[Unedited]
“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.
Ibsen expects to have a new play ready for publication and production before Christmas. Whether it will belong to the group of his social dramas, is not known.
Both Jean Grave and his counsel, M. de Saint Anban, referred in their addresses to the “Communism of Proudhon.” Both are brilliant men and ought to know better. Kropotkin seems to be the only Anarchist-Communist who appreciates the impropriety of claiming Proudhon as an apostle of Communism.
The clericals of Bologna objected to the public performance of an alleged sacrilegious drama entitled “Christus,” and desired to prevent it. Instead of adopting the American method of appealing to the police, they tried an interesting experiment. They bought up all the seats and kept away, so that on the evening of the production of the drama the only spectators present were the critics, who are blasé, and a few policemen, who are stupid. Thus morality was saved without invasion. This innocent method will never be popular with our censors, who manage to impose their will upon others without any personal sacrifice.
In a new book on China, I find this observation: “There is no country in the world where practice and profession are more widely separated. The empire is preeminently one of make-believe. A system of high-sounding pretension to lofty principles of morality holds sway, while the life of the nation is in direct contradiction to these assumptions. No imperial edict is complete, and no official proclamation finds currency, without protestations in favor of all the virtues.” It is not true that there can be anything worse, more ludicrous, and amazing than the muddle of contradictions, shams, and lies represented by so-called “Christian civilization.” It is the great merit of Tolstoi that he clearly perceives this fact. Think of our greedy monopolists, brutal clergy, lying and venal editors, and corrupt lawmakers pretending to follow the example of Christ! Think of the ethics of the average Christian’s life, — of his religion, politics, business, domestic relations!
The vice-reformers of England have started a campaign against the “living pictures” fad. Lady Somerset is shocked at these exhibitions of unclothed women, and says: “This letting women make public merchandise of the beauty of their bodies is the gravest insult and dishonor put upon women in our time. I appeal to the English public, as accomplice in the ruin and degradation of these girls, and demand to know why the County Council does not interfere.” What do these reformers do to abolish certain forms of making public merchandise of the bodies of women, not merely of their beauty? Is it not hypocricy and falsehood to pretend that the exhibitions of naked women are the gravest insult and dishonor put upon women in our civilized time and in Christian countries? How about the thousands of prostitutes and the use they make of their bodies? The County Council may put a stop to the living pictures, but it is not so easy to abolish prostitution. The vice-reformers tackle simple reforms simply because they are themselves very simple.
It is highly diverting and significant to observe that our consistent and exact newspapers are already beginning to denounce as “calumniators” and incendiaries those who are not ready to forget and forgive the crimes and outrages and blunders of Congress. Thus Prof. Norton, of Harvard, having referred to “Gorman and Hill and the whole pack of conspirators in the Senate” in a recent speech, the Cincinnati “Enquirer,” Republican, and the New York “Sun,” erratic, fall foul of him and sternly tell him that he is an “intolerant and evil-minded man, who, if he could, would inflict injuries upon all who differ with him.” So the Senators, whom but a few weeks ago none was too poor to do reverence and defend, are not tools of the sugar trust and arrogant self-seekers, but a lot of honest and benevolent old gentlemen who simply “differed” with the people on the tariff question! No, no, gentlemen, your efforts in this direction will prove futile. The people believe your denunciations and charges More than they do your labored apologies. The faith in the legislators is shaken, and they will be presumed guilty until proved to be innocent. The brotherhood of thieves naturally prefers to deal with blind and foolish victims, but the truth is out, and it is too late to attempt to obliterate the effect of the congressional exhibition.
Auberon Herbert is a clear and logical thinker, but on certain economic questions his mind absolutely resists all instruction, all light. In the last “Free Life” he makes some observations on the interest question, and his defence of interest is as superficial and hollow as his attacks upon the enemies of interest are laughable. “Whoever [italics mine] rails against interest,” he says, “has never really understood what a free world means, — has never discovered that it means a world in which you and I shall make just the arrangements that suit our own selves, with no idiot of an interfering third party to say that we shall or we sha’n’t.” Now this obviously implies that none of those who know what a free world is, and who want to live in such a world, rail against interest, yet Mr. Herbert is aware that Liberty rails against interest in spite — or rather because — of its full and perfect knowledge of what a free world means. Liberty sees no room for interest in a free world and expects to get rid of it through freedom. Those who do not know what a free world means, but who vividly realize what an abomination interest is, naturally try to abolish it by legislation. They will fail, for nothing but freedom can abolish interest. As for Mr. Herbert’s arguments for interest, they are too simple to be discussed here. Even the economists have consigned them to the lumber-room of foolish and question-begging apologies.
Our friends, the labor reformers and others, who hope to reform things through the ballot, forget that representative government in a plutocracy is essentially different from the original idea of government by delegates. Under representative government the delegates are supposed to carry out the will and instructions of their electors; the majority of the people are thus supposed to govern indirectly. Now, majority rule is irrational and unjust, but it is, speaking generally, better than the rule of a band of plunderers. Government in the United States, — the land of the money power par excellence, — is government for monopoly and by monopoly. The delegates do the bidding of those who employ them. One of the Massachusetts congressmen is reported as saying that he felt under no obligations to the voters of his district, inasmuch as he had paid for whatever he had got in politics: Such a man is in politics for business and revenue purposes only, and he will naturally take care of his own interests and the interests of those who can reward him for favors conferred. Referring to the congressman’s remark, the Boston “Transcript,” a respectable independent Republican paper, says: “This is but the frank utterance of what must be in the minds of very many other public officials, and therefore is significant as showing the increasingly dominant part that money is taking in the control of public affairs. When it comes to be that only rich men, who are willing to pay for what they get — and to receive pay for what they give — can be elected to public office, the Trusts will have it all their own way and the plain people will be nowhere.” The people are nowhere, as the history of the tariff bill plainly shows.
“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.
Pseudo-Science and Dynamite.
It is certainly the general impression that modern scientific or positivist criminology is more humane and civilized in the methods it prescribes for dealing with crime than the crude empirical system now in vogue. The perception of the truth that the criminal is a victim of his environment or his inherited constitution is logically assumed to negative those elements which give punishment its barbarous and cruel character. One does not hate, but pity, an unfortunate and mentally or morally diseased person. Revenge in such a case is out of the question; nothing but such measures as might prevent repetition and commission of anti-social acts can be rationally employed. Anything that goes beyond this, that is not essential to the protection of possible sufferers, is illogical and inhuman.
Yet the suggestions made by pseudo-scientific men, who believe themselves to be enlightened and humane, with regard to the proper treatment of revolutionists and dynamiteurs, are so atrocious and fiendish that the right-minded person would be justified in repudiating any doctrine responsible for them as revolting to any creatures with a trace of sympathy. The “reasoned savagery” of these pseudo-reformers ought to impress us all with the danger of clothing science with even brief authority. No body of men would be so tyrannical, so inexorable, so vicious, so prejudiced, as a government of savants.
Liberty has already referred to the suggestion of some medical editors to confine all men professing revolutionary ideas in insane asylums. Henry Holt, the publisher and author, betters these instructions in an article in the August “Forum,” entitled “Punishment of Anarchists and Others.” I have no space to examine his treatment of the “others,” but the punishment he would provide for “Anarchists” demands consideration.
Mr. Holt professes to be guided by Spencer’s luminous principle that the punishment of an act should be as nearly as possible the natural consequence of the act. Nature’s punishment of violations of her laws is certain. Though not always severe, she is inexorable. Applying the Spencerian principle to the Anarchist (by Anarchist Mr. Holt means revolutionary Communist), one step is indicated at once: “Since the Anarchist acknowledges no duty to government, he can claim no rights from government; consequently, when a man is duly convicted of Anarchistic sentiments, let the government at once announce that it no longer extends its protection to his person or property, — that he is an outlaw, with no defence but his own strength against any hate or greed of which be or his may be the object.”
Let us dwell a moment on this proposition. We may neglect for the present the inconsistencies and self-contradictions of the Anarchist Communist, who is at bottom a governmentalist, and assume that he is a genuine Anarchist. If Mr. Holt had proposed to punish the Anarchist for ignoring the State — for refusing to pay taxes, respect tariff laws, banking laws, etc. — by withdrawing the State’s protection from him, be would not only have remained true to the Spencerian principle specified, but would have received the cordial thanks of all Anarchists. Such punishment they would welcome; they are entirely willing to be taken at their word and made to face the consequences of their acts. The right to ignore the State, to dispense with its benefits, is precisely what they demand, and if the State would punish them by granting their demands, the question would be solved beautifully. The Anarchists would know how to protect themselves, but that need not concern Mr. Holt and his friends. But does Mr. Holt clearly realize what the act and the consequences would lead to in practice? The Anarchists would ignore the State completely, and live, labor, exchange, and love in their own way. So long as they refrained from directly injuring the men in Mr. Holt’s State, they would hold the latter to its bargain, — absolute non-interference. If Mr. Holt is familiar with Spencer’s first work, he knows that it is no crime to ignore the State, and hence the question of punishment does not really enter here. It is simply a question of tacit contract, of fair exchange. If the State is ignored, it has a right to ignore the bolter and peaceful seceder in turn.
What does Mr. Holt think of this flank movement? But as he is writing, not about peaceable seceders, whose case he has probably never considered, but about revolutionary Communists, the withdrawal of protection by the State would not end the controversy. (Note, in passing, that the crime for which Mr. Holt would punish them is the mere profession of “Anarchistic” sentiments, — a doctrine not in harmony with certain other luminous principles of Spencer.) The revolutionary Communists would continue to demand the expropriation of the capitalists and the establishment of a compulsory Communistic order, and would, by way of propaganda and otherwise, apply the bomb cure at certain intervals. Mr. Holt knows this, and therefore he does not propose to wait until they have acted upon their theories. He says: “When you know that he [the bomb-thrower] is talking, it is absurd to wait for him to act.” Fearing that outlawry would not be a sufficient punishment, Mr. Holt thinks that, consistently with Spencer’s principle, government can go farther than outlawry, and sentence to exile, arguing as follows:
The Anarchist proclaims himself an enemy of the State — ready to proceed to, or at least to encourage, any degree of violence. The absurdity of any community harboring such an enemy needs no demonstration. Do not unload him on other civilized communities, but warn them of his character; give them his photographs, measurements, and finger-marks; and force him to the place that he has chosen for himself, — outside of organized society. This would at first seem to render a statute of outlawry superfluous, but that statute would not only have its educating effect, but would help enforce the sentence of exile. These penalties, be it remembered, are an entirely natural consequence of Anarchistic views.
