extracted largely from the writings of
MONTAIGNE, PAINE, THOREAU, EMERSON and TOLSTOY—Gaul, Anglo-Saxons, Slav—Each Secure on Fame's Eternal Bead Roll,
"For always in thine eyes, 0 Liberty /
Shirus that high, light whereby the world is saved;
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee."*
%
Comradie of common people, will you; won't you, cant become as little children," and. in readies these lines and between these lines, catch now-and-again glints of the Glory that Mother Liberty holds in solution for the race when the units will trust her?
Both sides must in justice be heard before righteous Judgment can be rendered.
A TRACT FOR THE TIMES FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION.
HENRY BOOL, PUBLISHER, ITHACA, N. Y.
Earnest invitation for open-minded reading of this 'Booklet is hereby extended. Should you not cart to ready retainj or band to a frimd who will do so, publisher mil look upon it as a favor to have it returned to bim.
. —•Written by John Hay in lang-syme days, when* Jt would stem, true liberty-sap was w him.
Lab.
L. L«o. bsq
«-f 7 >
These excerpts are dedicated to the fourth estate in the hope that such goodly company may—perchance—induce it to boost the hoary movement in favor of ignorance less, and help along the modern movement for public enlightenment more, despite the following lamentable facts as set down in the "Confessions of A Provincial Editor/' that: "The ultimate editor of a small newspaper is the advertiser, the biggest advertiser is the politician." This is a maxim experience has ground with its heel into the fabric of my soul. We all remember Emerson's brilliantly un-New-England advice, "Hitch your wagon to a star." This saying is of no value to newspapers, for they find stars poor motive power. Theoretically, it must be granted that newspapers, of all business ventures, should properly be hitched to a star. Yet I have found that if any hitching is to be done it must be to the successful politician. Amending Mr. Emerson, I have found it the best rule to "Yoke your newspaper to the politician in power." * * * I havs reached the "masses." I tell people what they knew before hand, and thus flatter them. Aiming to instruct them, I should offend. God is with the biggest circulations,, and we must have
them even if we appeal to class prejudioe now #
and then. "Paracelsus."—Atlantic Monthly, March, 1902.
"Above all nations is humanity." Emblematic of this now much obscured truth, and devoid of art or method, there are here stitched together sincere thoughts from the intellect of about all the "civilized" nations of this earth. Even the "barbarian" Boer, Filipino, and Cuban, can be depended on for grist to this God's liberty mill. Indeed, in tihe words of the Hibernian metaphor, no adult "can open his mouth without putting his foot in it," as to undying love for freedom.
"One can lead a horse to water, but fifty can't make it drink." Now in a way that's much the same, opportunity may be offered for the slaking of mental thirst, and yet the offer be far from accepted of the very ones that should be the most famished. Yet it is essential for each genus homo to taste for itself or be merely human driftwood.
You are here and now offered a few dropa from the bucket of emancipation literature. It Is to be hoped you will drink thereof.
I
Chains are not other -than chains though fashioned of gold, I cry; Nor is liberty less than a boon, though thou hast but a cup and a crust.
Better a bed in the fields and a man's heart at dawn in the sky Than a luxury great as a king's where a voice ever utters, "Thou must."
—William Francis Barnard.
AS TAUGHT BY MONTAIGNE.
Do thy deed and know thyself.
A wise man never loses anything if he have himself.
You and a companion are theatre enough to one another, or you to yourself.
Ttoe greatest thing In the world is for a man to know that he is his own.
You are no more to concern yourself how the world talke of you, but how you are to ta'lk to yourself.
We must break the knot of our obligation*, how strong eoever, and hereafter love this or that, but espouse nothing T>ut ourselves.
We ought to hold with all our force, both of hands and teeth the use of the pleasures of illfe that one after another our year* snatch away from us.
Myself am the matter of my book; there's no
reason thou should'st employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore, farewell.—From the Preface to his Essays.
To speak less of one's self than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value is pusillanimity and cowardice.
Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepare yourself there to receive yourself; it were folly to trust yourself in your' own hands if you cannot govern yourself.
We have lived long enough for others; let us, at least, live out the small remnant of life for ourselves; let us now call in our thoughts : nd intentions to ourselves.
It is a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently sure. I have nothing mine but myself.
It is not enough to get remote from the public; 'tis not enough to shift the soil only; a man must tlee from the popular conditions that have taken possession of his soul, he must sequester and come again to himself.
Let us so order it that our con-tent may depend wholly upon ourselves; let us dissolve all obligations that ally us to others; let us obtain this from ourselves, that we may live alone in good earnest and live at our ense too.
RENDER TRUE REPORT.
I am of opinion that a man must be very cautious how he values himself and equally conscientious to give a true report, be it better, or worse, impartially. If I thought myself perfectly good and wise I would rattle it out to some purpose.
My trade and art Is to live; he that forbids me -to speak according to my own sense, experience and practice, may as well enjoin an architect not to speak of building according to his own knowledge, but according to that of his neighbor;
according to the knowledge of another and not according to his own.
Our own death does not sufficiently terrify and trouble us; let us, moreover, charge ourselves with those of our wives, children and family: our own affairs do not afford us anxiety enough; let us undertake those of our neighbors and friends, still more to break our brains and torment us.
As for the fine sayiDg, with which ambition and avarice palliate their vices, that we are not born for ourselves but for the pubMc, let ui boldly appeal to those who are in public affairs; let them lay their 'hands upon their hearts and ■then say whether, on the contrary, they do rather aspire to titles and offices and that tumult of the world to make their private advantage at the public expense.
The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis tithe mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools, still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality - fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors. There is nothing so much, nor so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws. Whoever obeys them because they are just, does not justly obey them as he ought.
In our ordinary actions there ift not one of a thousand that ooncern ourselves. He that thou seest scrambling up the ruin® of the wall, f urious and -transported, against wthom so many shots are levelled; and that other ail over ecars, jiale and fainting with) hunger, and yet resolved rath** to die than to open the gates to him; dost thou think -that these men are there upon their own account? No; peradventure in the behalf of one whom they neveT saw and who never concerns himself for their pains and danger, but 'lies wallowing the while in sloth and pleasure.
Hail, spirit of revolt, thou spirit of life, Child of the ideal, daughter of the far-away truth I Without thee nations drag on in a living death; Without thee is stagnation and arrested growth: Without thee Europe and America would be sunk
in China's lethargy, Smothered in the past, having no horizon but the actual.
flail, spirit of revolt, thou spirit of life, Child of eternal love,—
Love rebelling against lovelessness, life rebelling
against death! Rise at last to the full measure of thy birthright; Spurn the puny weapons of hate and oppression; Fix rather thy calm, burning, protesting eyes on all the myriad shams of man and they will fade away in thinnest air; Gaze upon thy galnsayers until they see and feel
the truth and love that begat and bore thee. Thus and thus only give form and body to thy
noblest aspirations, And we shall see done on earth as it is In heaven God's ever living, growing, ripening will.
Ernest Crosby.
-0-
AS TAUGHT BY THOMAS PAINE.
"A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It (had its origin in the 'principles of society, and the natural constitution of min. It existed prior to government, and would exist If the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has in man, and aill the parts of a civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds It together. "Government is no further necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and civilization are not conveniently competent; and instances are not wanting to show that everything which government can usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society, without government.
"For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American war, and a.longer period in several of the American states, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defence to employ itt attention in establishing a new government; yet, during this interval order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a natural aptness in man, and more so in society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and resources, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in.
"The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association take* place, and the common interest produces common security. •
•So far is it from being true, as has been pretended, that the abolition, of any formal government is the dissolution of society, it acts by a contrary impulse, and brings the latter closer together.
•'Formal governments make but a small part of civilized 'life; and when even the beet that numan wisdom can devise is establish, it is a thing more in name and' idea than in if act. It Is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilization—to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained—to the unceasing circulation of interest, which passles through its Innumerable channels, invigorates the whole mass of dvillied man, it is to these things, infinitely more than anything which even the best instituted governments can perform, that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.
"The more, perfect civilization is, the less occt-sion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilized life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are -that first condense men into society, and what the motives that regulate their mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find by the time that we arrive at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by 'the natural operations of the parts upon each other.
"Man, with respect to all those matters, is more a creature of consistency than he is aware of, or that governments would1 wish him to believe. All the great laws of society are laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce, whether with Tespect to the intercourse of individuals., or of nations, are laws of natural and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed, because it is the interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws their government may impose or interpose."—Rights of Man.
0
ANARCHISM is, logical choice-making between Freedom and Force. Between Reason and Rome. Between Liberty and Slavery. Between Honesty and Thievery. Between Truth and Falsehood. Between Justice and Tyranny.
AS TAUGHT BY THOREAU.
Thoreau had watched (Human) Nature like a detective who is to go upon the stand.—Lowell.
Cease to gnaw the crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.—Summer. ,
This life is not for complaint but for satisfaction.—Letter.
To reject religion is the first step towards moral excellence.—Essay.
The whole duty of man may be expressed in one line: Make to yourself a perfect body.— Summer.
All the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket.— Week.
lu what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know -that you are alone in the world.—Letter.
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.—Life without Principle.
If there is an experiment which you would like to try. try it. Do not entertain doubts if they are not agreeable to you.—Letter.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simpiy good; be good for something.—Letter.
