[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.
Simon dit Biscuit, the young fellow who was sentenced with Ravachol to life imprisonment on account of the dynamite explosions, has since been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for another offence. Presumably the State has made a contract with the Church to build a jail in hell for the enforcement of the later sentence. But what if, after all, Simon dit Biscuit should knock at the gates of heaven, and Simon dit Peter should let him in?
Barondess has been pardoned. Governor Flower grants the pardon because Barondess’s act in insisting that a firm of employers should pay a certain sum to their employees as a condition of the latter’s going to work had not, at the time he committed it, been pronounced a crime by the courts. But now, adds the Governor, the law has been established and let others beware. It seems to me that labor, in seeking this pardon for Barondess, has accepted the situation which the authorities have made for it and seriously crippled itself. Mass meetings should be held to declare that the pardon petition was presented merely as a means of rescuing Barondess from his enemies and not as a recognition of the justice of the outrageous decision that labor may not rightfully name the terms on which it will work. It is reported that Barondess, on hearing the news of his pardon, declared that a great victory had been won for labor. A few more such victories, and labor will be “in the soup.”
Henry D. Chapin, M. D., contributes a trivial article to the June number of the “Popular Science Monthly” on the “Survival of the Unfit.” The unfit are the paupers, criminals, lunatics, etc. After arguing in favor of efforts to cure and rehabilitate the unfit in reformatories, schools, and other institutions for their bodily and mental training, Mr. Chapin goes on to say that more attention should be given to prevention of crime and vice. “Let our greatest energies,” he exhorts, “be devoted to combating the conditions that are at work in society producing the unfit, rather than so industriously providing for their survival. When such a class is formed [a class of unfit, mark], it should be permanently isolated from the rest of society. Recent legislation in Ohio adjudges a person an habitual criminal when convicted of a third offence, under which he may be held for life. This law is based on sound physiology and psychology. Such a permanent quarantine should be applied to all tramps, cranks, and generally worthless beings.” The italics and small capitals are mine. Should such a plan be adopted, the first person to take the medicine would doubtless be the inventor of it. The man who favors the permanent isolation of “cranks” and “generally worthless” beings is clearly himself a crank and a worthless being. I fear that the editor of the “Popular Science Monthly” would have to accompany his contributor into permanent isolation, it certainly being symptomatic of a high degree of “worthlessness” to allow a writer to advance in his magazine the perfectly monstrous suggestion that cranks and generally worthless persons ought to be permanently isolated. Can the editor define the word “crank”; can he tell us how he proposes to determine worthlessness in another? Would he allow a majority to act upon their idea of crankiness or worthlessness? It is rather extraordinary for a professed believer in Mr. Spencer’s individualism to sanction a plan to apply the outrageous Ohio method of dealing with alleged habitual drunkards to all cranks and worthless persons.
Murder Foul and Murder Fair.
[Octave Mirbeau in L’Echo de Paris.]
When I read anywhere that a man has been condemned to death because he has killed, it always seems to me an extraordinary and disconcertingly unjust thing. I could understand the condemnation to death of people who refuse to be killed; they are derelict in their social duties. But in a society founded exclusively on murder is it not illogical to a degree bordering on madness to guillotine those who kill?
The necessity of killing is born in man with the necessity of eating and is confounded with it. This instinctive necessity, which is the basis and motive of all living organisms, is developed rather than curbed by education; religions sanctify it, instead of cursing it; everything conspires to make it the pivot upon which our admirable society turns. As soon as man awakens to consciousness, the spirit of murder is breathed into his brain. Murder, lifted into duty, popularized into heroism, will accompany him through all the stages of his life. He will be made to worship strange gods, insane gods, who take pleasure only in cataclysms and who mow down peoples like crops of wheat; he will be made to respect only heroes, those disgusting brutes all red with human blood; virtues by which he will raise himself above others, by which he will hope to gain glory, fortune, pleasure — love, like courage, for example — will rest solely on murder. He will find in war the supreme synthesis of the eternal and universal craze for murder, murder regularized and regimented, obligatory murder considered as a necessity from which he cannot escape, murder toward which he does not feel himself impelled in order to satisfy revenge or a vice or an interest, or the horrible joy of a physiological pleasure, murder in short as a social function. Wherever he may go, whatever he may do, always will be seen this word “murder” immortally inscribed upon the front of the vast slaughter-house called humanity.