Exile is clearly no more a natural consequence of Anarchist-Communist views than of any other views that happen to clash with the existing form of government. Suppose people were to conspire to re-establish monarchy in the United States and declare themselves ready to proceed to, or at least to encourage, any degree of violence in the interest of their cause. They would be as much enemies of the existing State as the Communist-Anarchists are. Would the Spencerian principle justify their outlawry and exile? Would talking be sufficient in their case? Obviously it would, for there is nothing to base a distinction upon. So here we have the proposition to punish with outlawry and exile everybody who, being an enemy of the existing State, declares himself ready to encourage violence. Russia and other semi-barbarous countries have acted upon this theory all along, but without any pretence of following Spencerian luminous principles and scientific criminology. Freer countries have, after long and bitter struggles, succeeded in securing the right of free speech, but scientific criminology brushes aside these shallow notions of political freedom. Indeed, scientific criminology does more for us — I had almost said for tyranny. Follow Mr. Holt:
But outlawry may not be a strong enough sanction to enforce the exile. We have no Siberia for such cases; and, if we had, they might be nearly as troublesome there as at home. If outlawry fails to keep the Anarchist in exile, shall the sanction be confinement or death? . . . Eradication Is the only cure; and delay, even hesitancy, is cruelty. If you put him in prison or asylum, there is no sort of security that he would stay there. . . . It is a peculiarity of the Anarchist’s case that his own opinion regarding his cure is the only one that can be taken. But to take that is practically impossible. His disorder does not prevent dis-simulation, and all that he has to do is to profess a change of heart and stick to it. To entrap him, through argument, irritation, surprise, or espionage, into a statement of his true sentiments, would often be impossible. Remember how Gerard dissembled, though before his crime. It may be urged that the Anarchist often scorns dissimulation, and is often rendered incapable of it by the ferocity or exaltation that seems unloosed by his crime. But if you wait for that, the damage is done. Before he gets so far as actual violence, your Anarchist may be the mildest-mannered man that ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship. But that is the very time to shut him up: it is too late when his ferocity is unloosed. Yet see the paradox — before his ferocity is unloosed, it is wasted trouble to shut him up, because he can dissimulate himself out; but to wait till his ferocity is unloosed, is absurd. Hence it is ridiculous to depend upon shutting him up at all. Why temporize, then, with confining him at public expense? He has no claim to support by the government that he denies, whatever claim other criminals and lunatics may have; and his insanity is not of a kind to temporize with. It is one of the kinds that, as defences, fairly fall under the maxim, de minimis non curat lex, and there is at least an open question whether euthanasia, guarded by reasonable restrictions, is not the best remedy for all dangerous kinds. Against the possibility of recovery must always be set the fearful tragedies that have resulted from waiting for it; and we should bear in mind that euthanasia, in the modern sense, was unknown when our systems of jurisprudence were established.
Outlawry and exile failing, and confinement being demonstrably impracticable, there is nothing left but to kill him.
The whole programme is now before us, — the programme of modern scientific criminology. Mr. Holt is not unmindful of the fact that the idea of death as a preventive of future crime revolutionizes all our inherited principles of punishment, but he appeals to the “new principles,” with which this idea is perfectly consistent. Whether the principles of positivist criminology really prescribe or enjoin such methods as Mr. Holt proposes, it would be unprofitable to discuss. As a matter of fact, positivist criminology is just what the self-styled positivist criminologists choose to make it. The more ignorant, narrow, intolerant, brutal the exponent, the more barbarous his doctrine. The label scientific need not fill anybody with awe, since it testifies to nothing more than the author’s opinion of his own discoveries, and advertisers are known to be somewhat extravagant. But two things are clear: Spencer would certainly repudiate with disgust and indignation this proposal of an American amateur “criminologist” to exile and kill people who simply profess and preach the doctrine of violent change and revolutionary warfare. Spencer is not altogether fair to the Anarchist-Communist, but he would not assume any responsibility for Mr. Holt’s atrocity. In the next place, Spencer’s “luminous principle” of punishment is not one of those “new principles” which justify the killing of men for their opinions and utterances. Between the principle that punishment should be as nearly as possible the natural consequence of the act, and the proposal to kill a man for preaching violence, there is no discoverable relation. Mr. Holt drops the Spencerian principle at the very point where he takes up “modern criminology,” which is the offspring of very little knowledge and a good deal of brutality and illiberality. Spencer’s principles of punishment are corollaries from his principles of social progress and social equilibrium, of which “modern criminologists” are profoundly ignorant. Mr. Holt, in his ignorance, has confounded opposite and irreconcilable things.
Positivist criminology must remain a delusion and a snare as long as it ignores the ethical and economic problems which agitate modern society. It is futile to discuss methods of dealing with criminals when the very question of what crime is has never troubled the glib metaphysical criminologists. As a preparation for their task, let the criminologists, professional and amateur, study Spencerian sociology and ethics.
It is worth while, perhaps, to say a word about the effect of the adoption by government of the Holt method. How puerile it is to imagine that revolutionary warfare can be terminated by the threat of exile and death! Since Mr. Holt proposes to punish men for expression of opinion and mere declaration of principles, the simplest means of defeating his scheme is to refrain from preaching violence. Would that stop bomb-throwing and propaganda by deed? On the contrary. Underground conspiracies would become more general, because those who are now content with writing and talking would join the ranks of the men of action. Free speech is really what saves modern society from systematic and ruthless attacks. The more reactionary it becomes, the more unsafe and precarious the position of its representatives is rendered. Society has no worse enemies than the Bolts and Godkins, whose savagery and fanaticism render the task of the philosophical reformers well-nigh hopeless. Y.
The Apologies for Governmentalism.
Among the arguments used to support the institution of government, the precedence of seniority is apparently due to the doctrine of “divine right.” But now many have given up belief in God, and many of those who believe in him have given up trying to decide questions of practical action by an appeal to his will; and those who are practically controlled by the idea of divine right commonly want to have on hand an argument from premises more generally admitted, and depend mostly on the latter in public debate. Without going into the question of consistency, where something might be said on both sides, it is clear that the divine-right argument for government has seen its best days. It will continue to have an important influence, but will never again be the central point of the contest. I lately gave my reasons for considering it untenable, even from the standpoint of belief in divine right in general.
Next comes the principle of government by consent. This, as opposed to Anarchism, may be stated in the terms of an old joke. Government is all right, for nobody opposes it; and if anybody does, he’s nobody. In other words, the number of those who object to government is so slight that it is not worth while, for their sake, interfering with the convenience of those who desire government. This argument may be answered by showing how little any honest convenience could be interfered with by the abolition of government, or (moralistically) by asking bow the convenience of the majority justifies invasion of the rights of the minority. But, aside from all theoretical answers, the argument will be practically answered, and will fall by its own weight, whenever the number of objectors becomes considerable. Those who rest their case here ought even now to acknowledge that government must be given up when-ever a reasonably large minority demands it. This argument, then, though it may be an important one for some time to come, will drop out of sight before we reach the end of our struggle.
The argument which is doing the real work of holding back our cause now, the first objection which comes to the mind of the average man, is that “it wouldn’t work”; that if police service were not in the hands of a monopoly, there would be continual misunderstandings and conflicts between different defensive forces, and intolerable general confusion. This is, being interpreted, opposition to a new thing on the ground of its strangeness. When the average man has had the Anarchistic idea brought before his mind often enough to wear off this strangeness, his horse sense will show him bow it is at least practicable, whether desirable or not; and I think that most men, as soon as they perceive the practicability, will acknowledge that it “might be a good thing if we could get it.” The next step will be to want to get it. I may be too sanguine on this point; but it seems to me that general familiarity with our programme, which familiarity is to be secured by mere reiteration, is all that is necessary to give us a very great body of supporters. Our policy, then, is to conduct the most extensive possible agitation and to concentrate on efforts on individual victims by the Letter-Writing Corps and similar methods. When we have twenty-five thousand adherents and one thousand more or less faithful agitators, we shall find unexpected converts coming in at a rate that will make us imagine we have a majority. This argument also, then, though now the most troublesome of all, will be got rid of by our mere growth.
Many will squarely claim that it is our duty to make our neighbors moral by all means, including force, and that we must have government for this purpose. But the “spirit of the times” declares that this is “not the province of government,” and the reasons against it are familiar to the most conservative individualist. Possibly the prohibition agitation may yet bring this argument to the top, but I do not think so. At present, certainly, it is one of those which are least appealed to.
One other argument is rarely beard as yet, but is pressing itself forward, and will yet, I believe, take the first rank of all. It is oftenest used by State Socialists against governmental individualists, but is turned against Anarchists on occasion. It is, that, man being essentially a “social being,” all separations between men, of whatever sort, are contrary to the law of nature, and all schemes of society which admit of such separations are in so far to be condemned. Therefore government, an institution which brings together in one organization everybody within its reach, whether they will or no, is a great step toward perfection; and its sphere ought to be continually enlarged, till all men on earth are united in one body, acting together in every concern of life where any sort of cooperation is possible.
It is true that man’s nature requires him to unite in society. It may also be conceded that the theoretical perfection of society requires the cooperation of all in one organization. But surely this theoretical perfection requires also that all be free, so that whatever any one does for the general good shall be a purely voluntary action. But while men are imperfect we must give up one part of perfection, either liberty or universality. Why must it be liberty? Give us liberty, and human nature will assert itself. Men will come together as thoroughly as nature demands. This argument (which is used also about marriage and other things) that, because man’s instinct leads him to act in a certain way, therefore be must be forced to act so, is the very height of absurdity.
Indeed, government, by maintaining national boundaries, is really a bar to the working of the instinct for union. The annexation of Canada, for instance, would be a step toward the desired “Federation of the World.” Trades unions, religious societies, and other voluntary organizations have already annexed Canada; it is only government, and those societies which choose to follow the track of government, that pay any attention to the boundary. If men were left free to unite as their natural wishes and business convenience direct, that boundary would lose its importance within ten years. The most important truth of our time, you say, is that men’s instincts and needs require all to unite. Well, then give men’s needs and instincts a chance to assert their power, and take away the separating force of government!
All this is very plausible, you answer; but the fact remains that Anarchists assert a right of individual secession. Now, any man who would wish to withdraw from his fellows is an abnormal man, is, in a mild way, insane, and should not be left free to carry out the monstrous desire of a diseased brain.
Would you have a law to prohibit monks and nuns, then? For that is what your argument comes to. Or is it so sure that a man is abnormal for wishing to break off a certain part of his relations with a certain large number of others, if those others have been using those relations in a way to injure him? And if it be so, do specialists in nervous diseases say that crack-brained men ought to be restrained by force from following out their fancies, so long as they do not make themselves dangerous to others?
But, you say, the benefits of the State are so much greater than any possible injuries it can inflict that no one can find it profitable to secede.
Why, then, as soon as your statement has been proved true by a fair experiment, no one will want to secede, except for whim’s sake, and the State will stand firm without the support of force. As to the men with a whim, can you trove that this whim would be more harmful, either to them or to society, than many whims which are allowed free course?
But you take it yet another way. It is plainly God’s will that all men should unite. Union implies government, for there can be no union without a central controlling authority. Therefore no man can wish to secede without opposing God’s will, and any scheme of society that contemplates such secession is condemned by God.
A revival of two arguments that we thought we were done with. I can only repeat, there is no evidence that God wants men to be made cooperative by threats and violence more than that he wants them to be made faithful church-goers by threats and violence. And a union that is not maintained by threats and violence is not a government.
When will you see that man can be trusted to get for himself what he needs without the stimulus of your fist, and that a good thing is all the better for being enjoyed under freedom? Stephen T. Byington.
The Atchison Railroad management is accused of falsification of accounts, juggling with figures, and fraud of all kinds. This is a matter between the stockholders and the officials. What the public is directly concerned with is the evidence of the systematic violation of the interstate commerce law by the road, which has granted millions of dollars in rebates and concealed the transactions in various ways more or less ingenious. The interstate commerce act may be said to have been passed chiefly to prevent the different forms of discrimination, but now the law is only used against railroad work-men. Inasmuch as the labor and farmer organinations worked hard to get the law enacted, there is some poetic justice in the present turn of affairs; but our friends, the moral reformers, who are so anxious to eliminate lawlessness and criminality, can find no ground in any such considerations for conniving at the crimes of rail-road managers and powerful corporations. Yet when it is suggested that the Atchison managers should be punished for their defiance of law, the law and order champions are apathetic while the accused openly declare that the law is a farce and sham which all railroads systematically and regularly violate. Will you, they ask, single us out for punishment when every-body is guilty of the same thing, and when it is absolutely certain that nobody will ever observe your absurd law? I wonder if those who talk so learnedly about crime and criminals have in mind railroad presidents and managers as well as tramps, Coxeyites, strikers, boycotters, and critics of government.