The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no schemat; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb against the heavens, it is clear —Week.
He is the true artist wnose life Is his material. Every stroke of the chisel must enter his own fles-h and bones and not grate dully on marble.— Summer.
The man who goes alone can start to-day; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.—Walden.
There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which,we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.— Walking.
If you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all clime®, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, ever obey the precept of the old philosopher and explore thyself.—Walden.
Warm your body by healthful exercise, not by cowering over a stove. Warm your spirit by performing independently noble deeds, not by ig* nobly seeking the sympathy of your fellows who are no better than yourself.—-Chastity and Sensuality.
The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of hi® own cast-off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.—Walden.
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly ana desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud-' of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from 'himself this long while.—Life without Principle.
Will the government never be so well administered, inquired one, that we private men shall hear nothing about it?
THE CRITERION.
"The king answered. 'At all events, I require a prudent and able man, who is capable of managing the state affairs of my kingdom.' The ex-minister said, 'The criterion, O Sire! of a wise and competent man, is, that he will not meddle with such like matters." Alas, that the ex-minister should have been so nearly right.
In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.
I have not so surely forseen that any Cossack or Ohlppeway would come to disturb the honest
and simple commonwealth, as that some monster institution would at length embrace and crush its free members in it® scaly folds; for it is not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer, it lets itself go loose.
When I have not paid the tax which the state demanded for that protection which I did not want, itself has rolbbed me; when I have asserted the liberty it presumed to declare, itself has imprisoned me.
I love man—kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation, too, have our lectures and out sermons commonly. They are all Dudellan; and piety derives its origin still from that exploit of pius Aeneas, who bore his father, Amchises, on his shoulders from the ruins of Troy. Or rather, like some Indian tribes, we bear about with us the mouldering relics of our ancestors on our shoulders. If-, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that is he who is living near him, eometlmet even sustains him, but never the State.
Its officer as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailor or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff.
Herein is the tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones.
Hence came -war and slavery in; and what else • may not come In by thl® opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put. bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him a* a companion and neighbor.
Now turn again, turn again, said the pinder, For a wrong way you have gone.
For you have forsaken the king's highway, And made a path over the corn.
Undoubtedly, countless reforms are called for, because society is not animated, or instinct enough with life, but in the condition of some snakes which I have seen in early spring, with alternate portions of their bodies torpid and flexible, so that they could wriggle neither way.
All men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of their head above ground. Eetter are they physically dead, for they more lively rot.
Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a ; ew water every instant.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimac rivers.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. -
"I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe: 'That government is best which /governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it that will be the kind of government which they will have.....
"It is not a mans duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty at least, to wash -ils hands of it and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.....
"I do not hesitate to say that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support both in person and property from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think it is enough if they have God on their side without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."
"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact,, the definition of a peaceful revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax gatherer or any other public officer asks me, as one has done, 'But what shall I do?' my answer is, 4If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.' When the subject has refused to pay allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished."— Civil Disobedience.
O
Should one man, ten men, fifty *housand laugh Because thy thoughts 'breed folly in their minds, Fear not. Think on. Such langhter Is but chaff, Mere dross of reason wasted by the winds.
Should one man, ten men, fifty thousand cry "Thy words are false. Forbear thou to condemn!"
Fear not. Say on. Time's self shall justify: Thy words shall live, and give the lie to them.
Should one man, ten men, fifty thousand curse These acts of thine that counter to their will, Fear not. Act on. Have courage! Which It worse,
To die for truth—of live—to die for nil?
—W. L. Bultitaft.
AS TAUGHT BY EMERSON.
So far as a man thinks, he is free. Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men kre, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a "Declaration of Independence," or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or act.
Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.
I do not wish to live to wear out my old boots.
The integrity of our own mind is the only sacred thing.
History has been mean; our nations have been mobs; we have never seen a man.
He who feeds men serves a few, • He serves all who dares be true.
Goodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, "'Tis the misfortune of worthy people that they are cowards."
No picture of life can have any veracity which does not admit the odious facts.
If in the hours of clear reason we should speak the severest truth, we should say that we had never made a sacrifice.
We must ask why health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than the rule of human nature.
What quantities of invalids, politicians, thieves, might be advantageously spared; * • * quantities of poor lives, of distressing invalfds, of cases for a gun.
There is no virtue which is final; all are Initial. The virtues of society are vices of the saint. Ths terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away one virtue, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.
The one serious and formidable thing in nature is will. Society is servile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and religions.
One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that aim, and has the world under him for root and support. H^ Is to others as the world. His approbation is honour; his dissent, infamy.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of Its members.
The doctrine of hate must be preached as th« counteraction of the doctrine of love when that * pules and whines.
As long as our civilization Is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusion. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stand firm against the opinions of their contemporaries! The meaeure of a master is his success in bringing all men 'round to his opinion twenty years later.
Difference of opinion is the one crime which kings never forgive.
Where there is no'vision, the people perish.
An individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form? and ripen.
The world is awaking to the idea of union. • • • It Is and will be magic. Men will live and communicate and plow, and reap, and govern, as by added ethereal power, when once they are united. * * ♦ But this union must be inward and not one of the covenants, and is to be reached by the reverse of the methods they nse. The union is only perfect «when all the uniters are isolated. It is the union of friends who live in dif-. ferent streets or towm, ^ Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter the union the smaller and more pitiful he is. But leave him alone to recognize in every hour and pla-ce the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, tho no man spoke. Government will be adamantine without any governor. The union must be ideal in actual individualism.
I can easily see the bankruptcy of the vulgar musket-worship;—tho great men be musket-worshippers;—and 'tis certain as God liveth, the gun that does not need auother gun, the law of love and justice alone, can effect a clean revolution.
Is uot the State a question? All society is divided in opinion on the subject of the State. Nobody loves it; great numbers dislike it, and suffer conscientious scruples to allegiance; and the only defense set up, is the fear of doing worse is disorganizing.
We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to governments founded on force. Tliere is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things, to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen might be reasonable, and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation. What is strange, too, there never was in any man sufficient faith in the power of rectitude to Inspire him with the broad design of renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those who have pretended this design have been partial reformer, and have admitted in some manner the supremacy of the bad State. I do not call to mind a single human being who has steadily denied the authority of tlie laws, on the simple ground of his own moral nature. Such designs, full of genius
and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except avowedly as air-pic tuxes. If the individual who exhibits them dares to think them practicable, he disgusts scholars and churchmen; and men of talent, and women of superior sentiment, cannot hide their contempt. Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now* men—if indeed I can speak in the plural number —more exactly I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for one moment appear possible that thousands of human beings might exercise toward each other the grandest and simplest sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.
THE STATE A TRICK.
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word "politic," which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick. ♦ ♦ * This undertaking for another is the blunder which stands in colossial ugliness in the governments of the world. It is the same thing in numbers as in a pair, only not quite so intelligible. I can see well enough a great difference between my setting myself down to a self-control, and my going to make somebody else act after my views; but when a quarter of the human race assume to tell me what I must do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore all public ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones. For any laws but thos* which men can make for themselves are laughable. * • • This is the history of government* —one man does something which Is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me taxes me; looking from afar at me, ordains that a part of my labor shall go to this or that whim-zu
sical end, not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money's worth, except for these. * * We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy, ^s a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble' all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. * * * The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, while we depend on artificial restraints. * ♦ ♦ We must not imagine that all things are lapsing into confusion, If every tender protestant be not compelled to bear his part in certain social conventions: nor doubt that roads can be built, letters carried and the fruit of labor secured, when the government of force is at an end. Are our methods now so excellent that all competition is hopeless? • Could not a nation of friends even devise better ways? On the other hand, let not the most conservative and timid fear anything from a premature surrender of the bayonet, and the system of force. For according to the order of nature, which is quite superior to our will, it stands thus: there will always be a government of force wnere men are selfish; and when they are pure enough to abjure the code of force, they will be wise enough to see how these public ends of the post office, of the highway, of commerce, and the exchange of property, of museums and libraries, of institutions of art and science, can be answered.
Every good thought ever spoken, every grand
deed ever done, Is a fresh sword, making surer that our conquest
will be won— Conquest over superstition that hath ruled and ruined long,
Conquest of the captive peoples over mailed and
mitred wrong In its palaces of splendor and its forts and bulwarks strong!
—Will H. Kernan. -o-
SELF-SOVEREIGNTY IN QUINTESSENCE.
AS TAUGHT BY TOLSTOY.
[Being excerpts from his new book, "The Slavery of Our Times."*]
To Tolstoy's mind, violence done by man to man is wrong. We cannot escape the wrongness by doing it wholesale, or by sub-dividing the responsibility.
We can neither revert to the belief that to use violence is a divine right of kings nor can we maintain the current belief that to do so is a divine right of majorities. To be subjected by force to a rule we disapprove of is slavery, and we are all slaves or slave owners (sometimes both together) as long as our society bases itself on violence.
The mind is more free than the body. Let ue, at least, try to understand the truth of the matter, and not excuee a vicious system in order to shelter ourselves. When we have understood
the matter, let us not fear to speak out; and
, *
f ♦This book-the Grand old Nestor-of-Authors' masterpiece-is published, with author's portrait, at fx.35, bound in cloth. Thfe publisher of this pamphlet will supply the book for 65 cents, or will lend it freely to anybody in Ithaca who will read it, and to anybody anywhere when postage is paid. See advertisement Liberty Lending Library, on page 68 of this booklet.
when we have confessed our views, let us try to bring our lives more and more in harmony with them.—The above is taken from the introduction by the translator, Aylmer Maude.