Then why do you expect this man, in whom you have inculcated a contempt for human life, whom you consecrate to assassination when such is your pleasure, to shrink from murder, when it serves his interest or amuses him?
In the name of what right, of what principle, does society condemn the assassins, who in reality have only conformed to the homicidal laws which it enacts and followed the bloody examples which it sets them? Assassins at least have an excuse superior to any which Napoleon, Thiers, and Bismarck could plead. “We did not make the laws.” they could say; we have nothing to do with social arrangements. What do you expect? One day you tell us to kill; you force us to strike down a multitude of people whom we do not know, against whom we have no hatred. And the more we kill the more you thank us, and the more money and honors you shower upon us! Another day, trusting in your protection, we slay beings because we detest them, because we desire their money, their wives, what-not? In fine, we have a reason. And your police come to arrest us. Yesterday this pleased you, to-day it displeases you. Really, we ought to come to some understanding.
The Voice of Liberty.
When the old earth was young
And all things living sung
In joy of life and praise of liberty,
The Gods foresaw, no doubt,
That fear which doth crush out
The worship of it, cringing eye and knee
Of man, who kneels to man for grace,
So may he work and eat a little space.
Therefore, O faithful sea,
The Makers gave to thee
A voice rebellious, which should never cease
In shine or storm to lift,
Over the flying drift
Of spray, strong cries to war and not soft sounds of peace,
Lest freedom on the sphere should be
Chained hand and foot through man’s low lethargy.
Miriam Daniell.
To H. B.
Lena, of all who called me friend in name.
And all who said they loved me more than life,
Who did compete for favor with sweet strife.
And watched me close through long years without blame.
How few at last could judge me by my aim,
Or trust me when I cut with spirit knife
Those false ties which but gave me name of wife,
Yet which were making me exist — a lie!
But you, dear sister woman, saw beyond
Mere form and custom, and were unafraid,
Hearing the pathos of the human cry.
To stake your reputation as a maid.
And find society in tree and sky,
Denied by those you sought, like Christ, to aid.
Miriam.
Truth and Freedom.
[Chicago Unity.]
“The Truth is yours, and it shall make you free.”
So spake the teacher in rapt prophecy.
Alas, how well this other text is learned,
From prophets stoned and faithful martyrs burned:
If Truth alone can make us free in sooth,
Freedom alone can give us perfect Truth.
John Basil Barnhill.
“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.
A Suggestion to the Democrats.
If there is one thing more than another upon which all protectionists are agreed, it is that a high protective tariff is advantageous, if not necessary, to wage-workers. Whether high tariffs benefit workmen by raising wages or by maintaining the standard fixed otherwise, is a point far from settled among protectionist philosophers and economists. Of course this difficulty does not seriously embarrass the protectionist politician. He solves the problem in the simplest possible way: before election, the tariff unquestionably tends to raise wages, while after election the impossibility of adducing a single case of an advance in wages due to increased duties is blindly said to puzzle no one but the ignorant tariff-reformers, who so absurdly misconceive the protectionist position as to expect high duties to raise wages, when it can be demonstrated in the clearest manner that tariffs can do no more than maintain wages already fixed at a high level by the superior civilization of the country. Such “political” explications do not find their way even into protectionist “science,” however, and the question of the precise effect of high duties must therefore be regarded as still unsettled. But for all practical if not theoretical purposes, we may, without unfairness, impute to all protectionists the contention that a high tariff at least maintains (in an economic and scientific sense, of course, since, practically, no such effects can be proved) a high rate of wages Now positing this proposition as a fair statement of the case of protection, a practical suggestion occurs to me which I beg to commend to the consideration of the tariff-reform Democrats in Congress. With a view to secure conformity to the principles of protection on the part of the tariff beneficiaries, and to remove the annoying discrepancy between the theory and the facts, why not amend the tariff laws by inserting a provision prohibiting manufacturers or other employers engaged in the protected industries from making any reduction in the wages of their workmen? The propriety of such an amendment can hardly be disputed by consistent and more or less intelligent protectionists, while its urgency is certainly apparent to all. Regardless of the scientific demonstrations and “political” asseverations that the tariff at least maintains the rate of wages as it finds it, manufacturers go on calmly reducing wages and inducing disbelief in the truths of protection. Can the selfishness and greed of such wicked employers be allowed to undermine the foundations of American civilization, and neutralize the effects of scientific teaching? Perish the very thought! If the tariff clearly maintains the rate of wages while the protected employers just as clearly lower it, it is the “right and duty” of the champions of protection in Congress to compel the employers to fulfil the scientific law of protection by doing that which the tariff fully enables them to do, — pay a high rate of wages. There is no reason, then, why the Democratic majority in Congress should hesitate about adopting our suggestion, and at once proceed to amend the tariff law in the way indicated. The Republicans will be estopped from complaining by the manifest reasonableness and necessity of the proceeding from their own standpoint, while those who look with disfavor upon all governmental attempts at regulating wages or any other matters within the jurisdiction of free contract will easily discover a justification for this attempt to test the sincerity and faith of the protectionists. V. Y.