The Treasury’s bill for the exclusion and deportation of “alien Anarchists” from this blessed country is not law — yet. The Senate passed it without division and debate (being nothing if not loyal, safe, and patriotic), but in the House its passage was prevented by a few progressive congressmen whose heresies on free trade make them dangerous on all other questions of public policy. These few unpatriotic wretches objected to the enactment of such a drastic and unprecedented law without discussion, and as unanimous consent was, in the absence of a quorum, necessary to its passage, the pernicious and ignorant piece of legislation was defeated. The chief objections to the bill, as pointed out by Congressman Warner, were that it omitted to give a definition of the crime against which it was aimed, and that it put too much power into the hands of administrative officers. Some panic-stricken congressmen, eager to pass the bill, got the committee to report an amendment defining an Anarchist as “one who advocates the destruction by violence of all government or the government of the United States,” but Mr. Warner and a few others persisted in their obstruction. The press, ignorant, reckless, and unprincipled as usual, found the objections to the bill too trivial for consideration, and abused the decent congressmen who exhibited some regard for American traditions as Mugwump allies of Anarchists. But there was a dissenting opinion, voiced by a few independent and Democratic newspapers, among which I am surprised to discover the rabid and vicious New York “Evening Post.” Its utterances (reproduced else-where) on this Hill bill are so sane and refreshing, so inconsistent with the editor’s campaign against free speech and resistance to social evil, that I confess myself at a loss to account for them. However, the ways of our newspapers are mysterious, and we must be duly thankful for their lucid moments.
It is a great satisfaction to me to publish Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe’s letter on the pseudo Individualist “Liberty Review.” The report to which the letter refers has not reached Liberty or its readers, and would not have been credited if it had reached us. Mr. Donisthorpe’s experience while editor of “Jus” has not been forgotten by the friends of Liberty, and they never would have believed that the man who found it impossible to make “Jus” a consistent organ of Individualism and preferred retirement to service of privilege, could be in any way responsible for the brazen apologist of monopoly, tyranny, and reaction which takes the name of liberty in vain. An organ which finds nothing wrong in the present system except the legislation in the interest of the poor and disinherited, which neither comprehends nor desires freedom, which maliciously attacks labor organizations and applauds the French corruptionists and imbeciles who have tried to undo the work of the liberal movement, is not an organ with which any sincere and logical Individualist can be identified or connected. I am glad to put on record Mr. Donisthorpe’s opinion of the alleged “Liberty Review.” It also gives me pleasure to reprint Mr. Donisthorpe’s letter from the “Westminster Review” on the situation in France and the meaning of Anarchy, but he will pardon me for calling his attention to an error into which his anxiety to do justice to the dynamiteurs and to counteract the mischief of the ignorant publicists has led him. He speaks of the French dynamiteurs as “Anarchists” and lovers of liberty, while, in truth, they are Communists and Archists, who would substitute the despotism of Communism for the despotism of capitalism and plutocracy. It is our business to defend them against calumny and abuse, but justice to oar own principles enjoins us, in time of war no less than in time of peace, from permitting the obliteration, in the public mind, of the distinction between the real Anarchists and the so-called Anarchist-Communists, whose programme is clearly Archistic, whatever their vague aspirations and dreams may be.
Cleveland’s letter to Catchings on the Gorman tariff bill, now the law of the land, is so near inciting to violence that the New York “Evening Post” must not fail to put him on its little list of incendiaries and accessories before the fact to dynamite outrages. True, it is not more violent and bold than his first famous tariff message, but the duty of the good citizen has changed since the time of that call. Then denunciation of evil and corruption was in order; now the preaching of resignation, submission, and contentment is the sign of patriotism and virtue. Cleveland bluntly tells the country that the new tariff, while less pleasing to the masters and real rulers, the trusts and monopolists, than McKinleyiem, is to them the least objectionable of the reform proposals under discussion, and that it became law because they were determined to make no further concessions. “The trusts and combinations,” says Cleveland, “the communism of pelf, whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserve, should not be forgotten nor forgiven.” The majority of the voters will hold the Democratic party responsible for the treachery of the Gormans and Brims, while a few will be rational enough to see that neither of the great parties can be trusted to defy monopoly and irrational enough to believe that the small, struggling parties have the wisdom and the honesty to fight it. Those who go into politics have to choose between the rascality of the powerful and the stupidity of the weak.
The “Woman’s Journal,” the leading organ of the woman suffrage movement, calls David Obermyer, the Democratic candidate for governor of Kansas, “an anti-suffrage and anti-prohibition crank.” This is rich. Since when have the anti-suffrage-and-prohibition people been the cranks of the community? A crank is one who ventures to disagree with the majority. Are the prohibitionists and woman-suffragists in the majority, then? If so, what are they fighting for?
A Maine newspaper, writing about the corruption and inefficiency of the police, says that matters have come to such a pass in some cities and towns that, when a man’s house is robbed, he must hire a private-detective if he wants any real work done for the apprehension of the thief. Yet, when one suggests that the compulsory support of the police should be abandoned, and protection of property and other rights entrusted to private agencies, he is considered crazy. What could we do without [paying] the police? And who would club and arrest strikers and peaceable boycotters?
When you join government ownership of all natural and artificial monopolies with the single tax, what is the result? Why, State Socialism pure and simple. Yet Philadelphia “Justice” endorses the statement, made by some unintelligent sheet, that the result is “all that is valuable in Socialism and all that is desirable in individualism.” This astonishing lapse on the part of “Justice” must not escape the attention of G. F. Stephens, who is doubtless preparing a new edition of his “The Single Tax as She is Spoke,” wherein all the exceptions to the “rule” of the Single Taxers are recorded and explained.
Henri Rochefort could not have made a better argument, despite his brilliancy and genius, against the new press laws of France than was contained in a recent object lesson of his. He expressed his views in his Paris organ on the question in the deaf-and-dumb language. His usual leading article consisted of a column of miniature representations of human hands, with the fingers bent to represent the language of those who are deprived of the power of speech. At the end Rochefort duly signed his name. The readers doubtless enjoyed the hit, but the smile of the authorities was sickly.
Recorder Smyth, in charging the grand jury, referred to the unusually large number of prisoners in the jails and declared that the hard times accounted for the fact. “In the course of a long experience,” he added, “I have observed that criminal cases multiply in the courts when persons are out of employment.” What does the plutocratic press think of this admission? Is it not perilously near the danger line? Hard times increase the number of criminals, but with tens of thousands of people times are always hard, as even in the most prosperous periods the army of the unemployed is very large. Now to say that men become criminals through poverty and enforced idleness is to condemn the present industrial system, which, according to the best conservative authorities, necessarily involves the existence of a reserve army of unemployed, and to incite the victims to crime. Besides, the Recorder’s theory is outrageously false. The plutocratic puss knows that criminals are born, not made, and that the honest citizen will die of slow starvation rather than violate the sacred laws of property or any other law equally sacred.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the foremost champion of woman suffrage, tells the editor of the “Sun” that the defeat of her cause in the New York constitutional convention has caused her to feel depressed, humiliated, indignant, anxious, and apprehensive for the future. Then she goes on to explain: “The condition of our country, the disgraceful proceedings in Washington, the strikes, the terrible revelation of the wholesale corruption in our metropolis and in every department of government, as well as in the business-world, brought to light by investigating committees; the rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, all this fills me with apprehension as to the safety and stability of a government composed of men alone. Women and children have equal rights and interests in this heritage left us by the fathers, and I am not willing to trust our future welfare in such hands as administer our government today.” What does Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick say to this? Here we certainly have the “favorite argument” for woman suffrage with its obvious implication, — that women would prove wiser, fairer, and better rulers and legislators. Mrs. Stanton evidently repudiates the plea that woman suffrage is sought primarily in the interest of the political infants themselves, who cannot hope to learn to walk except by trying.
Referring to the municipalization movement, the London “Liberty Review” says: “It has always seemed to us that water, lighting, rail-way, and other companies which have provided the public with the blessings of civilization are entitled to all they can get out of their customers, and that the feeling which so largely prevails among certain sections of the public that these companies deserve to be cheated out of their dues is the most despicable trait of the average Englishman’s character. We can understand a person grumbling at having to pay taxes and the rates which are levied by the local authority, for he knows that he does not get his money’s worth for these: But why a man should grumble at having to pay his gas bill and his water bill, and consider it a great piece of fun to badger and annoy the gas and water companies, while he pays his butcher, baker, and grocer with cheerfulness, is one of those problems which we have never been able to solve.” What charming simplicity! The butchers and grocers are in no way protected from the influence of the widest competition, even under the present monopoly of capital and credit, and the consumer knows that he pays competitive prices for their goods. Gas and water and light companies are chartered and licensed by the local governments, and enjoy a relative immunity from competition. In the granting of these charters there is notorious corruption everywhere, and a company can easily secure a monopoly of the field. Apart from these factors, competition in these industries is indirectly restricted by the existing monetary system. The result is that the companies charge monopoly prices and have the consumers at their mercy. The real individualist, while condemning municipal monopolies, will not be guilty of the absurdity of shutting his eyes to the extortion and rapacity of the so-called private monopolists. Under the freest competition, every-body will be entitled to all he can get out of his customers, and what he will get will generally be a fair price, representing a reasonable reward for his own services. Under monopoly, we have no means of determining what anybody’s “due” is, and the talk about trying to cheat the companies is pure humbug. The “blessings of civilization” have nothing to do with the case; we all want to get a maximum of enjoyment for a minimum of trouble. Is not this one of the postulates of political economy, old and new? It is curious that every defender of monopoly, no matter whether he calls himself protectionist or individualist, is forced to preach the gospel of dearness. Harrison and McKinley had no use for cheap goods, and insisted that the workmen ought to pay the highest prices for everything; the “Liberty Review” is pained at the attempts to lower the prices of gas and water and lighting. Neither of these “schools” is willing to trust to free competition to settle the question of dearness and cheapness. Each holds a brief for certain favorite monopolies.
Repudiating a Pseudo-Individualist.
To the Editor of Liberty:
A notice has been going the round of the English press to the effect that I am the proprietor of the “Liberty Review.” In justice to myself I will respectfully ask you to allow me to contradict that statement in your columns. I have never had soy connection with that weekly organ of the Liberty and Property Defence League. And although I observe that my name appears in its list of contributors, I can say that I have never written a single line in it. Since it took its present shape I believe I did contribute an article to it when Mr. Cranaby was one of its editors, but this was before its connection with the League. I am not even a subscriber, nor do I ever see a copy, except when some friend forwards me one in order to draw my attention to an article or a letter. This has happened recently, and it makes me anxious not to be associated with it in any way, especially in the minds of readers of Liberty. So far as I can gather from what I have seen of it, the “Liberty Review” seems to support the detestable action of the French government with respect to Anarchists and many other doings of State with which no lover of liberty can have any sympathy whatever. Wordsworth Donisthorpe.
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.
Target, section A. — Col. A. S. Colyar, 409 South Spence street, Nashville, Tenn. In a recent letter to the Nashville “Sunday Times” he declared that silver had been demonetized, and the 5-20 bonds made payable in gold, at the bidding of the money power and Ernest Seyd, with the intent of robbing the millions. He says: “Any manipulated fluctuation of the coins, or other money of a country, in the interest of the creditor or debtor class, when the government determines what, and how much, the people may use as money, is an offence for which no adequate punishment can be inflicted in this life.”
Section B. — The “Good Citizen,” published by the Columbian College of Citizenship, Highland Park, Ill., says in the July number: “We request communications on the following subject: ‘Who is the Anarchist?’ To be published in subsequent issues.” Stephen T. Byington.
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.
New Orleans Branch of the Brotherhood Op Thieves.
[Press Dispatch.]
New Orleans, Aug. 10. — A political revolution is threatened in New Orleans soon, which will probably produce important political results in the State. This is the struggle between the present city government and the citizens, which may mean the complete ruin of the former. Indeed, the press and the lawyers are already discussing the question, What will be the effect if a majority of the city council and other officials resign, are impeached and dismissed from office, or are convicted of bribery and sent to the penitentiary?