The cause of the miserable condition of ths workers is slavery. The cause of slavery is legislation. Legislation rests on organized violence.
It follows that an improvement in the condition of the people is possible through the abolition of organized violence. * * *
It is said, "How can people live without governments—that is, without violence?" liut it should, on the contrary, be asked, "How can people who are rational live, acknowledging that the vital bond of their social life is violence, and not reasonable agreement Yy
• One of two things—either people are rational or irrational beings. If they are irrational beings, then they are irrational, and then everything among them is decided by violence; and there is no reason why certain people should and others should not have a right to use violence. And in that case governn. nt violence has no jus*-tification. But if men are rational beings, then their relations should be based on reason and not on the violence of those who happen to have seized power; and, therefore, in that case, again, governmental violence has no justification.
Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore, people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.
But how can governments be abolished?
All attempts to get rid of governments by violence have hitherto, always and everywhere, resulted only in this: that in place of the deposed government* new ones established themselves, often more -cruel than those they replaced.
Not to mention past attempts to abolish governments by violence, according to the socialist theory, the coming abolition of the rule of the capitalists—that is, the communalisation of the means of production and the new economic order of society—is also to be carried out by a fresh organization of violence, and will have to be maintained by the same means. So that attempts to abolish violence by violence neither have in the past nor, evidently, can in the future emancipate people from violence nor, consequently, from slavery.
It cannot be otherwise.
Apart from outbursts of revenge or anger, violence is used only in order to compel some people, against their own will, to do the will of others. But the necessity to do what other people wish against your own will is slavery. And, therefore, as long as any violence, designed to compel some people to do the will of others, exists there will be slavery.
VIOLENCE AGGRAVATES.
All the attempts to abolish slavery by violence are like extinguishing fire with fire, stopping water with water,, or filling up one hole by digging another.
The chief thing is that the present arrangement of life is bad; about that all are agreed. The cause of the bad conditions and of the existing slavery lies in the violence used by governments. There is" only one way to abolish governmental violence: that people should abstain from participating in violence. And, therefore, whether it be difficult or not, to abstain from participating in governmental violence, and whether the good results of such abstinence will or will not be soon apparent, are superfluous questions; because to liberate people from slavery there is only that one way, and no other!
To what extent and when voluntary agreement, confirmed by custom, will replace violence in each society and in the whole world will depend on the strength and eagerness of people's consciousness and on the number of individuals who make this consciousness their own. Each of us is a separate person, and each can be a participator in the general movement of humanity by his greater or lesser clearness of recognition of the aim before us, or he can be an opponent of progress. Eaen will have to make his choice: to oppose the will of God, building upon the sands the unstable house of his brief, illusive life, or to join in the eternal, deathless movement of true life in accordance with God's will. * * *
Murder is an evil, that I know more certainly than any reasonings; by demanding that I should enter the army or pay for hiring and equipping soldiers, or for buying cannons and building ironclads, you wish to make me an accomplice in murder, and that I cannot and- will not be. Neither do I wish, nor can I, make use of money you have collected from hungry people with threats of murder; nor do I wish to make use of lands or capital defended by you, because I know that your defence rests on murder.
"I could do these things when I did not understand all their criminality, but when I have once seen it, I cannot avoid seeing it. and can no linger take part in these things.
"I know that we are all so bound up by violence that it is difficult to avoid it altogether, but I will, nevertheless, do all I can not to take part in It; I will not be an accomplice to it, and will try not to make use of what is obtained and defended by murder.
"I have but one life, and why should I, In this brief life of mine, act contrary to the voice of conscience and become a partner in your abominable deeds?
"I cannot, and I will not.
"And what will come of this? X do not know. Only I think that no harm can result from acting as my conscience demands."
So in our time should each honest and sincere man reply to all the arguments about the necessity of governments and of violence, and to every demand or invitation to take part in them.
So that the supreme and unimpeachable judge —the voice of conscience—confirms to each, man the conclusion to which also general reasoning should bring us.
Then out spake brave Horatius, The captain of the gate;
"To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or iate.
And how can men die better Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods." —Macaulay.
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»
Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her hideous aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war.
Such a spirit is liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and glory.
There is onlj one cure for evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day, he is unable to discriminate colors, or recognize faces. The remedy Is, to accustom him to the rays of the sun.
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first da«-zle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. And, at length, a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are ht to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
—Macaulay.
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No—the malady, like many others of the body politic, cannot be driven off by any purgative of law. Drastic punishments are impotent *o restrain; they will serve only to spread the propaganda of anarchism. We must remember that courts and prisons, judges and jailers are not, after all, the great securities of our property and lives. In the maintenance of a just government, our writs, subpoenas, and decisions are dead instruments compared with the force of an active and intelligent public opinion.—Evening Post.
(Unconscious? Anarchy. Italics mine.—Pub.)
The people is a beast of muddy brain That knows not its own force and therefore stands
Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein; One kick would be enough to break the chain; But the beast fears, and what the child demands. It does; nor its own terror understands, Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain. Most wonderful! with its own hand it ties And gags itself—gives itself death and war For pence doled out by kings from its own store. Its own are all things between earth and heaven; But this it knows not; and If one arise To tell this truth, it kills him unforglven.
—Campanella.
"In vain you tell me that artificial government id good, but that I fall out only with the abuse; the thing—the thing itself is the abuse."—Burke.
"No person will rule over me with my consent. I will rule over no man."—Wm. Lloyd Garrison.
"The Lord's Prayer says: Our FatJier who art in Heaven. If God is the Father of all men, ail men are brothers, and as brothers all men are equal. Therefore, all authority arrogated by man over man is wrong. All government of man over man is wrong."—Hall Caine.
"The people are governed too much already, losing their personal freedom, and multiplying tyrants."—Judge F. M. Finch.
Majority anile is not founded—any more than emperor's rule—on reason or justice. There is no reason or justice in making two men subject to three men. The opinions of two men are just as sacred for them as the opinions and interests of three men are for them. Nobody has the moral right to seek his own advantage by force. That is the one unalterable, inviolable condition of a true society. Whether we are many, or whether we are few, we must learn only to use the weapons of reason, discussion, and persuasion.
—Hon. A. Herbert.
Force is no remedy.—John Bright.
And the false Democracy parts aside for the disclosure of the true Democracy which has been formed beneath it—which is not an external government at all, but an inward rule—the rule of the mass-Man in each unit-man. For no outward government can be anything but a makeshift—a temporary hard chrysalis-sheath to hold the grub together while the new life is forming inside.—Edward Carpenter.
And this is Liberty—that one grow after the law of bis own life, hindering not another; and this is Opportunity; and the fruit thereof is Variation; and from the glad growing and the fruit-feasting comes Sympathy, which is appreciative and helpful good-fellowship.—J. Wm. Lloyd.
Self-development is an aim for all—an aim which will make all stronger, and saner, and wiser, and better. It will make each in the end more helpful to humanity. To be sound in wind and limb; to be healthy of body and mind; to be educated, to be emancipated, to be free, to be beautiful—these things are ends towards which all should strain, and by attaining which all are happier in themselves, and more useful to others.
—Grant Allen.
Everywhere the strong have made +he laws and oppressed the weak; and, If they have sometimes consulted the interests of society, they have always forgotten those of humanity.—Turgot.
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.—Frederick Harrison.
Self-love is a necessary, indestructible, universal law and principle, inseparable from ever; kind of love. Religion must and does confirm this on every page of her history. Wherever man tries to resist that human egoism, whether in religion, philosophy, or politics, he sinKs into pure nonsense and insanity; for the sense which forms the foundation of all human instincts, desires and actions, is the satisfaction of the human being, the satisfaction of human egoism.—Feuer-baoh.
An ambassador is a man who goes abroad to He for the good of his country. A journalist is a man who stays at home to pursue the same vocation.—Dr. S. Johnson.
Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken.
The earth is mortgaged to seven speculative scoundrels. The rest of mankind are necessarily the slaves thereof.
A race of altruists is necessarily a race of slaves. A race of freemen is necessarily a race of egoists.
"The great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise!"
The men of future generations will yet win many a liberty of which we do not even feel the want.—Stirner.
One is free in proportion as one is strong; there is no real liberty save that which one takes for one's self.—lb.
Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The discoverer of a great truth well knows that it may be useful to other men, and, as a greedy wifh-holding would bring him no enjoyment, he communicates It.—lb.
If it be right to me. it is right.—lb.
After all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is called respectability.—Ingersoll.
Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared ami enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.—lb.
LIGHTNING FLASHES FROM NIETZSCHE.
Forget this superstition (that the day of noble deeds is past), steep your souls in Plutarch, and through believing in his heroes, dnre to believe In yourselves.—Nietzsche.
Whosoever will be free, must make himself.' free: freedom is no fairy's gift to fall Into any man's lap.—lb.
We still wish, to work for our fellow-men, but in so far as we find our own highest advantage in this work, not more, not less. Everything depends only on what one regards as his advantage; the immature, undeveloped, coarse individual will also have the coarsest conception of it.— lb.
The thou hath been proclaimed holy, but the I not yet.
What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one' self.—lb.