The Even Hands of Justice.
I learn from a London newspaper that a decision has been rendered by a certain high court condemning a dentist who saw fit to advertise his business. The dentists, it seems, like the doctors and certain other professional classes, have formed a close trade union to keep up their charges, and any one guilty of such open competitive methods as advertising is rated as a quack and blackleg. “In our profession,” said the judge, “a member is not allowed to advertise that his talents are superior or that he will do his advocacy cheaper,” and the same ethics, it is held, should be applied to dentists. It is remarkable, however, that, in the controversy between the workmen’s trade unions and the “scabs,” the sympathies of these judges are on the side of the blacklegs and the free-laborers. The poor scab is praised for resisting the tyranny of labor organizations, while the professional and rich “scab” is censured for “infamous and disgraceful conduct” when he resists the tyranny of rich trade unions. The London “Daily News,” a “Liberal” organ, approves of the judges’ decision, which it declares to be “clearly in the right direction.” The reason for favoring a different law for the rich trade unionist than the law applied to laborers is that “dentists gain a distinct advantage by having their names registered, and therefore there can be no objection to extending to them that unwritten code which forbids advertising in other professions.” I am unable to see how it follows from this that it is proper for the State to enforce the monopolist regulations of the rich trade unions. There may be some reason for extending to dentists the unwritten code which governs the conduct of other professions; but the State has no business to enforce this unwritten code, either in the case of the dentists or in any other case. The tenets of the latter-day Liberals are anything but liberal. V. Y.
Not in Hell.
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil had dined in the ebony dining-halls of the underworld, and lingered over their dusky vintage, speaking of the latest lot of souls received that day within the stern doors of their dominion.
Said Satan, with malevolent look of intellect divorced from love: “A queer consignment terribly mixed in transit, but they are all assorted at last, and will, with a little training, make as good and useful citizens as any in our realm. The puffy-faced speculator, fresh from the Stock Exchange, complained of the sulphur at first. We easily settled that little affair. Mon Dieu! He is seasoned by this time.”
Quoth the wrinkled World, adjusting a heavy crown full of sham gems upon her painted brow; “Did he really imagine the atmosphere would be altered for him? He flew high and fell low. Bah! How silly he was to have been unsuccessful and let apoplexy take him by the throat! Can you inform us, Mrs. Flesh, why those Stock Exchange gamblers resolve themselves into a few types so readily? Cheeks like large buns, often pimpled, and heavy lower jaw?”
“I am sure I cannot tell for the life of me why you ask me,” cried the coarse, voluptuous woman, with a coquettish leer at the Devil. “I protest you know the gentleman as well as I. If they have money to spend upon me, I do not care if they are as ugly as bishops for my part. And I am not clever. Ask Mr. Satan your learned questions about types.”
She patted with her soft caressing hand the flat cranium of a glittering green snake which twined about her arm, a living jewel. The Devil leaned his chin upon his hand and looked at her with his hawk eyes. In that position one could see the sloping head with its huge development of will-power.
“These worthy gentlemen from the Stock Exchange have rapacious jaws; their greed is indicated in their faces. It is a trivial matter, not worth discussion. Miss Flesh, those flaming roses with their hearts of fire hang about your shapely form in most alluring wreaths. From which wall did you gather them?”