The trouble arose out of a grant to the Illinois Central Railroad, which is estimated as worth a million dollars or more, but which was given for nothing. The present council, which was elected in 1892 for four years, and all the members of which are Democrats, had already voted away several valuable street franchises. This aroused some suspicion, but when it unanimously gave the Illinois Central Railroad the right to build tracks on a half dozen residence streets it raised a storm which has not yet subsided. For a time it looked very much like one of those popular outbursts for which New Orleans has become famous. At a mass meeting which was held to protest against the grant there were hundreds who wanted to march at once on the City Hall. A better spirit prevailed, how-ever, and a week was given to the council in which to repeal the ordinance. The citizens adjourned to a mass meeting to be held in Lafayette square, immediately in front of the City Hall.
A committee was appointed to wait on the council, demand the repeal of the objectionable ordinance, and report to the meeting. There were no threats, but it was felt generally that if the council refused, trouble would follow. The council remained obstinate to the last moment, and then surrendered to avoid trouble. The ordinance was unanimously repealed, and the citizens, who had assembled in the Washington Artillery Arsenal instead of Lafayette square, cheered the surrender and marched in procession through the principal streets.
This was really the beginning of an important political movement, although few seemed to appreciate it at the time. If the council hoped that its surrender would placate the citizens, it soon found itself mistaken. The people organized a Citizens’ Protective Association, with branches in every ward — an organization which in a few weeks has grown to great prominence and power, and will play a big part in New Orleans, if not in Louisiana, politics. An investigation was begun into the action of the council, which has disclosed facts that threaten to overwhelm the present city administration. The City Engineer, L. W. Brown; the President of the Council and Acting Mayor, Irwin Jamison, and five out of a total of thirty councilmen, have already been indicted for receiving or giving bribes and for other corrupt work, and the task is not yet half done. Most of these indictments are in connection with a single fraud — the construction of the new Court House and jail — in which the city has been badly plundered.
Nor are the indictments all. The Constitution allows the impeachment of any official on the petition of twenty-five citizens, who must pay the cost of the proceedings against him. The Citizens’ Protective Association has decided to begin impeachment proceedings against the corrupt officials; and the rottenness is so general that it is said that sixteen out of a total of thirty councilmen will be impeached. If this is done it will leave the council without a quorum, and it will be unable to conduct business until vacancies are filled. The impeachment proceedings will probably be a battle royal between the council and the Citizens’ Protective Association. They are expected to cost a large sum, and the Protective Association has started a popular impeachment fund, which is being largely subscribed to. The councilmen, it will be seen, are thus exposed to two attacks — impeachment proceedings from the citizens, which will remove them from office, and criminal proceedings by the State, which threaten them with the penitentiary.
All this has caused consternation and demoralization in the City Hall, and many resignations are promised to escape the consequences. Already one of the most prominent members of the county, Francis Thriffiey, has resigned, as he explains, at the solicitation of his family, and because he is so annoyed by the bad name the council has secured; and there are others likely to follow his example.
The feeling is general that the present city administration is going to pieces. Even its friends recognize this and are loud in their denunciations of these officials, whose deeds have brought discredit on the whole municipal government, on the honest as well as the dishonest.
Thieves Who Are Not Afraid.
[New York Evening Post.]
In Chicago the aldermen have carried through what is known in political vernacular as a “cold steal.” An ordinance was passed which contained a fifty years’ gift to a corporation of the right to rip up the pavements and sell gas in all parts of the city, charging an excessive price, and with no provision to protect the rights of the city or to safeguard the interests of the people. The press exposed and denounced the swindle and the Mayor vetoed it, but the “combine” carried it over his objections by a vote of 58 out of 68 members, scornfully refusing even to consider important amendments submitted by him which were plainly in the interest of consumers and of the municipality. It is universally believed that a majority of the aldermen who voted for the scheme have been paid or are to be paid for their votes, but they snap their fingers in the face of the public and ask, “What are you going to do about it?”
How Children Are Cared Fob by the State.
[London Liberty Review.]
The following story told at the North London Police Court recently, together with exposures of the manner in which the State treats the children entrusted to its care, should make every parent’s heart leap for joy at the prospect of the Socialists’ ideal being realized, when all families will be broken up, and every child will be brought up by the community in barracks such as those at Brentwood: “The Hackney Board of Guardians summoned several persons for not maintaining relatives who had become chargeable to the union. One of these was Charles Noquet, who had two children in the Brentwood Schools. He said he was a widower and in very poor circumstances. He had been fourteen years in a solicitor’s Mike, but now was working on the roads. He had, through his poverty, been compelled to go into the workhouse, and his children were sent to the Brentwood Schools. He got work, and took his children out, when they were in a very bad condition, — the girl with ophthalmia, and the boy with the head in a shocking state. His children told him that there were more than one hundred children in the schools suffering as they were, and no attempt was made to isolate them. When in this condition, as it was necessary they should have fresh air, they were turned into the fields adjoining the school after dark, and then were very much frightened.”
Comstock and the Publishers.
[New York Sun.]
Mr. Comstock, who has risen superior to the supreme court, announces in ungrammatical and incoherent language that he will prosecute everybody in America who attempts to sell the classics endorsed by Judge O’Brien of the supreme court. Comstock will probably have an opportunity to put his threat into execution, as the advertising pages of the papers show that many of the booksellers who were frightened by him into such a position that they were afraid to offer these famous books to the public have taken heart, in view of the decision of the court, and will now get rid of the stock which they bought in good faith, and without any notion of the terrible wickedness which Mr. Comstock believes it to contain.
The terror which Comstock inspires among publishers is almost ludicrous. It is perfectly well known that he has no legal reason for the control which he exercises over the publishing world, but for some reason the publishers continue to be in abject fear of him at all times. One of the largest houses on Broadway not long since imported a number of “Studies from the Nude,” which have been sold extensively in England and France, and which were brought over at very heavy expenses, packed in zinc cases, and insured at a high valuation. Announcement was made that the books were for sale, and when Comstock heard of it he walked into the publisher’s office and told him that if he put them on sale he would be arrested and “sent up.” Then Mr. Comstock walked pompously out of the place. The publisher hesitated two weeks, and then, at a very heavy loss, shipped the entire consignment back to England. There was nothing about the books in any way as indecent or suggestive as the ordinary run of police papers in New York, or the innumerable “living pictures” which are nightly exhibited at the music halls and theatres. Suppose the Lexow Committee take hold of Mr. Comstock and find out how it is that he permits one style of nudity to go free and restrains another, and exactly what the inducement is which enables him to modify his opinion about certain shows and certain firms.
Arrested for Liking Certain Pictures — the “mails” Dodge Again.
[Press Dispatch.]
Monticello, N. Y., August 18. — Frank B. Teal, a photographer of Hurleyville, and Clarence F. Stratton, the mail carrier between Monticello and Fallsburgh, were arrested yesterday afternoon by Anthony Comstock for dealing in obscene pictures. Mr. Comstock has been collecting evidence against them for the past year and has bad men writing from different places in various States for pictures. But the dealers have been very wary, and it was not until a few weeks ago that a man mottling in Now Jersey succeeded in gobting one. United States Marshal Bevis accompanied Mr. Comstock when he made the arrest. They found 3,400 improper pictures in Teal’s house. Teal and Stratton were lodged in jail overnight. This morning Mr. Comstock took them to New York, where they will be tried by the United States court.
The prisoners were arraigned before United States Commissioner Alexander, and were held for trial. Bail was fixed at $2,500 in each case; the prisoners readily secured it, seeming to have numerous friends and sympathizers. The photographs complained of were received by mail at Asbury Park, N. J. The one upon which Teal was arrested was addressed to Ephraim Ernnley, P. O. box 829, and that upon which Stratton was arrested, to A. Phil. Corbett, P. O. box 287. Teal did business at Hurleyville as a “novelty company.” The pictures were particularly offensive.
[New York Tribune.]
Philadelphia, Aug. 21. — Charles C. Rickerson, a lad of seventeen years, who was arrested yesterday in Lancaster, Pa., at the instance of Anthony Comstock, for sending objectionable literature through the mails, was arraigned before United States Commissioner Craig here today. He waived a hearing and was held in $1,000 bail. M. L. Dellinger, aged thirty-nine years, also of Lancaster, who was arrested by Mr. Comstock at the same time, on the charge of printing the matter, will be tried at Lancaster, his offence not coming under the jurisdiction of the United States courts.
Mr. Comstock stated today that the arrests were the most important he had ever made in Pennsylvania, and he was satisfied that the fountain head of the greatest publishers and distributors of vile matter in the country had been unearthed. Young Rickerson told Mr. Comstock today, so the latter states, that Dellinger’s wife sold the objectionable books and photographs, and that H. J. Gast, night clerk in the Lancaster post-office, advised the violators as to the method of distribution. No further arrests will be made at present, but Gast has been dismissed from the postal service.
Assistant Postmaster Albright, of Lancaster, is aiding Mr. Comstock in the prosecution of young Rickerson. The arrest of a man named Teals, in Harleyville, N. Y., last Friday, on a similar charge, led to the arrest of the Lancaster violators. Testa admitted that he obtained the pamphlets from them.
Elastic Libel Laws and the Stage.
[Paris Correspondence Pittsburg Dispatch.]
There is a law in France which embitters the life of every dramatic author, as it confers upon every French citizen the right of having a novel or play immediately suppressed by the police if his name happens to be mentioned in it. If a character in a comedy bears the name of Dupont or Dubois, all the Duponta and Duboises in France are entitled to insist on a change of the name, or, if the manager refuses, of the removal of the play from the bill. In their anxiety to avoid unpleasantness the parodists of the Cluny Theatre decided to designate the characters in a recent piece by means of numbers. The effect thus produced is some-what peculiar, as for instance:
“Ah! charming 132, you are the moat adorable of all women.”
“And you are a flatterer, Count 18.”
While the two were thus exchanging compliments, An elderly gentleman suddenly appears, and calls out In a voice of thunder:
“I have caught you now, Count 18: Are there any cowards in your family!”
“Gracious!” whispered Count 18, trembling in his shoes. “Gracious! Duke 53.”
“Seventy-four!” exclaims the duke, “turn this gentleman out.”
But at this point a fellow in the audience springs to his feet. “That is really too bad!” he shouts in the direction of the stage. “I will send you a summons.”
The duke answers in surprise: “What have you to complain of? Seventy-four is only a number.”
“That’s just it. It is the very number I bore when in jail, and I am not going to be degraded by having s servant dubbed with it.”
Everybody had to give into that argument: it was the law. The play was stopped there and then.
The Free-pass Form of Bribery.
[New York Evening Post.]
President Choate submitted to the Constitutional Convention yesterday a letter on the subject of free passes from J. T. Brooks, second vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in which he says:
“I have had a personal experience on the pass question for a quarter of a century in connection with the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. For about eight years I have maintained, single-handed, a contest against the issue of free passes to persons occupying official positions in city, county, State, and Federal governments; the only exception to this statement being that I have continued to issue session passes to members of the Legislature, and, in rare instances, extending those passes after the close of the session to the end of the current year. I have seen the evils of the pass system grow from very small beginnings to what I regard as now a very great and deplorable proportion. There was a time when public officials were content to receive occasionally a trip pass for themselves. They have learned to ask for passes for themselves, for members of their families, and for political adherents and others. They not only ask for passes good over lines which are controlled by the officers to whom they apply, but they ask for passes over connecting lines to distant and remote parts of the country, good at all seasons of the year. They not only ask for trip passes for themselves and friends, but they ask for annual passes for themselves and friends, and no matter how many passes may be granted to a single individual, if a single request be refused, the enmity of that official is aroused and his vengeance exercised if he has an opportunity to do so.
“I have known a member of the Supreme Court of the United States to apply for free transportation, the money value of which in a single instance was between $200 and $800. Governors of. States, United States Senators, members of the House of Representatives, members of every department of the State government, from the governor to the janitor, ask and expect to receive these favors.