We carry faithfully what we are given, on hard shoulders, over rough mountains! And when perspiring, we are told: "Yea, life is hard to Dear!" But man himself only is hard to bear! The reason is that he carrieth too many strange things on his shoulders. Like the camel he kneeleth down and alloweth the heavy load to be put on his back.—Ib.
Noble souls wish not to have anything for nothing.—Ib.
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Victory at the end, there's no defeat! Let tyranny have its day and then depart: In mankind's teeming brain and throbbing heart Slow germinate and bloom the measures meet. There is no shame that shall not be atoned, No suffering or wrong that can endure; Humanity is silent but is sure, Triumph is not abandoned but postponed.
We may not share the glories of the goal, Nor even view afar the promised land; Enough to leap a-thrilled at love's command, Go down in battle with a deathles soul. The banner's borne aloft above the fray, We perish, but the truth and victory stay.
—William Mountain,
No revolution ever rises above the intellectual level of those who make it, and little is gained where one false notion supplants another. But we .must some day, at last and forever, cross the line between nonsense and commonsense. And on that day we shall pass from class paternalism, originally derived from the fetich fiction in times of universal Ignorance, to human brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from political government to industrial ad-ministration; from competition in individualism to individuality in co-operation; from war and despotism in any form to peace and liberty.—Thomas Carlyle.
Drop your humility, you know that it is an attitude of hypocrisy based on fear; therefore drop it. Come out in your true character as master of all things by your divine right, stand squarely on your own feet, and swear by your own will instead of God's will. • » * You nave either to be yourself or God. And as you cannot .he God —by which I mean the Invisible and Omnipresent Law of Growth—you will have to be yourself.— Helen Wilmans.
Intellectual superiority has no more right to get the better of an inferior in its kind of power than physical superiority in its kind; time was when the strong man physically ruled merely because he was strong; that time has passed. Now the intellectual man, the cunning man, rules simply because he is most cunning; law and cunning back him up. This mere cunning, however, must be stripped of its power; the keen head should have no more power to tyrannize than the strong arm.—Dr. E. B. Foote, Jr.
Van will grow, not force, himself free of bars and keys. He will ascend to spaces where lotos could not follow himt The state will not be destroyed but will drag more and more behind. The citizenship of a land is not its voting population but Its faith. Men vote and think themselves saved.
Legislators pass laws and imagine that social eboriety is conserved.—H. Trauhel.
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. From him who will not give her all, she will have nothing. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes has burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers. Liberty {will have none but the great devoted souls, and by her glorious visions, by her lavish promises, her boundless hopes, ,her infinitely witching charms, she lures these victims over hard and stony -ways, by desolate and dangerous paths, through misery, obloquy and want to a martyr's cruel death. To-day we pay our last sad homage to the most devoted lover, the most abject slave, the fondest, wildest, dreamiest victim that ever gave bis life to liberty's immortal, hopeless cause.—C. L. Darrow, at Altgeld's funeral.
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I know I am restless and make others so, I know ray words are weapons, full of danger, full of fire,
For I confront peace, security, and all the setr
tied laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me.
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, .caution, majorities, nor ridicule. And the threat of what is called hell Is little or
nothing to me, And the lure of what Is called heaven Is little or nothing to me.
—Walt Whitman.
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Liberty which is -the nurse of all great wits. * * * Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all llberties.—Milton.
*
All of our greatness was born of liberty, even our commercialism was .rocked in the cradle of democracy, and we -cannot strangle the mother without destroying her children.—Al-tgeld.
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» * ♦
• * * Some one is robbing you, brother mine,
sister mine; The same who leads you 111 processions; The same who calls you to prayer, Your brother is he, too, but has never learned it; Or has forgotten it. Some one is robbing you; The same whom you serve; The same to whom you pull the forelock; The same for whom you vote. As if it were Important that he and not, the other should rob you;
Poor, patient, stupid brother! * * * * *
Is your dinner pail full? 9
They say that is the way to win you. They say that get you on your knees, under
stained glass* And fill your belly,
You will keep on voting for some one; Some one who robs you. ♦ * • ♦
—Rev. H. O. Pentecost.
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Governments cannot be done away with instantaneously, but progress will come, as it has in the past by lessening the number of laws. We want less governing, and the Ideal Government will arrive when there is no government at all.
So long as .governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs. So long as. .men are clubbed, robbed, imprisoned, disgraced, hanged bj the governing class, just so long will the idea of
t
violence and brutality be born in 'the souls of men.
Governments imprison men, and then hound them when they are released.
Hate springs eternal in the human breast.
And hate will aever die so long as men are taken from useful production on the specious plea of patriotism, and bayonets gleam in God s pure sunshine.
And the worst part about making a soldier of a man is, not that the soldier kills brown men or black men or white men, but it is that the soldier loses his own soul.
I am an Anaridst.
I do not believe In bolts or bars or brutality. ♦
* * I do not believe in governing by force, or threat, or any other form of coercion. I would not arouse in the heart of any of God's creatures a thought of fear, or discord, or hate, or revenge. I will Influence men, if I can, but it shall be only by aiding them to think for themselves; and so mayhap, they, of their own accord will choose the better part—the ways that lead to life and light.—Fra Elbertus.—(Elbert Hubbard.)
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The strong, from the beginning, have stolen their bread; and, what is worse, they have despised their bakers. They have discredited the natural facts of alimentation, and they have sponged upon the poor. What hope of wise, deliberate science, of joyous, perennial art and permanent civic glory in a world that is ashamed of its stomach, filches its food, and despises the souls of the laborers? * * ♦ Europe and America to-day are sick with the night-mare of their dreams. They have dreamed of Democracy, and in their dreams have achieved liberty— but only in their dreams, not otherwise.* ♦ • We have had the law; we expect now the gospel of democracy. ♦ ♦ * The only available victories are those that one man wins against the mob. • ♦ » Over against Nature stands the Man, and deep in his heart is the passion for liberty. For the passion for liberty is only another name for life itself. Liberty is a word of much sophistication, but It means, when it means anything, opportunity -to live one's own life in one's own way. ♦ * + The original sin of the world is not contempt for arbitrary laws, but respect for them. * * *
—Rev. Charles Ferguson.
Offices of Government are dealt out, children will look for tbem; money is given, children will look for rt; military commands, consulships—let children scramble for them! Let them be shut out and smitten, let them kiss the hand of the giver, of his slaves; it is figs and almonds to me.
—Epictetus.
(Election Day.) Whether th? flag of this counthry shall be dhragged in thy mire or left to lay there; whether this counthry shall take its place among the nations iv th* earth, or somewan else's; whether ye shall wurrak at a dollar an' a half a day f r th* trusts or f r the men composin* th' trusts.—Mr. Dooley.
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* * They were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone.—James R. Lowell.
We will speak out, we will be heard,
Though all earth's systems crack; We will not bate a single word,
Nor take a letter back. Let liars fear, let cowards shrink, .
Let traitors turn away; Whatever we have dared to think. That dare we also say.—Ib.
Liberty of action being the first essential to exercise of faculties, and therefore the first essential to happiness; and the liberty of each, limited by the like liberties of ail, fceing the form which this first essential assumes when applied to many Instead of one—It follows that this liberty of each, limited by the like liberties of all, is the rule in conformity with whi-ch society must be organized. Freedom being the prerequi site to normal life in the individual, equal freedom becomes the prerequisite to normal life in society. And if this law of equal freedom is the primary law of right relationship between man and man, then no desire to get fulfilled a nvondary law can warrant us in breaking it.
"Whatever fosters militarism makes for barbarism; whatever fosters peace makes for -civilization. There are two fundamentally opposed principles on which social life may be organized— compulsory co-operation and voluntary -co-operation, the one implying coercive institutions, the other free Institutions. Just in proportion as militant activity is great does the coercive regime more pervade the whole society. Hence, to oppose militancy is to oppose return toward despotism." ,
In proportion as we love truth more and victory less, we shall become more anxious to know what it is which leads our opponents to think as they do. We shall begin to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibited by them must result from perception of something we have not perceived.-Herbert Spencer.
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"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not wtiat course others .may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me deatur*—Patrick Henry.
JONES VERSUS FORCE.
The idea of governing by force another man, who I believe to be my equal in the sight of God, is repugnant to me. I do not want to do it. I do not want anyone to govern me by any kind of force. I am a reasoning being, and I only need to be shown what is best for me, when I will take that course or do that thing simply because it is best, and so will you. I do not believe that a soul was ever forced toward anything except toward ruin.
Liberty for 'the few is not liberty. Liberty for me and slavery for you means slavery for both.
—Samuel M. Jones.
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Would to God that this hot and bloody struggle was over, and that (peace may come at last to the world! And yet I invoke no seeming peace that the weaker may ever anon be plundered, but a peace with liberty, equality, and honest man's and not robber's order for its condition. * * »* Let ^others give aid and comfort to despots. Be it ours to stand for liberty and justice, nor fear to lock arms with those who are called hot-heads and demagogues, when the good cause requires.—Charles A. Dana.
(Written prior to his membership in' the "Plutocratic Brotherhood of Thieves.")
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I have been passive;
I have submitted to the law,
And I have seeu
The tide of life flow from me
To return, bringing
But Beaweed
And the dead I loved.
* ♦ * Man needs the ideal more than he needs bread. The ideal is the bread of the soul.