“I am flattered,” cried the girl, delightedly, “to have deceived you, our arch Deceiver. These roses, which you admire, are no ordinary lurid blooms of Hell. They were made for me by a poor artist yonder, who tinted them with the burning blushes of such of my lovers as have been discovered adoring me by their fellows. This one is quite fine, is it not? See, it is made up of the evanescent flushes of the clergy who were to-day detected in sensuality.”
“Indeed!” said Satan, imperiously stretching his hand for it. “That was good; they seldom can be caught. Who, by the bye, was that smart man who seemed quite at home down here at once, and who chatted familiarly to you while I was examining the lot from America? A Chicago man, was he not?”
“O, yes! a charming fellow,” answered the World, enthusiastically, “a dear fellow, quite one with us heart and soul. He has starved more workers — men, women, and children — than any other capitalist in the New World. A leading philanthropist, with the money thus obtained full of schemes for the poor; a lover of law and order. He was telling us about the Chicago Anarchists. What a lot of cash it cost him to get the dangerous nest cleared out, and have the leaders hung. They were likely to have checked the tide that sets to your shores, it appears my good Sir, in doing away with usury, coercive government, and poverty. Our friend asked to meet them, but it seems they are not in our kingdom. He had made sure to meet them, although of course he knew that they were not guilty on that charge of bomb-throwing.”
“Alas!” said Satan, frowning, “those men were full of love for their kind and did not belong here. Had they been happy at the time of their appeal to the people to free themselves from slavery, they would have been more honored in their country than Washington and Lincoln are; whose records are really bloody, but whose wars had fortunate issue. As it is, the memory of Anarchists is execrated by the ignorant, which is a very good thing for us.”
“Heigho!” sighed Miss Flesh, pouting her full lips and shrugging her round shoulders, “you and Mrs. Grundy are always so deep; forever talking of business, I am bored to death with you. Let us dance and jest a little; are you intending to remain here all night?”
Who could resist her? Certainly not Satan, the gallant fiend, for he rose at once, looped his tail elegantly over his arm, and bowed as the ladies led the way to the drawing-room. Miriam Daniell.
A Sample Sunday Circus.
[San Francisco Egoism.]
One Sunday in April, the People’s Free Lyceum of this city was to discuss the question, “What is Philosophical Anarchy?” The hall was soon filled with people, only a few of whom had worn the hair off the upper corners of their foreheads against sociological problems. A good-natured man with a white tie and a nicely-fitting black suit and moustache was chosen chairman, and the mill was set agrinding. My friend H. C. B. Cowell, one of the editors of former “Enfant Terrible,” championed our cause. He executed his plan of battle well, but his plan was not the one I should have pursued. He was in the affirmative, and took the negative ground of proving that majority rule is inexpedient and a social failure because it defeats equal freedom, whereupon it follows that Anarchism is the correct social principle. My plan would be to state the necessity of equal freedom and present Anarchism as a consistent expression of it. showing where Anarchistic principles are acknowledged in the existing social order and where their exercise is abridged, along with the results. Then I should show the difference between State Socialism and Anarchism, and show that majority rule and proxy representation, the absurd and tyrannous practice of the existing social order, is the principle of State Socialism, and that the local jury system, as proposed by the pamphlet “Free Political Institutions,” disposes of every pretext for majority rule and proxy representation. Indeed, the State Socialists drove the question to this point once, but no speaker seemed to know of this clincher, and they tallied a point when they asked, “How will you administer equal freedom?” and were not explicitly answered. Unable to longer restrain myself at this point, I followed the detestable example set at these meetings of breaking in upon the speaker with, “By the local jury system,” which the State Socialists applauded as a great witticism, and which our men failed to catch onto. It might be asked why I did not come to the rescue, if I knew so much. The question is pertinent and the answer forthcoming: I am built with an oral safety-damper, so that I cannot become a martyr from radical utterances at public meetings. I am often aware of what I think, when seated, but the moment I rise before an audience the damper drops, and my mind is all shut off except the consciousness that I am before a congregation of countenances who are expecting me to say something. And, my mind being void of thought, I sit down upon the spring that brought me to my feet. This spring is, indeed, the test of talent at these meetings. The nimblest man gets the floor. My friend, H. W. Youmans, declares it the most orthodox conception he ever heard of to draw the line on free speech at rheumatism, as he here witnessed. The most unmitigable nuisance at these meetings in this regard is a bantam-mannered jesuit, one Patrick Healy. He sits lashing his sides with his attitude and springs to his feet at the close of every speech, whether he has a point or not. I understand he has been a reader of Liberty for years, and has, if I remember right, elicited some compliments from its editor, but he declared once and again and again that philosophical Anarchism means the destruction of society and that the latter can never exist without government. I fear that, if my sociologic master had attended that meeting, he would have come away a very much discouraged man upon witnessing the incompleteness with which his carefully-stated social science is absorbed by men whom he has believed strong and consistent Anarchists.* Even H. Royer, who could not afford to disentangle “Egoism’s” ideas, believes that “there are Anarchists and Anarchists.”