“There is one State in the American Union whose constitution contains a provision prohibiting persons in the service of that State from receiving passes. That constitution in this respect is a dead letter in the State where it exists, and members of all departments of State, including therein nearly all members of the supreme court and of inferior courts, receive and expect, and even ask for, passes. A constitutional provision on this subject should be broad enough to make it a misdemeanor for any person elected or appointed to any position in the service of the public to ask or receive for himself or any other person free transportation. Within the last few years blackmailing legislators have been introducing bills for the taxation of sleeping car companies, express companies, and telegraph companies. The result is that passes are being issued by these various organizations in greater or less number, and telegraph passes can now be found in the pockets of nearly all members of the Legislature in all the important States.”
A Sunday Law Enforced.
[Truth Seeker.]
New Canaan, Connecticut, is in a turmoil. The grand jurors run things in the villages of that State, and one of them, E. L. Arnold, has set out to enforce in New Canaan the old blue laws of the common-wealth. In the local paper of August 4, Mr. Arnold warned all business men that thereafter they must keep their places of business closed between twelve o’clock Saturday night and twelve o’clock Monday morning. Three years before this man Arnold bad been expelled from the Methodist Church for selling papers on Sunday. He is now trying to show his repentance by persecuting other business men. But the Sunday shop-openers defied him and the musty old blue law by attending to their regular duties on Sunday. A newsdealer, a barber, a butcher, three livery-stable keepers, and two druggists were among those arrested. Taken before Justice of the Peace J. H. Stillman, they were fined from four to six dollars each. Mr. Stillman, who is the leading grocer, is accused of bringing produce from his farm and selling it in New Canaan on Sunday. Under the law all amusements are forbidden, and the victims of the present raid may proceed to make the statute odious by securing the arrest of all summer residents who drive in their own carriages, and also of the lawn tennis players. Juror Arnold hopes the town will “keep quiet” and that there “won’t be any trouble,” as though he had not already destroyed quiet and made trouble by his outrageous interference with the private affairs of his neighbors. That is the usual way with sneaks and despots; they are terribly shocked when those who suffer from their rascality “make a fuss.”
On the Sunday (August 19) following that on which the arrests just mentioned were made, most of the arrested persons and others defied Juror Arnold and his resurrected statute. The New York “Times” says that when its correspondent drove into the town, “Newsdeaiers Stephen E. Roscoe and F. A. Dickerman were doing a thriving business in New York morning papers;” two drug stores were open; Barber William Patterson was busy; Baker Barton was “dealing out bread,” and three livery firms “were ready to bargain for turnouts, first asking a customer if he was engaged in an errand of mercy, the answer always being in the affirmative.” Will the Sundayites assume responsibility for the lies their contemptible meanness forces people to tell in order to be unmolested in their legitimate business?
“S. W. Nichols, assistant editor of the ‘Weekly Messenger,’ sat, with door wide open, preparing copy for the next issue, and assured the correspondent that he was not afraid of arrest.”
Good for the knight of the quill! Juror Arnold said that as long as summer visitors “behaved themselves quietly,” they would not be troubled, and he told the newsdealers they would not be bothered if they got through by 10 o’clock in the morning.
“But,” said the correspondent, “the law toys that business places must close on Sunday. What right have you or any other grand juror to limit the hours of a man’s work or to say when and in what manner he shall go driving?”
“Oh, I guess our association can fix that. John Light says it is good law, and they have done it over in South Norwalk, so we will do it, or the offenders will be fined every time.”
That is the way such bigots’ statutes enable little local gods to play fast and loose with justice and equal freedom. If the law was impartially enforced, Raymond, who serves the writs, would be arrested and fined for playing the church organ on Sunday. But, of course, the church is exempt from all laws it gets enacted for the government and robbery of the people.
The Policemen as Critics of New Ideas.
[Manchester Guardian.]
The right of public meeting in open places is being duly reestablished in Manchester. But it takes longer to retrace a false step than to make it, and on Sunday another unfortunate incident occurred in Stevenson square. A meeting of Socialists was held, and a fairly well known speaker, after touching on a few other questions of interest, seems to have condemned the action of the watch committee in interfering with former meetings in the square. To offer such a criticism in Stevenson square is no more an offence than to offer it from the platform of the Free Trade Hall or in the columns of a daily paper. But as soon as the watch committee’s policy came under censure, a policeman who was present seems to have stopped the meeting on the spot and removed the speaker from the square. It does not seem that the meeting was dispersed on the ground that the speakers were Socialists, for a well-known Socialist had already spoken from that party’s point of view for a quarter of an hour when the interference took place. The police interfered, it would appear, simply because the action of their own superiors was condemned. It is said that this was done on the responsibility of the subordinate officer on duty at the spot, and not in pursuance of special directions from the Chief Constable. If this is so, it relieves the Chief Constable and the watch committee of direct responsibility for a clearly improper step. But it does not relieve the watch committee of indirect responsibility. The subordinate, we have no doubt, was trying to carry out his duty as he understood it, And how was he to understand it? Within a few weeks the watch committee had passed a resolution forbidding all Anarchist meeting; the Stipendiary Magistrate had bound two men over to keep the peace for insisting on holding a meeting that had nothing to do with politics or social questions of any kind; the chief constable, writing for the watch committee, had told the correspondent that any discussion of “Anarchism or Socialism” would be suppressed; the chairman of the watch committee had told the city council that this letter was due to “an unfortunate and regrettable confusion of ideas;” and, finally, the chief constable, we understand, had directed the police to interfere with no meetings which are held for a legitimate purpose and which do not cause serious obstruction. With this tangle of conflicting decisions to perplex him, we cannot help feeling some compassion for the confusion of a sergeant’s mind.
The mistake made on Sunday is only the result of orders so framed as to turn the attention of the police away from their simple and proper duties and set them speculating as to what meetings or speeches are “Anarchist” and what are not. They do their own work, when they are left to do it, with admirable judgment, firmness, and good temper. But if no further blunders are to be made the watch committee must withdraw an order which would be oppressive and mischievous if literally carried out, and which the police cannot fairly be expected to turn into a reasonable rule by interpreting and modifying it at their own discretion.
How the State Makes Us Rest.
[Truth Seeker.]
The New Orleans “Times-Democrat” has taken up the case of W. B. Capps, an Adventist of Dresden, Tenn., who was fined for working in his field on Sunday. His case was appealed to the supreme court of the State, and there the decision of the lower court was affirmed. The fine and costs amount to $110.45, which he must serve out in prison at twenty-five cents per day. Mr. Capps has a wife and four children, the eldest only six years of age, and one sick at the time of the father’s imprisonment. The sentence means immurement in an unhealthful jail for one year and nearly three months. A physician states that Mr. Capps cannot live there for that length of time.
And How Many Will Remain?
[Press Cable Message.]
They are not going to fool away much time on Anarchists in Italy. It is reported that 2,000 of them are to be sent out of the country forthwith.
White Anarchism, Force, and Sentiment.
I am grateful to Mrs. Holmes for calling attention to my “Color Line” by criticising it. Knowing pretty well where her sympathies are, I did not expect her to applaud it.
She compares me very unkindly with Mr. Yarros as a student of the present conditions, but as I am really modest on that head, and conscious of my deficiencies, and sincerely admire most of Mr. Yarros’s recent editorials, we shall not quarrel here.
My “militant Anarchists,” she assures me, “are not, in the first place, deliberate choosers of violence and destruction; no hater of established authority feels a natural inclination to kill, burn, and destroy, or to see it done, if by peaceable means the prevailing injustice can possibly be abolished.”
As I copy these words, I lift my eyes to a little German paper sold me by one of Justus Schwab’s friends at a meeting in sympathy with Emma Goldmann, held at Clarendon Hall, New York, last winter. I was assured that this was an Anarchist paper, and I know these were red Anarchists, because that banner was freely displayed.
The title of the paper is “Die Rache,” — “The Revenge.” I can read but little German, but this little paper bristles with ferocious and significant paragraphs and war-cries, which are not difficult to understand, and which, if they do not reveal a “natural inclination to kill, burn, and destroy,” at least indicate a fine development of “second nature” in that direction. I quote:
“Die Rache.”
“Die Rache der Unterdruckten.”
“Hoch die Expropriation!”
“Hurrah für diezwei Bomben, welche am 24. Sept. . . . des Marschalls Martinez Campos kratchten!!!”
“Hurrah für den Genossen Paulino Pallas, welcher die Bomben warf . . . . !!!”
“Hurrah für das Dynamit . . . !!!”
“Hurrah für die Propaganda der That . . . !!!” Etc., etc., etc.
All this on the first page, but fairly representative of the tone of the entire contents. In short, the paper is, from beginning to end, one prolonged shout for dynamite, expropriation, and revenge, and of exultation over the wounds and death and ruin already wrought by dynamite explosions.
If it be objected that these are Germans, and that Americans do not feel so, then I reply that Dyer D. Lunt, who was an American of the Americans, wrote very much such fireworks in the old “Alarm.” And I am certain that no competent jury will say these are the utterances of men who regard violence as a sad necessity. I, too, know something of “human nature”; I know that it has a “natural inclination” to revenge, a “natural inclination to kill, burn, and destroy” to get revenge, and a “natural inclination” to enjoy the process when once aroused.
And I feel equally certain that I do not slander the Anarchists of the red when I say that these utterances do not unfairly represent at least one side of their propaganda. They do not, as a rule, represent war as a sad necessity, but as something to be embraced with enthusiasm and exultation, as the certain and only remedy; they stir up class hatred and continually imply, and often directly assert, that the rich are the deliberate and intentional torturers of the poor, that a ferocious revenge is their just due, and that nothing short of that will ever turn their minds to justice.
That the Anarchists of the red include some of the most brilliant intellects, and some of the finest natures, I freely and gladly concede. Some of my dearest friends have held their views. But when they come to this subject, they seem to be seized with a sudden insanity and dilate with passion and excitement. Strangely enough, just when their own feelings seem to most predominate over their logical faculties, they are most prone to call me a “sentimentalist” if I urge the superior solvency of peace.
Let us look at this formidable accusation.
Webster defines “sentiment” as “a thought prompted by passion or feeling.” Let any one read my article on “White-Flag Anarchism” and compare it with any article in “Die Rache,” and tell which is the most “prompted by passion or feeling.”
But Webster has a second definition: “Hence, generally, the decision of the mind formed by deliberation or reasoning”; this after a quotation from D. Stewart, that “the word sentiment, agreeably to the use made of the word by our best English writers, expresses, in my own opinion, very happily those complex determinations of the mind which result from the cooperation of our entire rational powers and of our moral feelings.”
As a sentimentalist on this line I gladly plead guilty. My decision that peace is a much wiser condition than war to strive for as a condition under which social problems are to be satisfactorily solved, is not based on passion or feeling or tender susceptibility, but “formed by deliberation and reasoning.”
And this decision has been altogether formed since I became one of the Anarchists, and as a logical result of their teachings. Really, I believe Nature intended me for a soldier. My natural tastes are decidedly military, and it is not many years since I too looked upon war as the “great medicine.” But as soon as I became convinced of the superiority of intellectual methods and economic remedies, I lost all my senseless faith in bloodshed as a solvent of scientific problemt.
But all this is aside from the main question. Whether the Anarchists for whom Mrs. Holmes speaks are apostles of passion and revenge, athirst for blood to slake their hate, or angels of mercy who fight with pitying hearts, all those who believe in bloodshed as a necessary and expedient remedy have an appropriate place under the red flag, are Anarchists of the Red; and all those for whom I speak, whether tender senti-mentalists or cold-blooded scientists, who believe that violence is not a remedy, and that intellectual methods and the education of self-interest are alone efficient are appropriately Anarchists of the White.