Again there are those who say that the hoeman is content in his squalor and ignorance; and that therefore he should not be disturbed Would they say also that children are happy in their ignorance and should not be led on to the higher knowledge? The hoeman may be content, but his wiser brother should not be. Our no"bility should oblige as to clear the way for him that he may be quickened to struggle upward to the nobler horizons that await him.
And this freedom will be the freedom of all. h will loosen both master and slave from tht chain. For, by a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with m. There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in liberty of all. There Is no true security for the individual except as he finds it in the security of all.—Edwin Markham.
FREEDOM is this to me—the remedy.—J. W. Lloyd.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force! Lake fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should It be left to irresponsible action.—George Washington.
ANARCHY.—A social theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct government of man by man as the political ideal; absolute individual liberty.—Century Dictionary.
ANARCHY.—An ideal to which the highest religion and philosophy look forward as the goal of man; not as one, however, which can be forthwith reached through the wholesale destruction of the present frame work of. society, but through a long process of ethical and social improvement. —Encyclopedia Brlttanica.
Government is an artificial giant and the power that moves it Is money.—Garfield.
English liberty to-day mts not so much on the government as on those rights the people have wrested from the governments.—lb.
■ Governments, in general, look upon man only a* a citizen, a fraction of the State. God looks upon him as an indfvidual man, with capacities, duties, and a destiny of his own; and just in proportion as a Government recognizes the individual and shields him in the exercises of his rights, in that proportion is it Godlike and glorious.—Ib.
From time immemorial the pharlsalc conventionalists have been preaching self help to "the lower classes." But, at the remotest possibilty that these preached at classes will apply the preachment to the Governmental bill of fare, the insincere preachers set up so ludicrous a howl as should convince those of the muddiest brains that self help is the only help that helps.
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A .murder on behalf of the people?
That is no place for murders—they belong on the other side.
Poor, brave, cowardly, cruel fool, who thought the people could foe helped by murder, and, thinking to lay oppression, well-nigh laid freedom low!
But thefe are other fools—those Who suppose that a foul deed can for1 long set back the hands of time.
Can a crime alter facts?
Can any mad assassin kill the etsimLtrpth?
—BrnetfjtSWby.^
The iudividualistlc Anarchist holds that the best conditions Will be evolved, if people are allowed a free course. He is confident that they will find the right way themselves. He does not believe, of course, that there would ~e no more pickpockets day after to-morrow, if the State should be abolished to-morrow. But he knows that people cannot be prepared for liberty by authority and force. He knows this,—that the way is made free for the most independent people by removing all force and authority.
But the present States are founded on force and authority. The individualistic Anarchist is hostile to them, because they suppress liberty. All he demands is the free untrammeled development of forces. He wishes to remove the force which hinders free development.
He is convinced that whatever smacks of force is inimical to liberty. Therefore he combats the State, which rests on force; and therefore he combats just as energetically the "propaganda by deed," which rests no less on force. If the State beheads or imprisons a man on account of his convictions, the proceeding, call it whatever one will, is execrable in the eyes of the individualistic Anarchist. It is no less execrable, of course, when a Lucheni stabs a woman who happens to be the Ehnpress of Austria. It is one of the foremost principles of the individualistic An-, archist to combat these things. If he were to approve them, he would have to admit that he does not know why he opposes the State. He combats the force which suppresses liberty; and he combats it as vigorously when the State eoer-ces a libertarian idealist as when an Insane, vain fellow assassinates the sympathetic visionary 01 the imperial throne of Austria.
It cannot be urged explicitly enough against, our opponents that the "individualistic Anarchists" emphatically condemn "propaganda by deed." Aside from the coercion practised by
States, there is perhaps nothing that is so repugnant to these Anarchists as the Caserios and Luchenis.—Dr. Rudolph Steiner.
"The discussion that is now required is one that must go down to the very first principles of existing society."
"The restraints of Communism would be freedom in comparison with the present condition of the majority of the human race."—J. S. Mill.
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I know I am auguBt,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or
be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon .1 behave no prouder than the level I
plant my house by, after all). I exist as I am, that is enough. If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself, And whether 1 come to my own to-day or In ten
thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness wait. M.v foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.
Walt Whitman.
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Overcome evil with good. The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
In those days there was no king in Israel, but
every man did that which teas right in his own eyes,
♦
And ab ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. If the truth shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is ♦sin.—Bible.
What greater life, what grander claim,
Than that which bids you*to be just? What brighter halo, fairer fame,
Than shines above the sacred dust Ol' him who, formed of finer clay,
Stood firm, a hero of revolt Against the weakness of hi* day,
The traitor's trick, the panderer's fault/
—Gordak.
The most virile literature of all modern nations contains more or less of this anarchy against law and conventional and narrow laws on the civil plane, and advocates their repeal or defiance in behalf of higher moral and spiritual ideas.
—Rev. S. C. Eby.
But have we ever regulated the railroads by law, or the Standard Oil company by law? Let me say that we never, never can regulate anything by law that has Its roots deep down in existing social conditions. Those things are too strong to be regulated by law.—C. E. S. Wood.
What is the State?
Everything.
What should it be?
Nothing.
It is a do-all and a spoil-all.
We are only too ready to refrain from wiping our noses without the authorization of the State, to ad-mire only what the State patronizes, to turn imploringly to State boards of charity instead of using our own arms and heads.
And yet it would be so easy to lose the ha<bitl Ah! if papas and mammas were not stupid, how readily little boys would learn to do without the State and no longer rely on it, and. how quickly it would become what it ought solely to be—a simple policeman, a good .policeman, and not a pretentious botcheT of all jobs., even of those which it does not do!—Arsene Alexandre.
He does not really believe his opinions who dares not give free scope to his opponent.—Wendell Phillips.
Law has always been wrong. Government is the fundamental ism of the soldier, bigot, and priest.—Wendell Phillips, October 16, 1861.
In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.— Ingersoll.
I knew th' time wud come, Hinnissy. "Tis th' on'y way. Ye may talk about It as much as ye want, but governmint, me boy, is a case iv me makin' ye do what I want, an' if I can't do it with a song, I'll do it with a shovel. Th' ir'n hand in th' velvet glove, th' horseshoe in th* boxin' mit, th' quick right, an' th' heavy boot, that was th' way we r'run pollyticks whin I was captain iv me .precinct."—Mr. Dooley.
As long as we know we are in hell there is hope.—fy M. Powers.
A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crosses thp churchyard at dark.—Lytton.
"This old society has long since been judged and condemned. Let Justice be done. Let this old world be broken to pieces, * * * where innocence has perished, where man is exploited by man. Let the white sepulchres full of lying and iniquity be utterly destroyed."—Heine.
"Law grinds tne poor, and the rich men rule the law."—Oliver Goldsmith.
"Government Is the great blackmailer. " * * • No good ever came from the law. All reforms have been the offspring of Revolution."—Buckle.
"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give it to another."—Voltaire.
"The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind."—Thomas Paine.
"Did the mass of men «.now the actual selfishness and injustice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year; the world would ferment with Revolution."—Theodore Parker.
Should humanity weep in order that tyrants may laugh?—D. B. Henderson.-
"I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government, enjoy in the general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live live under governments. * * ♦ That government is best which governs least."—Thomas Jefferson.
"Law in its guarantee of the results of pillage, slavery and exploitation, has followed the same phase of development as capital; twin brother and sister, they have advanced hand in ? hand, sustaining one another with the sufferings 01 mankind. * * * Judiciary, ipolice, army, public instruction, finance—all serve one God, capital; all have but one object—to facilitate the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist."—Peter Ivropotkin. "
"By no process can coercion be made equitable. The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few, we call tyranny. The rule of the few by the many (Democracy) Is tyranny also, only of a less intense kind."—Herbert Spencer.
"There is no government, however restricted in its powers, that may not, by abuse, under pretext of exercise of its constitutional authority, drive its unhappy subjects to desperation."—John Randolph.
"Whenever you have met • a dozen earnest men pledged to a new Idea—wherever you have met them, you have met the beginning of a Revolution. * ♦ * Revolution is as natural a growth as an oak—it comes out of the past. * * * Every
line in our history, every interest of civilization, bids us rejoice when the tyrant grows pale ani the slaves rebellious."—Wendell Philips.
Government could not continue to exist unless many men were willing to be government's agents for the perpetration of what they personally re- • gard as viles crimes.—Steven T. Byington.
It can never be unpatriotic for a man to take his country's side against his government; it must always be unpatriotic for a man to take his government's side against his country.—lb.
In all customary forms of government the rulers are on the average morally worse than the ruled, so that the result is to give -the bad control over • the good; the Ouly way yet devised to avoid this is to make supreme authority the prize of a lottery or of an athletic contest.—Ib.
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Who says Anarchy, says negation of government. Who says negation of government, saya affirmation of people. Who says affirmation of people, says individual liberty. Who says individual liberty, says sovereignty of oneself. Who Bays sovereignty of oneself, says equality. Who says equality, says solidarity and brotherhood. Who says brotherhood and solidarity, says social order.
Then, who says Anarchy, says social order.
On the contrary:
Who says government, says negation of people. Who says negation of people, says affirmation of political authority. Who says political authority, says individual submission. Who says individual submission, says supremacy of caste. Who says supremacy of caste,- says inequality. Who says inequality, says antagonism. Who says antagonism, says civil war and disorder. Then who says government* says civil war and disorder.—Bellegarigue.
