge riff-raft, they grow harsh and arrogant. You have nobody in England resembling the correctional judges. MM. Miller and Brisson were not wide of the mark when they spoke of this measure as the crow the Panamist politicians In the chamber were plucking with the press, because it showed them up.
Legalism and the Late Strike.
[Moses Harman in Lucifer.]
Are we sure that the newspaper reports of the trouble at Chicago give us the facts as they occurred? We all remember how it was in ’86, when the first blood-curdling dispatches reached us of the “Anarchist riot” in Chicago. It took many months to correct the falsehoods and to prove that it was a police riot, and not an Anarchist riot at all Should we not, then, be just a little careful, how we accept the re ports of the Chicago dailies? Now the other side is beginning to be heard. In the “State Journal,” of Topeka, of August 6, the statement is made that the A. R. U. men “expect to prove in many instances that the destruction of property for which damages are claimed was done by the railroads and General Managers’ Association.” That is to say, the charge is now made that the railroad management “burned their cars themselves,” in order to bring disgrace upon Debs and the A. R. U. It is also charged that Mayor Hopkins and Governor Altgeld were not called on to protect the property of the companies; also, that very few, if any, of the A. R. U. strikers were found among the mobs that overthrew cars, impeded traffic, and prevented the prompt delivery of the mails. . . . . It may be true that Grover Cleveland “has ample constitutional and statutory warrant for sending troops into the States where they have been ordered,” but he who defends every act of our government officials for which there is “ample constitutional and statutory warrant” is in danger of finding himself in company not the most desirable for one whose creed is “equal rights for all and special privileges for none.” It is true that land monopoly, transportation monopoly, monopoly of the issue of currency, and every other monopoly by which proluctive labor is robbed, has “ample constitutional and statutory warrant,” just as the monopoly of the black man’s labor had its warrant in the constitution and statutory law. These latter-day monopolies are better entrenched, a thousand fold more deeply and strongly entrenched, in law and custom, than was the monopoly that caused the four years’ civil war, and if to maintain these monopolies in their power to rob labor at their own sweet will it becomes customary to call out the army and the navy, and to increase the strength of that army and navy (as is now boldly advocated), it needs no prophet to predict the speedy destruction of what little semblance of liberty we now have left us.
Another Work of Tillier in English.
[New York World.]
Mr. Benjamin R. Tucker, who introduced the English-speaking world to Claude Tillier’s “My Uncle Benjamin,” has translated another work of that author, “Belle Plante and Cornelius” [published by Merriam & Co., of St. Paul], which is a story of two brothers, one a plodder and the other a poet, who are as undeniable types of today, and of every age, as Dives and Lazarus. As a keen and sympathetic study of “the fair ideal and the bald real,” it ranks far above “My Uncle Benjamin,” but as a story it has not the same direct human interest. It was the humanity in the latter, however, that relieved its rugged style and filled it with attraction, and in this latter book the same humanity appeals to the reader in finer form and shape.
Liberty’s Typography.
The typographical reform adopted by Liberty consists in the abolition of the process known among printers as “justification.” Under this new system, when the compositor, as he approaches the end of the line, finds that there is not sufficient room for an additional word or syllable, instead of filling the line by increasing the size of the spaces between the words, fills it with little blocks of metal known as quads, without disturbing the original spacing. In consequence of this, the reading matter does not present as straight an edge at its right side as at its left.
Æsthetically the new method is an improvement, because all inequality between the spaces in any given line and in the spacing of two lines in juxtaposition is eliminated. The spaces between the words remain equal in all parts of the column, the result being pleasing to the eye and serving to facilitate the task of reading. Commercially the new method is advantageous because it is much cheaper, nearly thirty per cent. being saved on the composition, and because it simplifies the work of composition and enables unskilled labor to take the place of skilled. The new method is available for book work and requires no capital for its adoption.
Don’t keep Liberty to yourself, share it with others!
Liberty’s Library
Leonard E. Read: Accent On The Right: To Frederic Bastiat (1801–1850), who sought for truth rather than outcome and never witnessed the fruits his labor bore. Obedience to conscience was his first rule; we witness the results.
Leonard E. Read: Anything That’s Peaceful: Many favor peace but not many favor the things that make for peace. — Thomas à Kempis
Leonard E. Read: Awake for Freedom’s Sake: Finally, share with others. Forget about “reforming” them! The more we share, the more we learn. This is in the interest of self and freedom!
Leonard E. Read: Castles in the Air: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. — Henry David Thoreau
Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State: Political philosophy is dominated by a myth, the myth of the necessity of the state. The state is considered necessary for the provision of many things, but primarily for peace and security. In this provocative book, Gerard Casey argues that social order can be spontaneously generated, that such spontaneous order is the norm in human society and that deviations from the ordered norms can be dealt with without recourse to the coercive power of the state.
Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers: Murray Rothbard: Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) was an economist, historian, philosopher, and legal theoretician. His work was unified by a passionate and resolute commitment to a libertarianism that may be characterized as ‘anarcho-capitalism’ and which implied a belief that even the legal system may be provided privately without the need for a coercive collective authority. Hence, anarcho-capitalists envisage a society where the traditional role of government is wholly subsumed by private, profit-making enterprises and all social relationships are ultimately founded upon consent.