That is the line I want to draw, that is the distinction I want to make, and could I succeed in drawing such a line, which everyone would recognize, and in establishing a name which every one would use in discussions anent Anarchy, my object would be accomplished. The flag itself is with me only a means unwillingly applied to that end. The poem “No Flag” expresses my preference. Flags are really tools of war, inappropriate to men of peace; fetiches, idols, which fools worship and to which they offer human sacrifices, of little value and shorn of all dignity among men who are sane and who intelligently love them-selves.
I must thank Comrade Zeitinger for his kind endorsement. I am quite willing his device should be adopted, if the comrades prefer; but personally I believe the flag as I devised it would be sesthetically more beautiful, and that the fewer and simpler the symbols we employ the better.
A good deal has been said about human nature in this discussion, and I would like to continue a little further under that head.
It is not human nature to be just to an enemy. Before we have liberty and social order on a natural and self-supporting basis, — and nothing else deserves the name, — we must have a general inclination to do justice between man and man, a general conviction that self-interest is best served by justice, and a general knowledge of what justice requires. Human evolution has now progressed so far in the social direction that human beings generally are inclined to be just to each other and to regard justice to others as self-beneficial, except where those others are enemies. Between foes, Socialism ceases and antagonism begins; the social tie is forgotten, and each becomes a cruel and selfish savage. At present there is generally between the rich and the poor a justice of feeling, but an injustice of conditions due to privilege. The poor are painfully conscious that something is wrong, and the rich vaguely conscious, but neither know what ails them with any clearness, nor the remedy. To discover and teach this remedy is the Anarchist’s mission to rich and poor alike, a mission not difficult to accomplish if the present good feeling between the classes can be maintained and the remarkable interest in social and economic problems everywhere growing among the intelligent and influential can continue to a fruitful result. It only needs that passion shall be kept in abeyance and reason supreme. But every one who sows enmity between the rich and the poor checks this by the simplest operations of human nature. Let the rich and the middle classes be convinced that the poor are their enemies, and all desire to do them justice or right their wrongs ceases, and they listen at once to those who say: “We have always told you so; all history proves it; the mob must be ruled by the strong hand; drop sentiment and theories and make a strong government.”
No man can excel me in sympathy with the poor, or in desire for their emancipation, or in pity when they are driven by desperation and suffering to desperate deeds; but I assert without the slightest hesitation that the greatest practical enemy the cause of liberty has today is the bomb-thrower.
Every bomb plays into the hand of government, inflames the passionate, terrifies the timid, stiffens the softening conservative, and unites all kinds and conditions of men in support of the stern authoritarian. Every bomb blocks the wheels of evolution and puts back the cause of liberty for years, if not generations.
Human nature is not cowardly; man is the bravest of the animals, and courage is the cheapest of the virtues. And everywhere those who are well fed, accustomed to rule, and conscious of power, are the bravest. It is a fact of the commonest observation that in every country the rich possess not only more intellect and more nerve force, but more physical and moral courage than the proletariat. If we attack the rich, then, by the argument of terror, we assail them with our poorest weapon at the precise point where they are most invulnerable. Poorer generalship could hardly be devised than that of those who push the “propaganda by deed.”
Time was when dynamite was a novelty; it inspired terror just as gunpowder did among the savages. But that time is pretty well past. It is observed that it is not so necessarily terrible as was supposed; the explosion of a bomb in a house does not necessarily wreck it, nor does the bursting of one in a crowd necessarily kill anybody, except, pretty certainly, the man who threw it and probably some of his friends.
Terror as an argument, poor enough at the beginning, grows ever weaker and more impotent “Familiarity breeds contempt” is truer of peril than of anything else. The recruit who blanches at the first fire soon becomes the veteran who sleeps soundly on the coffin of a comrade, eats coolly from the plate the bullet has just cracked, and jests in the cannon’s mouth. The dynamiter as a terror can never equal the red Indian, yet the red Indian never checked the settler who, with his single rifle, and impeded by his family, pressed, ever upon him. Bombs will have to fall pretty feet before they will send to a horrible death as many as the railroads, within any given time, yet no one hesitates to take the cars.
Bombs can have no good effect, except as they induce people to consider Anarchist arguments. And It is precisely because they end all reasonable discussion of, and all willingness to listen to, such arguments that I condemn them.
When war begins reason is paralyzed and prejudices are petrified indefinitely. It is more than thirty years since the War of the Rebellion commenced, yet neither side is prepared to consider itself in the wrong, as both sides certainly were.
Mark Twain’s “fine justification of revolts” is a fine piece of buncombe. No “thousand years of villainy” was ever “swept away” in any “tidal wave of blood,” nor ever will be; but, on the contrary, blood breeds villains as dead meat does maggots.
All the sympathy you please for the dynamiters as men, suffering and driven to madness, but no sympathy with the folly of their methods, promising a common ruin and defeat to us all for indefinite time. J. Wm. Lloyd.
Away with the Red Flag.
To the Editor of Liberty:
With pleasure I read the noble utterances of Comrade Lloyd upon the time-worn bloody flag of Anarchy. His happy suggestion with regard to a new emblem to distinguish us philosophical, cultured, and physically harmless Anarchists from the vulgar, blood-thirsty stripe, has my sympathy and commendation, but still more enamored am I of the amendment to the “heart gules on a field argent” proposed by Comrade Zeitinger.
Although we must believe that the followers of Liberty’s Anarchism, whether or not the thing to them by any other name would sound much sweeter, or be less likely to confound and confuse the uninstructed, are squarely on the aide of labor in the ceaseless struggle it is forced to wage with the exploiters; and although the red flag has been identified with labor back to the remotest antiquity, the banner of the uprisen slave, the toiler, the lowly, the rebel, economic, social, political, in Asia, Carthage, Rome, Greece, France. London, and Chicago down to the present day, — being the symbol of the sun, which through labor fructifies the earth, of the blood in all men’s veins, white, black, or yellow, the symbol of fraternity had the common origin and destiny of man; although, for these reasons, it has always struck terror to the organized thieves and tyrants as the symbol of their just doom, and never been more respectable than it is today, — as why should it? — the fierce emblem of the down-trodden, for justice has always required blood, and now no less than in the past, in spite of the philosophical conviction of its futility: Despair and suffering being seldom philosophical; and while it seems a heavy undertaking to break away from so much well-grounded tradition and reject the simple and obvious symbol of militant labor, yet the reasons for so doing seem weighty and, if but of an ephemeral nature, still no less convincing. So, with one slight improvement on the Lloyd-Zeitinger tricolor, I hail the new flag of Anarchy.
N. B. The improvement referred to would be to have outside the green diamond a club yellow, and within the red heart the ace of spades in black. Then hoist our banner, comrades.
“A heart gules with the ace of spades on a diamond verdant above a yellow club on a field argent.” William Bailie.
No Such Crime as Blasphemy.
In the case of C. C. Moore, referred to recently in the department “Beauties of Government,” a decision was rendered by Judge Parker sustaining Mr. Moore’s demurrer to the indictment, which fortunately takes the case out of that department. So remarkable and refreshing is the decision that it deserves to be reproduced here in full.
The defendant, C. C. Moore, is charged with having committed the offence of blasphemy. It is alleged in the indictment that the defendant, intending to treat with offensive levity and ridicule the scriptural account of the divine conception and birth, and to bring contempt against Almighty God and his divine purpose in causing the birth of Christ, did maliciously and blasphemously publish in a newspaper known as the “Blue Grass Blade” the following words:
When I say that Jesus Christ was a man exactly like I am and had a human father and mother exactly like I had, some of the pious call it blasphemy. When they say that Jesus Christ was born as the result of a sort of Breckinridge-Pollard hyphenation between God and a Jew woman, I call it blasphemy; so you see there is a stand-off.
It is further charged that, by this language, the defendant meant that pious and religious persons stated and believed that the birth of Jesus Christ was the result of an unholy and illicit connection between Almighty God and Mary, the mother of Christ.
To this indictment the defendant has filed a demurrer, and thereby made the claim that no offence against the laws of Kentucky had been charged against him. This demurrer having been argued with singular earnestness and ability by counsel both for the prosecution and the defence, and the question presented being a new one in this State, the court has given the case unusual consideration.
We have no statute against blasphemy, and our Court of Appeals, so far as we know, has never passed upon this or any similar question. We must, therefore, in our investigations have recourse to the common law and to the judicial decisions of other States and countries.
Blackstone, in treating of offences against God and religion, speaks of this offence as “blasphemy against the Almighty by denying his being or providence, or by contumelious reproaches of our Savior Christ.” The punishment, he says, is by fine and imprisonment or other infamous corporal punishment. The ground upon which blasphemy is treated as an offence is that “Christianity is part of the laws of England.” The leading case in this country in which the crime of blasphemy was discussed was that of the People vs. Ruggles, decided by the Supreme Court of New York in 1810, Chief Justice Kent delivering the opinion. In that case it was decided that the common law against blasphemy was still in force, and a judgment to pay a line of $500 and be imprisoned three months was affirmed. The court in this opinion cited with approval a number of English cases, in which the right to punish blasphemy had been vigorously upheld, and quoted the words of Lord Bacon, “profane scoffing doth by little and little deface the reverence for religion” and “two principal causes I have and know of Atheisc — curious controversies and profane scoffing.” Whilst this opinion did not declare that Christianity was part of the law of the State of New York, but expressly disclaimed that there was an established religion in that State; yet the closeness with which it adhered to the definition of blasphemy, as laid down by Blackstone, and the great reliance placed upon the English decisions, make us hesitate to walk in the path trod by Chief Justice Kent himself. For in England there was an established church. The Church was part of the State. Apostasy and heresy were punished; the first commission of either offence disqualifying the offender for holding office, and the second being punished by three years’ imprisonment without bail. Even witchcraft was claimed by Blackstone to be an offence against God and religion, and to deny the existence of such a crime, he said, was “at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of God,” though he appeared to think it well that the punishment of this crime had fallen into disuse, as there had been no well authenticated modern instance of its commission.
In this country, where the divorce between Church and State is complete and final, we should examine with care and accept with caution any law framed and intended for a country where Church and State are one. The difficulties in reconciling religious freedom with the right to punish for an offence against any given religion are manifest. From the opinion given in the People vs. Ruggles, we may deduce as conclusions of the court that the people generally in this country are Christians; that Christianity is engrafted upon the morality of the country; that all religions are tolerated, but that this toleration, as to false religions, means immunity from test oaths, disabilities, and the burdens of church establishments; that to revile the Christian religion is an offence, but that to revile other religions is not an offence punishable by law.
In the bill of rights in the Kentucky Constitution it is declared that all persons have “the right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences”; that “no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, or denomination, nor to any particular system of ecclesiastical polity,” and that “the civil rights, privileges, or capacities of no person shall be taken away or in anywise diminished or enlarged on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma, or teaching.”
It is difficult to conceive how language could be made plainer. If the framers of the constitution intended to place all religions on an exact equality before the law, they appear to have employed language well calculated to express their purpose. They recognized the fact that men were religious, that they held different religious views, that some had no religious faith, and, granting the fullest religious freedom, they declared that the rights of none should be “diminished or enlarged on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma, or teaching.”
Under this constitution no form of religion can claim to be under the special guardianship of the law. The common law of England, whence our law of blasphemy is derived, did have a certain religion under its guardianship, and this religion was part of the law. The greatest concession made to religious liberty was the right of learned persons to decently debate upon controverted points. The essence of the law against blasphemy was that the offence, like apostasy and heresy, was against religion, and it was to uphold the established church, and not in any sense to maintain good order, that there was a law against blasphemy. The most superficial examination of the chapter in Blackstone treating of offences against God and religion, must convince any mind that the sole aim and object of these laws was to preserve the Christian faith, as it was then understood and accepted by the established church. It may seem to us that the punishments for these offences were severe in the time of Blackstone, but they had then been greatly mitigated, as the stake and fagot had been of but too frequent use in propagating what was deemed to be the true religion. Even Blackstone complains that the definition of heresy had been too uncertain, and that the subject had been liable to be burnt for what he had not understood to be heresy until it was decided to be so by the ecclesiastical judge who interpreted the canonical scriptures. To deny any one of the persons of the trinity, or to allege that there were more gods than one, was a heresy, and was punished in the same manner as apostasy.