4'Obedience,
liane of aii genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves oi men, and of the human frame A mechanized automaton.'*
—Shelley.
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•'Today, when mental force is everything and physical force nothing, government is powerless to accomplish the equitable distribution of wealth. * * * It is utterly Illogical to say that aggrandizement by physical force should be forbidden while aggrandizement by mental force or legal fiction should be permitted. It is absurd to claim that injustice committed by muscle should be restrained while that committed by brain should be unrestrained.
•'Under the system as it now exists the wealth of the world, however created, and irrespective of the claims of the producer, is made to flow toward certain centers of accumulation, to be enjoyed by those holding the keys to such situations. The world a,ppears to be approaching a stage at which those who labor, no matter how skilled, how industrious, or how frugal, will receive, according to the 'iron law' formulated by Rlcardo, only so much for their services as will enable them 'to subsist and to perpetuate their race.' The rest finds its way into the hands of a comparatively few, usually non-producing, individuals, whom the usages and laws of all countries. permit to claim that they own the very sources of all wealth and the right to allow or forbid its production.
' "These are great and serious evils, compared with which all the crimes, recognized as such, that would be committed If no government existed, would be as trifles. The underpaid labor, the prolonged and groveling drudgery, the wasted strength, the misery and the squalor, the diseases resulting, and the premature deaths that would be prevented by a just distribution of products of labor, would iu a single year outweigh all the so-called crime of a century, for the prevention of which, it is said, government alone exists. This vast theatre of woe is regarded as wholly outside the jurisdiction of government, while tne most strenuous efforts are put forth to detect and punish the perpetrators of the least of' the ordinary recognized crimes. This ignoring of great evils while so violently striking at small ones is the mark of an effete civilization, and warns us of the approaching dotage of the race."—L. F. Ward.
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To mind your own business and do the square thing with your neighbors is an extremely high order of patriotism. If every man were to do this, flags, governments, powers, dominations and thrones might all take an indefinite vacation.— Puck.
The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.—Daniel Webster.
"Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at,, or unwisely, of all man's strugglings, toilings and sufferings, on this earth."—Carlyle.
"It is not the disease, but the physician; it is the pernicious hand of government alone which can reduce a whole people to despair.."—Junius.
The law of nature, being co-eval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is superior in obligation to every other. It is binding all over tKe globe, In all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid derive their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from the original.—Blackstone.
Liberty of thought is a mockery if liberty of speech and of action is denied.—Rev. Sidney Holmes.
Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding[
Know the rights and the rights are won. Wrong shall die with the understanding. One
truth clear, and the work is done. Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge
whose need is ninety enslaved for ten. My word shall stand against mart and college: The planet belongs to its living men.
—J. B. O'Reilly.
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"The masses are poor, ignorant, disorganized, not knowing the right of mankind upon earth, and never knowing that the world belongs to its population; because a small class in every country has taken possession of property and government and makes laws for its own safety and the security of its plunder; educating the masses, generation after generation, into the belief that this conditiion is the natural order and the "law of God." By long training and submission the people everywhere have come to regard the assumption of their rulers and owners as the law of right and common sense, and their own blind instincts, which tell them that all men ought to have a plenteous living on this rich planet, as the promptings of evil and disorder. The qualities we naturally dislike and fear in a man are those which insure success under our present social order, viz: shrewdness, hardness, adroitness, selfishness, the mind to take advantage of necessity, the will to trample on the weak in the -canting name of progress and civilization. The qualities we love in a man send him to the poor house— generosity, truth, truthfulness, friendliness, unselfishness, the desire to help, the heart to pity, the mind to refuse profit fr</m a neighbor's loss or weakness, the defence of the weak. Our present ■civilization is organized injustice and intellectual "barbarism. Our progress is a march to a preci pice. The Sermon on the Mount and natural justice can rule the world, or they cannot. If they can, our present ruling is the invention of the devil; if they cannot, the devil has a right to rule if the people let him—but he ought not to call his rule Christian civilization."—John Boyle O'Reilly.
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Ever reviled, accursed—ne'er understood, Thou art the grisly terror of our age. "Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and' war and murder's endless rage." O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven,
The truth that lies behind a word to find, To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind. But thou, 0 word, so clear, so strong, so pure, That sayest all which I for goal have taken. I give thee to the future!—Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken. Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell . . . but it the earth shall see! I am an Anarchist! Wherefor I will Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
—John Henry Mackay.
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Anarchism, as defined by Anarchists, is the belief in the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty. In other words, the belief in every liberty except the liberty to invade. It is an implication of this definition, that Anarchism aims at the abolition of government and the State, for government and the "State, as defined by Anarchists, are debarred, by their nature, from allowing the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty, and are necessarily invasive, government 'being defined as the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will, and the State being defined as the embodiment of the principle of invasion In an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area. All the foregoing definitions are taken from the textbooks. The purpose of Anarchism, then, is to put an end to every form of invasion and to establish a condition of equal liberty. * ♦ ♦
The idea that Anarchy can be inaugurated by force is as fallacious as the idea that it can be sustained by force. Force cannot preserve An archy; neither can it bring it. In fact, one of the inevitable Influences of the use of force is* to postpone Anarchy. The only thing that force can ever do for us is to save us from extinction, to give us a longer lease of life in which to try to secure Anarchy by the only methods that can ever bring it. But this advantage is always purchased at immense cost, and its attainment is always attended by frightful risk. The attempt should be made only when the risk of any other course is greater. * * * Bloodshed in itself is pure loss. When we must have freedom of agitation, and when nothing but bloodshed will secure it, then bloodshed is wise. But it must be remembered that it can never accomplish the social revolution proper; that that can never be accomplished except by means of agitation, investigation, experiment and passive resistance; and that, after all the bloodshed we shall be exactly where we were before, except in our possession of power to use these means.—Benj. R. Tucker.
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I am an Anarkist.
All good men are Anarkists.
All cultured, kindly men; all gentle men; all just men are Anarkists.
Jesus was an Anarkist.
—Elbert Hubbard.
"Somebody gets the surplus wealth that labor produces and does not consume. Who is the Somebody V" * ♦ * ♦
What are the ways by which men gain possession of property? Not many. Let us name them: work, gift, discovery, gaming, the various forms of Illegal robbery by force or fraud, usury. Can men obtain wealth by any other than one or more of these methods? Clearly, no. Whoever the Somebody may be, then, he must accumulate his riches in one of these ways. We will find him by the process of elimination.
Is the Somebody the laborer? No; at least not as laborer; otherwise the question were absurd. Its premises exclude him. He gains a bare subsistence by his work; no more. We are searching for his surplus product. He has it not.
Is the Somebody the beggar, the invalid, the cripple, the discoverer, the gambler, the highway robber, the burglar, the defaulter, the pickpocket, or the common swindler? None of these to any extent worth mentioning. The aggregate of wealth absorbed by these clac*ses of our population compared with the vast mass produced is a mere drop in the ocean, unworthy of consider^ atlon in studying a fundamental problem in political economy. These people get some wealth, it is true; enough, probably, for their own purposes; but labor can spare them the whole of it, and never know the difference.
Then we have found him. Only the usurer remaining. ♦ * *
The usurer is the Somebody, and the State is his protector. Usury is the serpent gnawing at labor's vitals, and only liberty can detach and kill it. Give laborers their liberty, and they will keep their wealth. As for the Somebody, he, stripped of his power to steal, must either Join their ranks or starve. B. R. TUCKER.
"If there were more extremists in evolutionary time?,-there would he no revolutionary times."—lb.
{Free Life, an organ of Voluntary Taxation and
the Voluntary State.]
Don't waste your energies in party fighting;
Don't believe in the politician, who is climbing to place and power;
Don't believe in the phrase-makers and vote seekers, whose office it is to please and flatter you and keep you at war with one another;
Don't believe in state gifts or state privileges, either for poor or rich;
Don't spend your lives in regulating and restricting each other;
-Get rid of the education-persecutor, the drink-persecutor, the sanitary-persecutor, the state-morality-persecutor;
Use no state coercion, except only to defend the person and property of each citizen;
Vote down all compulsory rates and taxes;
Train yourselves in voluntary services for the state;
Safeguard all property; and win it for yourselves through voluntary association and the resisl less power of your combined pennies;
Don't take part in bad, useless wars between rich and poor;
Don't take part in bad, useless wars between labor and capital;
Trust to the widest possible liberty, to self-own-ership and self-guidance, to free trade, to peace and friendliness, and to voluntary associations of every kind for satisfying wants and winning wealth;
Follow nobody; fear nobody; coerce nobody; love freedom; be ready to make sacrifices for her; and believe in her power to overcome all difficulties and heal all sufferings.
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""For what avail the plough or sail,
Pr land or life if freedom fail?"
I have lived with communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have no laws or law-courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community all are nearly equal. There are none of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the production of our civilization. There is none of that wide-spread division of labor, which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests. There is not that severe competition and struggle for existence or for wealth which the dense population of ch ilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are tiius wanting, and petty ones are suppressed partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and his neighbor's right which seem to be in some degree inherent in every race of men.—Alfred Russell Wallace.
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We are all of us, in the realm of religion, Anarchists.—Dr. Lyman Abbott.
The only real "sovereignty," or right of "sovereignty," in this or any other country, is that right of sovereignty which each and every human being has over his or her person and property, so long as he or she obeys the one law of justice towards the person and property of every other human being. This is the only natural right of sovereignty, that was ever known among men. All other so-called rights of sovereignty are simply the usurpations.of lmposters, conspirators, robbers, tyrants and murderers.— Eysander Spooner.