In addition to Mr. Cowell’s principal efforts, George Cummings made a good reply to some criticisms of Anarchism, and Clara Dixon Davidson, one of the editors of former “Enfant Terrible,” put in a few sharp hits. Then a student from Stanford University, who is a reader of this paper, nailed a number of Collectivist absurdities. A man who claimed to have never before heard of philosophical Anarchism, made some meritorious remarks, which indicated that there is a considerable number of people in the skilled and professional classes ripening for the scientific sociological conception if it were presented to them by careful exponents.
In the discussion one or two of the State Socialists spoke soberly and seemed willing to appeal to the logical faculty alone, but the rest appealed to the emotions only, or resorted to the politicians’ trick of working horselaughs on surface criticisms. Others were content with emissions of personal abuse. Notable among these was a sharp-featured old he maid with snaky lisp and spiteful inflection, who elaborated on the proposition that Mr. Cowell was crazy. Then there was another with a swallow-tailed mouth about which he wore an intensely Prince Albert coat, who competed with Mr. Healy for the floor and devoted his time to demolishing the straw men he manufactured from a misstatement of Mr. Cowell’s words. A man with a threadbare scalp and pelvic susceptibility declared that it is one’s duty to defend his wife, mother, daughter, or sister, but not his son, father, or brother. Mothers-in-law were not catalogued in either list. He also averred that bomb-throwing is bad taste, to say the least. He was not without a redeeming trait, however, for when he was hissed for some fogy remark, he retaliated with the sarcasm, “Serpents and geese alone hiss.” He omitted prejudice. While another was speaking, the acting usher arose and asked some men at the door to come to the front for seats, whereupon the speaker, hearing the voice of a known opponent, supposed he had asked a question, and indignantly shouted: “Wait till I’m through; you are always putting in when there is opposition argument!” Then, intensifying the ridiculous into the indescribable, he mistook the spontaneous burst of laughter that followed for an applause of his rebuke. Any one breaks in whenever he likes, and he and the speaker have a little parenthetical discussion, after which the latter proceeds with his remarks. The sessions last three hours and are the ideal of “Free Communism,” with the exception that the speakers are limited to a certain time.
For those who like to hear themselves advocate, and for the fanatically devoted, these meetings area fount of ecstatic delight, but I fail to see much other use for them. If some individual were engineering them, and would select the ablest from both sides, allowing each set to arrange as to who should elaborate on and emphasize particular points in their doctrine, such meetings could be made interesting and somewhat profitable, but, as it is, they are a kind of Socialistic cat fight, where the same Thomases go every Sunday for a little promiscuous bout, accented with the same squalls and spits all around. At the best, public debate is a relic of the arena of physical combat, and addresses the emotions too much for the best deductive results. It is not like print, where one can return and ponder over and analyze a new suggestion and still be in plenty of time for the next sentence, which stays put all day.
Like any plug, this meeting finally stopped. Then iron-featured State-Socialists, with inflexible notions and large quids of tobacco, strode sternly out, while their champions, with an esthetic air and flaming neckties, looked neither to the right nor to the left as they floated heroically into the “cannibalism of competition” below; unassuaged combatants, with “clinchers” so newly-born that they carried parturitive odors, sallied upon each other with the same old result; pathetic Collectivists, with doughy countenances and proselyting proclivities, approached and yearningly allowed their tender solicitude to melt upon and run down over hard-headed Anarchists, who refused to yield to public argument. A girl with a sailor collarbone and an intellectual waste observed that “us Socialists should hold our meetings separate and not waste time debating with Anarchists.” Then I extravagantly wiped my nose with my silk handkerchief and sagely departed. On the ferry I saw a State Socialistic champion sitting near the music feeling refined, and then drop a coin in the contribution box as he dreamed of the day when the pressure of a button should inject enough State music into his altruistic soul to put him to sleep in his room. And thus reform goes merrily on while you wait.