Blasphemy is a crime grown from the same parent stem as apostasy and heresy. It is one of a class of offences designed for the same general purpose, the fostering and protecting of a religion accepted by the State as the true religion, whose precepts and tenets it was thought all good subjects should observe. In the code of laws of a country enjoying absolute religious freedom there is no place for the common law crime of blasphemy. Unsuited to the spirit of the age, its enforcement would be in contravention of the constitution of this State, and this crime must be considered a stranger to the laws of Kentucky.
Wherefore it is adjudged that the demurrer be, and it is hereby sustained, the indictment is dismissed, the defendant’s bail bond is quashed, and the defendant is dismissed hence without day. To this ruling of the court the Commonwealth of Kentucky excepts, and prays an appeal to the Court of Appeals, which is granted.
Free-Currency Propaganda in London.
Comrade G. O. Warren is doing excellent work in the London “Echo,” to which he regularly contributes articles on current questions under the pen-name of “T. L. M’Cready.” In the “Echo” of August 22, he had the following article on the association recently organized by our London comrades for the propaganda of mutual banking and free credit.
This is an association whose object is the establishment of an equitable monetary system as an essential factor in the equitable distribution of wealth. The manner in which it proposes to accomplish its object is by establishing mutual banks at as many places as possible; such banks to issue paper money, in defiance of the law, and to lend the same to members upon pledge of unencumbered real estate or other first-class collateral security. For this accommodation one-half of one per cent, commission only will be charged to cover working expenses and possible losses.
This association asserts that in assuming control of money and declaring what shall and what shall not be money, the State has prohibited competition in banking, and has established a moneyed aristocracy; that there is no valid reason, nor is there any authority in the Constitution, for doing so; that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to private property, and the right to private property necessarily includes the right to exchange that property, and the right to exchange it includes the right to determine what it shall be exchanged for, be it any article or commodity, or a piece of paper with an inscription on it, be that inscription written or printed, and from whatever source. And, therefore, that any restriction upon, or interference with, exchange is a denial of the right of private property, and should be resisted, at whatever cost.
Every word of this is true. The assumption by a little body of politicians who, by good luck, good management, or the skilful use of money, have succeeded in inducing a lot of men to put bits of paper, with their names printed on them, into boxes, of the authority to regulate the issue of money, to say who shall tame it, and who shall not, and how much of it shall be issued, is about as amazing a piece of impudence as can be found on earth today. The Free Currency Propaganda have an absolute moral right to put their ideas into practice if they can — to test them against the universe, and see whether they agree with its harmony or not; and neither I, nor any other man, nor any body of men, have the faintest shadow of right to say them nay.
Just think of it! Here is a man, Mr. Smith, to wit: Mr. Smith says he has invented something — or is in the way to invent something — that will produce power. He says he can make a machine that can be started by the tuning of a fiddle or something of that sort, and that will keep on working after it is started without any power being applied to it at all. Most people think Mr. Smith is a humbug. But they do not therefore tell him that he must either give up experimenting or go to jail. They let him go ahead and try all the experiments he wants to. They leave him to the mercy of the universe, knowing perfectly well that the universe will do full justice by him, If he really has discovered some hitherto unknown natural force, his machine will work. If he is nothing but a humbug, the universe will see to it that he never becomes anything more. You see, where mere machinery is concerned we have confidence in the universe, — faith in God, I call it.
But where other things than machinery are concerned, we have not any confidence whatever in the universe. When a lot of men come forward and announce that they have discovered how to make some kind of money that will vastly facilitate exchanges, we do not treat them as we do Mr. Smith. If we did, we should say to them: “All right, gentlemen; this is a free country. If you think you can make a better kind of money than we are using now, why, go ahead and do it. If it is better, it will displace the present kind. If it is not, you will never get it into circulation.” But instead of this we say to them: “Don’t you dare to try any experiments with money. Nature knows nothing about money. It is not safe to trust her in such matters. We know all about it, and we know that your new kind of money won’t work; and so, if you dare to go issuing any of it, we will punish you with a fine; and if that does not put a stop to your wickedness, we will clap you in prison, and put an end to it that way.”
The Detroit Alienation of Affections Case.
In No. 292, in the Beauties of Government department, Liberty reprinted from the Detroit “News” a report of the proceedings in a suit brought by plaintiff for the recovery of damages from defendant for alienating his wife’s affections. It will be remembered that in this report mention was also made of my esteemed and brilliant contemporary, the “Arme Teufel,” by the introduction of which in court the prosecuting attorney sought to create a bias against the defendant. Robert Reitzel, the editor of “Der Arnie Teufel,” suggests that if it was worth while to republish the false and silly “News” report of that trial; it ought to have been accompanied by a translation of the “Arme Teufel’s” article on the same affair. Well, better late than never. Reitzel’s article is certainly well worth summarizing.
Reitzel says that this was the third time that the “Arme Teufel” was produced in a Detroit court, “unfortunately, however, never in a way calculated to give a correct idea of the work and scope of the paper, or to secure new subscribers for it.” Speaking of the plaintiff, Reitzel says that he was one of those husbands who, when they have become insolvent as such and are loathed by their wives, make a last attempt to strike a profitable bargain out of the toeing enterprise. That is, since the man in the case before us is on the verge of idiocy, this legal sort of love revenge was presumably suggested to him by Christian neighbors experienced in such things, or by some greedy lawyer. For a long time this honest man willingly accepted pecuniary aid for himself and his family from the defendant, but when his wife no longer wanted him, because he wasn’t a man, he demanded, as a plaster for his bruised heart, heavy legal damages. The trial was the merest farce, continues the “Arnie Teufel.” Nothing was proved, not even a “criminal” relation between the defendant and the plaintiff’s wife. But it appeared, from the defendant’s own testimony as well as that of his Christian friends and neighbors, that he preferred going on the water or in a saloon to attending church, that he often spoke disrespectfully of the authorities, and that he even was a reader and a subscriber of the “Arme Teufel.” It’s a queer thing about this latter. Experience has shown that one does well to avoid all conflict with the police after one has once been seen in the company of this dangerous vagabond. The defendant was stigmatized as an Anarchist. And in these times one needs only to say Anarchist to secure a conviction at the hands of the donkeys who constitute the average jury. Thus the husband’s loss of his wife’s affections was set at $5,000. That’s a large sum, but — one can’t buy anything with it as long as one hasn’t got it. In the newspapers and in court the “Arme Teufel” was described as a weekly which champions free love. To thin Reitzel objects. The newspaper and legal rabble understand by that the frequenting of houses of ill-fame, seduction and ruin of poor girls, and rape. That is the free love which they comprehend, because it agrees with their nature. The “Arme Teufel” justifies all love. Liberty is the essence of love. Love from a sense of obligation is sun which shines not, fire which burns not, life which lives not.
Dr. Quidde and His Critics.
[New York Evening Post.]
No sooner had Dr. Quidde’s article, “Caligula,” appeared in pamphlet form than it was severely denounced by the Berlin “Kreuzzeitung” on account of what might be called its strong local coloring and the implicit parallelism between Roman Cæsarism in the first and German Cæsarism in the nineteenth century. In this criticism the organ of Prussian conservatism singled out the autocratic apothegms of the young Roman emperor as peculiarly insinuative and offensive. To this attack Dr. Quidde replied that the pamphlet is an historical study, both in form and in contents, and adheres strictly to the theme; that he has not been guilty of any distortion or misrepresentation, has lugged in nothing foreign to the subject, and has made no statement except on the best authority and in perfect accord with other writers. He admits that the “brochure is not written in the style of antiquarian pedantry, but with lively historical-political interest, more in the manner of the publicist than of the professor,” but repudiates all responsibility for what it may suggest to others, and especially for the invidious inferences drawn by the critic of the “Kreuzzeitung,” who also accuses him of entertaining republican views of government, — a charge which he does not deny. The immediate effect of this controversy was to cause an increased demand for the censured work which the booksellers were hardly able to supply. Meanwhile a number of the Hamburg “General-Anzeiger” has been seized and confiscated by the police, and the editor threatened with prosecution for lese-majesty for publishing a review of the pamphlet with extracts, while the pamphlet itself remains on sale and is exposed in all the windows of the Hamburg bookstores without molestation, — a striking illustration of the absurdities and vagaries of the censorship of the press when administered by superserviceable officials. Even the Bavarian Academy of Sciences could not repress the spirit of loyalty which usually animates such learned bodies, and has shown more zeal than discretion in discussing the affair and expressing its disapproval of the publication from a “scientific” point of view. Strictly speaking, this can only mean that injustice has been done to the character of Caligula, or that the allusions to King Ludwig II. are irrelevant, since there is no reference to any other sovereign. To this stricture Dr. Quidde has replied that, while it is perfectly proper for individual members of the Academy as scholars to criticise his work, it does not concern them in their corporate capacity, since it is not an academical dissertation issued under the auspices of that institution. A telegram from Berlin announces the fact that Emperor William has read the brochure with complacency — mit gutem Behagen.
Our Favorite Medicine, the Ballot.
The Chicago “Times,” citing a string of the assessment infamies which Chicago has to submit to, says:
“Last spring the ‘Times’ made full exposures of the rotten, corrupt, and infamous discriminating methods of assessment in Cook county. It showed, by comparisons taken from the assessors’ returns, that the small property-owners were being robbed in order that the trusts and corporations might evade taxation. Notwithstanding these charges, which were never denied, the guilty assessors were re elected by the aid of corporation money and the corporation organs, and the crime of 1893 has been repeated in 1894.
“There is but one thing for the people to do, and that is to elect representatives to the next general assembly who will inaugurate and accomplish a radical reform in the present system of assessment. Until that is done, the individual taxpayers of the county and State will remain at the mercy of corrupt assessors and an equally corrupt State board of equalization, which for years has been owned by the tax-dodging trusts and corporations.”
Our faith in patent medicines is certainly the most astonishing and exasperating phenomenon. Here we have for over a century been swallowing that moat advertised of all nostrums, the ballot, and not only have we never yet bettered ourselves, but are invariably a little worse after every dose. And still our doctors of the press and the tribune shout themselves hoarse praising the virtues of their elixir and its infallibility in eliminating the vermin which sap the people’s life blood, when they might see, if they had sound eyes, that instead of curing the evil, it only produces “rotation in office,” leading us from the mud into the mire every time. It never seems to occur to them that total abstinence from the medicine would be death to the vermin — for they thrive on it — and leave the people free, collectively and individually, to attend to their own business. But, alas! the next two or three doses that we are soon to take are already being extensively advertised and strongly recommended; they will be taken, accompanied by much noise and enthusiasm, and the result will be that we shall be as sick as ever, most likely worse. Werner Boecklin.
Demos in a Panic.
[American Review of Reviews.]
Another and less happy sign of the times abroad is the sudden and general disposition of the popular governments to resort to the most familiar weapon of autocracy and of monarchy. France and Italy, scared by the Anarchist outrages, have been legislating in a fashion which would have delighted Castlereagh. The Anarchist law of repression, which in July passed the French Chamber, abolishes trial by jury whenever the prisoner is accused of Anarchist crimes, or “of committing by any other means acts of Anarchist propaganda by extolling attacks on person or property.” That clause in a Jeffreys’ hands would pretty effectively suppress all freedom of discussion, and it is probably intended to have that effect. Governments do not abolish the palladium of liberty out of regard for liberty, and the Anarchist law is a long stride toward despotism. The only remaining safeguard, the freedom of the press, is destroyed in the subsequent clause, which forbids, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, the reporting in whole or in part of the proceedings in any case which is concerned with Anarchists. Here we have the gag, pure and simple: No jury and no press. Thus, by abolishing the indispensable safeguards against injustice, King Demos hopes to repress a revolt, the taproot of which is the invincible hatred of injustice which is native to the human heart. As new presbyter was but old priest writ large, so there seems little to choose between Demos and Despot when panic is in the air.