It costs the government eight times more to carry the mails than it costs the express companies to have tiieir matter hauled.—W. J. Bryan. (The above is one little stone from the Babel Tower of governmental extravagance selected by the would-be Master Mason.)
There is one cure, and one only, for social upheavals, and that is justice, and if culture Is to devote itself to the discovery of substitutes for justice, it will have its labor for its pains.— Ernest A. Crosby.
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"Who am I that desire to better men's condition? I desire it; and yet I get up at noon, after having played at cards in a brilliantly lighted saloon during all the previous night, I, an enfeebled and effeminate man, who thus require the help and services of hundreds of people, I come to help them!—these men who have to rise at five, sleep on boards, feed upon cabbage and bread, understand how to plough, to reap, to put a handle to an axe, to write, to harness horses, to sew; men who, by their strength and perseverance and self restraint, are a hundred times stronger than I who come to help them.
"It is as if I were sitting on the neck of a man, and, having quite crushed him down, 1 compel him to carry me, and will not alight from off his shoulders, while I assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him, and wish -to ease his condition by every mean® in my power except by getting off his back."—Tolstoy.
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For the story of mankind is never new—Injustice, oppression and wrong are ever fortified and entrenched. Here are lawyers with specious arguments and endless briefs, to prove that black Is white, that wrong is right Here are judges in hlgto places ready to maintain existing things.
Here is the state which protects the strong and subverts the liberties and natural rights of the disinherited and despised. And here is the press with its million brazen tongues—its tongues of malice, of envy, and of spite, ready to defile the truth, to proclaim falsehood and error to the world, and to "lash to madness the passions and the hates of men. And here is the church, now as of old the home of the money changer and trafficker, the church raising its voice with the cry of the mob, and proclaiming to the world that whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and that whatsoever ye loose on earth shall >be loosed in heaven. And now, as of old, truth crushed and bleeding and helpless, has no tongue to speak and no voice to raise.—C. S. Darrow.
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In the higher condition of society, toward which mankind is unconsciously advancing, men will shun all responsibility for and arbitrary control over the conduct of others as sedulously as during past ages they have sought them as the chief good. Washington declined to be made king, and the whole world has not ceased to make the welkin ring with laudations of the disinterested act. The time will come yet when the declinature, on all hands, of every species of governmental authority over others will not even be deemed a virtue, but simply the plain dictate of enlightened self-interest. The sentiment of the poet will then be recognized as an axiom of philosophy,
Whoever mounts the throne,—King, Priest, or
Prophet,— Man alike shall groan.
Oarlyle complains, in the bitterness of his heart, that the true kings and governors of mankind have retired in disgust from the task of governing the world, and betaken themselves to the altogether private business of governing themselves. Whenever the world at large shall become as wise as they, when all men shall be content to govern themselves merely, then, and not till then, will "The True Constitution of Gov-' ernment" begin to be installed.
Every Individual is the rightful Sovereign over his own conduct in all things, whenever, and just so far as, the consequences of his conduct can be assumed by himself; or, rather, inasmuch as no one objects to assuming agreeable consequences. For disagreeable consequences, endurance, or burden of all sorts, the term "Cost" is elected as a' scientific technicality. Hence the exact formula of the doctrine, with its inherent limitation, may be stated thus: "The Sovereignty of the Individual, to be exercised at his otcn cost.11—Stephen Pearl Andrews.
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They'se nawthin' so hard as rnlndin' ye'er own business, an iditor nivir has to do that.—Mr. Dooley.
The desolating hand of power.—Hallam.
In all ages the individual has, in one form or another, been trodden in the dust. * * * Every man, in every condition, is great. It is only our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, be he where or what he may. ♦ * * The truly great are to be found everywhere. * Of all the discoveries
which men need to make, the most important, a the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves.—Channing.
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* * But this I know, that every law That men have made for man, Since first man took his brother's life, And the sad world began,* But straws the wheat and save* the chaff With a most evil fan. ♦ * * —O. Wilde.
To be governed, is to be watched, inspected, spied, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, commanded, by beings who have neither title nor knowledge nor virtue. To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every movement noted, registered, counted, rated, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, refused, authorized, indorsed, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected. To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistence, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, villified, aunoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, mitrailleused, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.—Proudhon.
"Whatever form it takes—Monarchic, Oligarchic or Democratic—the government of man by man is illigitimate and absurd. * * * As man seeks justice in equity, so society seeks order in Anarchy."—Proudhon.
Liberty not the daughter, but the mother of order.—Proudhon.
May my communistic friends forgive me! 1 should be less severe upon their ideas if 1 were not irreversibly convinced, in my reason and in my heart, that Communism, Republicanism, and all the social, political, and religious Utopias which disdain facts and criticism, are the greatest ohstcle which progress has now to conquer. Why will they never understand that fraternity can be established only by justice; that justice alone, the condition, means, and law of liberty
and fraternity, must be the object of our study; and that its determination and formula must be pursued without relaxation, even to the minutest details. « » ♦ Turn which way you will, you •must always come back to the cash-book, to the account of receipts and expenditures, the sole guarantee against large consumers as well as against small producers. * * * To suppose that the laborer of great capacity will content himself, in favor of the weak, with half his , wages, furnish his services gratuitously, and produce, as the people say, for the King of Prussia— that is, for that abstraction called society, the Sovereign, or my brothers—is to base society on a sentiment, I do not say beyond the reach of man. but one which, erected systematically into a principle, is only a false virtue, a dangerous hypocrisy.—Proud hon.
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We keep a certain number of clowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied, in ordei that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling to ourselves.—Ruskin.
Human nature is a noble and beautiful thing; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I esteem as their disease, not their nature; as a folly which may be prevented, not a necessity which must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are at their worst, is always at tne height which this human nature can attain. Thinking it high. I find it always a higher thing than 1 thought it; while those who think it low, find it, and will find it, always lower than they thought it; the fact being that it Is infinite, and capable of Infinite height and infinite fall; jut the nature of it—and there is the faith whteh I would have you hold with me—the nature of It i« in the nobleness, not in the catastrophe.— Ruskin.
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Politicians arj a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. 1 say this with the greater freedom 'because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.—Abraham Lincolu.
I have always thought that all men should be free, but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.—Lincoln to an Indiana regiment, March 17, 1865. •
"When a white man governs himself, that is self government. But, when he governs himself aud also governs some other man, that is more than self government—that is despotism. What I do mean to say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." —A. Lincoln.
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"Perhaps the most remarkable religious leader at the present time is the Russian Tolstoy, who is an individual Anarchist. He does not believe in the law, not because he would have chaos, but he would have men govern themselves, in the broadest sense of the word.
"Anarchism is in reality the ideal of political and social science, and also the ideal of religion. It is the ideal to which Jesus Christ looked forward. Christ founded no church, established no State, gave practically no laws, organized no government and set up no external authority; but he did seek to write on the hearts of men God's lnw and make them self-legislating.—Rev. Heber Newton.
"Anarchy is madness."—J. G. Schurman, et al.
"Did you ever notice that all the interesting people you meet are Anarchists?"—Julian Hawthorne.
. "A man should have the freedom to do whatsoever he wills, provided that in the doing thereof he Infringes not the equal freedom of every other man.—Herbert Spencer.
"Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
X)emur—you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain."
—Emily Dickenson.
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Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe; There is an inmost centre to us all, Where truth abides in fullness. ♦ ♦ ♦
—Browning.
ANARCHY POPULARLY MISCONCEIVED.
44We should be much helped in discussing anarchy if we used 'terrorist' {Communist) for those anarchists who appeal to violence, and the word 'voluntafists' for those like Tolstoy who appeal to persuasion. A Latin proverb sajrs: 4 He teaches well who discriminates well.' From the general confusion and hysteria about this subject, we should have sanity and courage enough to distinguish crime from its opposite. Emerson's sentence, The more reason the less government,' is the very bTeath of philosophic anarchy.
"These voluntarists would progressively throw off the organized constraints of government, lessen rather than increase the number of laws, while they would increase education and all forms of free voluntary associations. They simply look forward to a society in which men have learned to behave well enough to require no courts or police or armies. If far off ideals have any interest for us, who could present a nobler one than this of the voluntarists? Both Channing and Phil-
Lips Brooks gave us a conception of heaven in precisely these terms. Ibsen writes a letter to George Brandes In the same spirit. ThOTeau was out and out an anarchist of this type.
"No question in the immediate future will plague us like this question: Shall we enlarge or diminish the functions of government? Shall we put our faith in compulsion or in liberty and free associations? The Socialists beckon us one way, the philosophic anarchist another. Aa a fact, we know that a practical hand-to-mouth policy, with scant regard to fundamental principles, will guide us; we are just now, however, trying to think clearly about ideals. Those who call themselves anarchists and use violence, we shall punish as swiftly as the law allows, but our immediate danger is to confuse an order of ideas with stupid and criminal practice. The anarchist idea, apart from violence, we shall not touch by any conceivable law. What a comment on our intelligence is the whole list of 'Remedies for anarchy—'Examinations of opinions by foreign consuls/ 'Allow no one to come who cannot read/ 'Deportation to some far island,* 'Sending them to an insane asylum,' are types even of the serious proposals.