* It was less a surprise when Healy abandoned Anarchism than when he adopted it. Still he is brainy and brilliant, and it is hard to tell whether he is more a meteor or a jesuit. I guess he deserved my compliments and will never get any more. — Editor Liberty.
England’s Gary.
The injustice committed in the sentence of Sam Fielden to life imprisonment after that ever memorable speech in Judge Gary’s court in which he made his innocence as clear as noonday is almost paralleled in England by Justice Hawkins in inflicting a ten-year sentence upon Frederick Charles after a speech from the prisoner which showed that at heart he believed in the achievement of Anarchy through peaceful methods, although he had inconsiderately lent himself for a moment to the furtherance of the terroristic policy in Russia. The following synopsis of Charles’s speech is from the Birmingham “Post:”
Before sentence was passed, the prisoners were asked if they had any statement to make. Charles said he wished to repudiate the literature that had been introduced into the case before one court or another twelve or thirteen times. Every time part of the literature had been read as if it had some connection with Anarchism as they understood it. He had taken a great deal of pains to ascertain what Anarchist ideas were, and from his own personal knowledge he was sure that not a single Anarchist in Europe would agree that what had been read was in any way their ideas. Such ideas could not be found in any recognized journal, and it was not possible for Anarchists to hold them. He had no wish to shirk the responsibility for his own ideas. Anarchism to them meant a change of the basis of society, not a change accompanied by any kind of violence. Their agitation had been to establish an educational propaganda. The Walsall club was open to anyone to attend; It was even a few steps from the police station; their meetings were held in the streets, and they had always asked for opposition at all their meetings. The literature they had for sale had been exposed in the window. If anyone had followed the lines of social agitation, they would find that it was an educational propaganda, and in no sense did they fall in with the idea of explosions. What they were opposed to could not be changed by any sudden frightening of people. As to the literature, he believed that it was police literature, and was paid for with secret service money in France. The article in Cails’s handwriting was not original; it was copied from an Anarchical document, with the view of the ideas set forth there being discussed at the club. He had had opportunities of watching Cails closely, and he was sure he was a warm-hearted, frank man, and had in no way initiated the scheme. It was the best part of his nature that had got him mixed up in this police-manufactured plot. The things were never intended to be used in England. It was an impossible policy for Anarchists in England or any other country. The best part of Cails’s nature had been enlisted in behalf of the evils of the system in Russia. The system of government in Russia was barbarous in the extreme, and the difficulties of altering it were immensely different to what they were in any similar country. The real fact of the matter was that they were unable to get any sufficient guarantee that the things were not for use in Russia, and they abandoned them, and would not go any further. At the time he was under the impression that they were for the use of some friends in Russia, and he was willing to lend his hand in helping them under difficulties which were so immense. The difficulties in Russia were so different to what they were elsewhere, and he was prepared to do what he could to help the people there. He recognized that the policy of explosions was utterly impossible to be carried out in this country, and it was in no sense the policy of the Anarchist party here.
The Cost of Consistency in France.
[Le Temps.]
An exciting incident occurred at Rouen at the opening of the assizes. The jury had just been empanelled in the case of a certain Lerey, charged with abuse of confidence, when M. Gadeau de Kerville, on being asked to make oath, answered that he could not admit the formula of the oath which had just been read to him. “This formula,” said he,“contains an hypothesis which I consider false, — God. Suppress the word, and I will take the oath.”
Despite the objurgations of the judge and the prosecuting attorney, who pointed out to him that the formula of the oath, being fixed by law, could not be changed. M. Gadeau de Kerville persisted in his refusal. The court, applying articles 396 and 398 of the code, then sentenced M. Gadeau de Kerville to pay a fine of 500 frances and costs. The court further authorized the prisoner’s counsel to bring suit against M. Gadeau de Kerville for damages to his client, whose case, in consequence of this incident, had to be postponed to the August term.
Governmental Reform.
If to reform the government you question whether,
I cry with Hamlet: “Oh, reform it altogether!”
Harry Lyman Koopman.
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.