The Science of Journalism.
[Nixon Waterman in the Chicago Journal.]
You may talk about your editors who sit in easy chairs
And try to boss the whole machine and put on lots of airs,
And seek to make the people think it’s what they have to say
That keeps the business on the move and makes the paper pay;
But don’t you ever think it, for the whole truth simply is,
The editor’s not in it with that huge conceit of his,
For there’s only one essential in the whole newspaper plan:
Success depends alone upon the advertising man.
Religion in French Schools.
“The Manual of Unsectarian Instruction,” a hand-book in daily use in the State-aided public elementary schools, contains in the form of a lesson the following dialogue between teacher and pupil:
Teacher — What is God?
Pupil — We cannot tell.
Teacher — Do you acknowledge a superior or controlling Being?
Pupil — Why should we? Prove to us the necessity, and show Him to us.
Teacher — It cannot be proved that such a Being is indispensable.
Pupil — Then it is a waste of time to talk about the matter.
Teacher — The term “God” has no signification; it means nothing at all.
Signs of the Times in Denver.
The Rev. Myron W. Reed, of Denver, is a popular preacher, who for ten years had been lecturing the members of the First Congregational Church. Occasionally he would take up some unpopular theory and defend it. The patience of his congregation was exhausted one Sunday last June, when he made an eloquent defence of some striking miners, praised the State Socialists, and wound up by saying that Jesus Christ was an Anarchist. This caused a row which ended in Mr. Reed’s retirement.
Since then the question whether Jesus was really an Anarchist has been interestingly debated in the Denver newspapers.
One correspondent, who rejoices in the redoubtable cognomen of Andrew Jackson Rogers, took up nearly a column of space in the “Rocky Mountain News” to display his rare ignorance of the subject. One of his particularly refreshing theories was that “Anarchy is the doctrine of greed.”
The reader will thoroughly appreciate this when he learns that Mr. Rogers is a Populist office holder who, far from being greedy, is engaged in the very self-sacrificing work of drawing three thousand dollars a year salary for filling the very useless office of Fire and Police Commissioner.
The next issue of the “News” contained a remarkable reply to Mr. Rogers, written by the Rev. T. H. Malone, a Catholic priest, who is also editor of the “Colorado Catholic.” He endeavors to show that, strictly speaking, Christ was neither a State Socialist nor an Anarchist After stating very correctly the Martian position, Father Malone has this to say about Anarchism:
“Anarchism, as a system of economic philosophy, traces its origin to Pierre J. Proudhon, a most voluminous writer, and one who took a special delight in paradoxes. He can, I think, clearly lay claim to the honor of first using the term “Anarchy” to designate a society in which order of the highest degree coexisted with absence of government. Proudhon’s system of philosophy is accessible to the English reader in Benjamin R. Tucker’s translations of his ‘What Is Property?’ and ‘System of Economical Contradictions.’ As to the true teachings of Proudhon there is considerable doubt. There are two schools of thought, each claiming the name of ‘Anarchist,’ yet these two schools are diametrically opposed, both in their methods and in their ultimate aims. They both claim to draw their doctrines and inspiration from the nebulous writings of Proudhon. They are designated respectively the ‘Communist Anarchists’ and the ‘Individualist Anarchists.’ The Communists are, as their name implies, believers in absolute equality in the use of wealth. Their motto is, “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.” This school is represented in this country by John Most; in Europe, by Prince Kropotkin, the Russian Nihilist, and by Elisée Réclus, the French geographer. This is the school that teaches dynamite and the torch as the only way in which the social problem can be solved. They preach revolution in the most revolting manner.
“The other school of Anarchists is the individualistic. It is not revolutionary. It seeks to destroy the wrongs in the present system by purely peaceful means. It is called individualistic because it teaches that the individual is everything and the government nothing. It seeks to destroy government. It goes upon the wrong hypothesis that government is soon to cease in the social organism; There is nothing to fear from the advocates of this school. They are simply led astray by their intense fear of anything savoring of government. It may surprise some, but it is true, nevertheless, that this school finds many of its arguments formulated in the writings of Herbert Spencer and the historian Buckle.
“Now, in what sense can it be said that Christ was an Anarchist? In the revolutionary, Communistic sense? Certainly not; for was he not the prince of peace? Was he an Anarchist in the individualist sense? No; for does he not tell us to “render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s,” thereby recognizing the necessity for human government?”
Father Malone’s desire to be fair to the various schools is evident, and if he will but continue his studies, so well begun, he will no longer be in doubt as to which school has the right to claim Proudhon.
Father Malone is greatly mistaken when, in speaking of individualistic Anarchists, he says: “There is nothing to fear from the advocates of this school” It is precisely from this school, and from no other, that the bourgeoisie must anticipate its overthrow, because it is the only school that will abolish privileges, all the others merely proposing to redistribute them. C.
Mr. Donisthorpe on the French Reaction.
[Westminster Gazette.]
Sir: — The tragic fate of her justly popular president has left France in a natural and pardonable state of hysterics; but why England should join in the chorus of impotent and frantic raving is harder to explain. The most probable explanation seems to be that neither the French nor English people have any clear idea of the meaning of Anarchy. May I endeavor to throw some light on the subject through the medium of your columns? We may then form an opinion as to how far the tyrannical bill introduced by the French government into the Chamber on Monday is a just and prudent measure, and how far it is the reactionary outcome of panic.
It begins by what we should call the suspension of the right to a habeas corpus, so far as Anarchists and their apologists are concerned. That is to say, persons charged with the offence of “propagating Anarchist doctrines” are no longer to be tried by a jury. Thus a new offence is created, and anyone charged with the offence already forfeits his right to a habeas corpus. The maximum penalty is two years’ solitary confinement and a fine of 2,000 francs, and the judge has a discretionary power of sentencing the convicted person to transportation. Lest, in the absence of a jury, the public and the press should take upon themselves the functions of a jury, or at any rate of a Greek chorus, clause 4 empowers the judges to prohibit, under heavy penalties, the publication of the whole or any part of the report of the trial.
If this bill becomes law, Russian justice will cease to be a by-word. The records of Star Chamber and the Holy Inquisition will be outdone.
And now what is this new offence, “propagating Anarchist doctrines?” And what is Anarchy? The Anarchist advocates a condition of society called Anarchy, which, as the term implies, is a State without rulers. And by ruler is meant a person who enjoys the one-sided privilege of coercing others. Those political thinkers who hold that the government or State should take over all the elements of production, and control all the acts of citizens for their good, are called Collectivists or Socialists. Those who hold the precisely opposite contention are called Individualists or Anarchists. Other politicians take up positions somewhere between these two. There are infinite gradations between them. Thus, the Protectionist leans towards Socialism, the Free Trader towards Anarchism. The Church leans towards Socialism, the Liberationist towards Anarchism. The Anarchist is a man of peace. He hates and resents aggression; he upholds the liberty of the citizen. And just as Napoleon III. declared that he went to war with Prussia because (in the words of his proclamation) “we wish to obtain a lasting peace”; just as John Bright so loved peace that he was ready to go to war to obtain it; so some hot-headed, enthusiastic Anarchist so loves liberty and detests aggression that he cannot wait for society to evolve, but himself takes up the weapons of aggression in order to put a stop to aggression. This is sad; it is pitiable; but is it not natural?
There sits Sir William Harcourt, hatching a plot to pick my pocket. Without charging him with conscious immorality, Mr. Auberon Herbert puts him in the same category with the other pickpockets. But Mr. Auberon Herbert will not put a bomb in his bed. All the leading Anarchists deplore these outbursts of political fanaticism quite as sincerely as, and perhaps more sincerely than, the Parnellites deplored the rascally work of the Clan-na-Gael. I say unhesitatingly that it would be every bit as rational and as politic to make it an offence to advocate Irish Nationalism because some blackguards of that creed practise moon-lighting, as it is to penalize the advocacy of Individualism because three or four impatient youths choose to wreak their vengeance on their oppressors in a criminal and utterly inefficacious way. Our Individualism should be tempered with a recognition of the slow development of society. The strong, growing lad chafes against the paternal discipline, but he should “grin and bide it” till he is old enough to assume the toga virilis. He should not strike his father back, even though able to do so with impunity.
So let all Anarchists growl good-humoredly over the insolent and cowardly interferences, extortions, and bullyings of a paternal State in its dotage, but let them remember that Socialism and despotism were necessary once. But although this advice is probably sound in this country, where, after all, we lovers of liberty find life tolerable in spite of “law and order,” it does not follow that it is sound in France or Russia, or even in Ashantee. If the French State deliberately throws down the gauntlet to Individualism, and itself proclaims a relentless vendetta, probably the best advice to haters of tyranny would be that of the late Lord Bramwell, “Either obey the law or quit the country,” — and more especially quit the country. The descendants of the Huguenots are still among us to accord them a hearty welcome.
Cicero said the Titans were asses to war against the gods, — or words to that effect, — but if the Titans had got the best of it, Cicero would have said that the gods were asses to war against the Titans. If the professional assassins of our liberties succeed in stamping out the amateur assassins of the professionals, our modern Cicerones will say, “What idiots are these Vaillents and Caserios!” But if, on the other hand ––– Wordsworth Donisthorpe.
The Hill “Anti-Anarchist” Bill.
[New York Evening Post.]
Congressman Warner was quite right in objecting to the passage, by lightning express, of Senator Hill’s bill to prevent alien Anarchists from coming into the United States, and to provide for deporting those now here. The method of procedure under this bill is that which is known in Russia as administrative process. The superintendent of immigration is the person to apply administrative process in the United States of America. It provides that whenever this officer is satisfied by the oath or affirmation of anybody that somebody is an alien Anarchist, he may issue his warrant for the suspected person and cause him to be taken into custody, and forthwith hear the evidence upon the charge, and if he is satisfied upon the hearing that such person is an alien Anarchist, and that his presence in this country is a menace to the government and to the peace and well-being of society in general, he shall cause him to be returned to the country whence he came. A declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States is declared to be no bar to proceedings under the act. Appeals are allowed to the secretary of the treasury, whose decision is final, but the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is graciously allowed to the prisoner, — probably because the constitution declares that it shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.
It is amazing that a bill of this sort could pass the Senate of the United States either with or without debate. We believe that it was actually without debate. It is not stated in the bill that Anarchism is a crime. Probably this omission was intentional, because if it were a crime, the offender would be entitled to a trial by jury. But if it is not a crime, what is it? Are people to be banished for no crime? Nobody knows or can know. There is no definition of Anarchism either in this bill, or in any statute, or in the common law. If a man were arrested for Anarchism, the first inquiry would be — what is it? Prof. H. L. Osgood published an article on “Scientific Anarchism” in the “Political Science Quarterly” a few years ago. If resort were had to that authority (which is certainly high, in the absence of anything in the law dictionary), the severest superintendent of immigration would not have the heart to deport a scientific Anarchist, because he is as different from Caserio Santo as Mr. Howells is from John Most. Supposing, however, that we had a recognized definition of Anarchism, and that the constitution allowed us to dispense with trial by jury for that offence, would not the early experiment of the alien and sedition laws of 1798 teach politicians to refrain from punishing people for their options? It is not the promulgation of an opinion that this bill proposes to deal with, but the holding of it; and the fact that it is held is to be ascertained by parol testimony of others without the safeguards of a court of law, — in fact, by Russian administrative process. Such a concoction of tyranny and absurdity has not been brought to light in a hundred years of our history, if ever.
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.