"How long will it take to learn that it cannot thus deal with mental processes? Our society is, alas! filled with what Is worst in the anarchist spirit. A Southern community, enflamed by degro crime, real, or imagined, burns, hangs or shoots the wretch, and thus becomes as a community anarchist in Its bad sense of lawless.
"In the North the kind of group excitement makes us just as hysterical, just as lawless. After the assassin had done his work at Buffalo, a Senator, judges, editors and clergy innumerable,, were quick to proclaim themselves lawless and anarchist in opinion. In their heat they were willing, like Southern lynchers, to trample upon the only safeguard of civilization—law and order.
"Our greatest embarrassment In dealing with criminal anarchy (the terrorists) will be hysteria
and. lawlessness among so many of our citizens, and nowhere are 'Remedies' more needed than for this sinister temper among ourselves."—John Graham Brooks.
{+■%. teacher—Rara avis—who "discriminates well.")
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ANARCHISM is Truth's crucible. "If we are satisfied with what has been found out, we shall find nothing more. They who have gone before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth is open to all, and has not yet been taken possession of, but many discoveries will be left for future ages."—Seneca.
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Whatever freedom for ourselves we claim, We wish all others to enjoy the same, In simple womanhood's and manhood's name! Freedom within one law of sacred might: "Trench not on any other's equal right."
James Thompson.
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Horace Greeley wrote, "he did not mean to say all democrats are horse thieves, 'but he did mean to sa.v all horse thieves are democrats.'* So, it is here noted—all the writers of the foregoing extracts are not by name anarchists, but they all write capital Anarchist doctrine.
It needs a little grit in these days of artificiality, to take the Jesus stand, "come out from among them and be ye separate." Yet, there are compensations to the come-outers which the fatted coward-con formers to things as they are, and their unresisting purblind dupes wot not of.
"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."
If it was "up to" this one weak wight to foster -unkindliineas, "hatred* would be too feeble a word to express his detestation of the utter enormity of our interminable wallowing in the mire of the —seemingly—ever widening vicious circle of present conditions.
The mighty truth wi.ich Emerson voiced: "We each have in us the possibility of every crime," happily, by parity of reasoning, carries with it the corollary that in each of us there iieth, though never so dormant, the desire for every virtue. The gradual extinction of slavery will fan this vital spark into living flame.
Conjure up, if you will, the towering civilizations of the past. Corrupt were they and become abominable. Lust, not love, wickedness not righteousness, it was that flung them into the everlasting dust.
Under the forms of libertyless law, crafty by-force^of-intellect, thievery is rampant, corruption, insincerity, profligacy and hypocrisy abound. History repeats itself under our very eyes. But the day of reckoning will as surely come as day follows night. For wnat we sow that we shall also reap; it cannot b» otherwise.
If there was any doubt or shadow of turning, I would worship at the shrine of the bombastic and "terrible Teddy," or even at that of the spent debauchee, Edward.
For years and years Nature, Man and Animal —down to and even below the caterwauling denizens of our back yards—have been teaching me this liberty—truth. Even though it be DUt a still small voice. The weak things of the world confound the mighty, for they become mighty— if true. „
Like the immortal anarchist Garrison, as to this principle,—
"I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
No human toeing likes to be shunned by his neighbors, but yet, when choice must be made.
one's own approbation must have the first consideration.
Liberty—lawlessness—anarchy can never be trespass as long as the parties thereto assume— carry—bear the burdens or consequences of their acts.
As we are of one blood and endowed with reason, the foregoing pages of testimony make It quite manifest that the words "Liberty, freedom, self-government, seltf - sovereignty, self-owner-ship," are absolute only up to the point that ev ery human being has the same proportion of liberty, etc., as any other human being and no more. This is Anarchism. Anarchism is simplicity itself. It is as self-evident as two and two are four.
It is Absolute Free Trade in all human activity or passivity. Simply that and nothing more.
Occupancy and use the only title to land. A title, by the way; that "rough and uncouth" miners, by common consent respect and adopt, (till artificial government—reptile-like—sets its fangs in natural conditions to poison them.
Anarchism places earnership—as nature does— before ownership.
In other words, the wnan who catches the coney—or produces the potato—has nature's right to cook and consume it, and no being, be he angel or devil, has rightful warrant to say him nay.
Anarchism, is minding one's own business-first, last and all the time.
It is voluntary co-operation in all human affairs.
It is workt love's largess, or starve.
It is, do no evil that good may come. %
It Is unit-man justice set over against mass-man—Tyranny.
It says: "Govern thyself and thyself alone. Thy neighbor's freedom hold sacred as thy own."
It is as practical and natural as sleeping and waking; as sunshine and shadow.
Any being or principle thst contradicts or contravenes these truisms, in the name of Anarchy, ljes, and don't you forget it.
This abounding faith is all inclusive. "Not 'till the sun excludes thee will I exclude thee."
It is not for us to wait for kings, presidents or majorities to inaugurate Anarchism; if we wait for them It will be an ever receding will-o-the-wisp. The exact ratio that each human being refrains from stealing from any other.human being, and earns what he or she consumes, is the exact measure in which this solvent of human wretchedness will be applied. When education really educatesf, each individual will know enough to see to it that bis fellow does not filch from him. And thus will the gait of Anarchism's coming be accelerated.
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The world is saved by Its shockers.—I. McCalL
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It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.—Vol talre.
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What we call union seems to me only a name for a phase of individual action. I live only for myself; and in proportion to my growth I benefit others.—George W. Curtis.
Profounder, profounder
Man's spirit must dive; His aye^rollang orbit
At no goal will arrive; The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold, Once found,—for new heavens JBCe spuroeth the old. —Emerson.
O
As every open-minded adult, tho' never so near our anthropoid ancestors in intelligence, should allow the meed of education in the truth, and, with the press, the church, the bar, and the institutions of learning practically subsidized for the supporting of Government force—the possibility for promulgating the truth as it is in Jesus, is, as one is to five thousand. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I was so desirous of placing contrasts of force and anti-force side by side, I prepared "copy" to that end; but the allied bulk and expense getting it published, prevented the consummation of the desire. With it all and through it all, it being a labor of love into the bargain, still, these few drops from the ocean of libertarian literature in all probability never would have been gathered together but for the recent unatoned, insulting, sopho-tnorlc onslaughts on principles that are as true as the everlasting hills. To foe sure, there was the excuse of a beyond-a-peradvei^ture insane man's act to warrant such onsets. That act also furnished fortuitous opportunity to official satraps to keep the wool still more closely over the people's eyes as to the self-evident truths of self-sovereignty; and, as if that were not enough, there has, in this university^-crowned valley, been revealed, by anonymous threat, missive, stony stare, and in other ways, such colossal want of knowledge of the subject, that, what with Roosevelt's ravings, Root's roorbacks, Funs-ton's fulminations, Madden's Mail Meddling, and Waller's wholesale murders of all over ten, I was somewhat apprehensive of trespass in government monopoly preserves in practicing "the water cure," even though done in a mild form on my own atanomy, yet, crucify me if I didn't feel that some few emanations from the intellect of earth's elect would not only be in order, but abundantly justified.*
This brochure is triple the bulk of original intent—so hard is it to stay ones hand with such an embarrassment of riches to draw from. Therefore I desist. Besides I wanted it so brief as to invite perusal by every living soul hereabouts who was offered the stone of falsehood in lieu of the bread of truth by the battened consumers of government pabulum.
It is a most hopeful sign of the times when staid conservative business men here** hear the truths of anarchism gladly, and the bourbons of the press' applaud in cool blood when the terrible name is not used as a label.
Present day Canutes cannot keep the tide back. Change will come! Growth or death is nature's decree: let us place our hands in hers, heed her teachings, learn the lessons of sea and sky, bush and bird, and determine that the lord of creation shall be as free as the air in its gladsome surge around this terrestrial ball.
•In response to request, and as a further measure of self-vindication and satisfaction. I propose, in abbreviated autobiographic form, to—as it were—nolo "nature up by the roots with earth, rain and dew clinging" thereto, thus and thereby showing individual grace-growth from hell-clad bondage to heaven-capped freedom. Price of this Memoir to be at the discretion of purchasers. Orders hereby invited on that basis.
••Samuel M. Jones' Business Men's Address.
Location—402 Oak Avenue, Ithaca, N. Y.
(Should circumstances warrant, will be removed to more central location.)
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The Library is little and not select, (a list of the books is in preparation,) but yet contains milk for babes and meat for adults; and ranges, in religion, from "Baxter's Saints' Rest" to Grant Allen's "Evolution of the Idea of God," and, in political and social science,, from "Garfield's Words" to Tucker's "Instead of A Book," thus giving opportunity for the scripture: "Prove all things, hold fast that wTiich. is good" —to be fulfilled.
Either or all three books, "The Slavery of Our Times," "Instead of a Book" and "The Science of Society," by Tolstoy, Tucker and Andrews, respectively, are hereby offered presentation to any free "Lending Library," on condition each book be advertised proportionately with any other book in such library. This offer is, alas! contingent on the Journal boycott-taboo, or other untoward event being sufficiently drastic to make it seem inevitable that donor will be forced to dig to beg.
N. B.—Supplementary to the above work, and, necessarily incidental thereto, orders will be received for books, and special discounts, when possible, will be allowed from prices of boJcs that the times demand sowing broadcast.
PE CKSNIFFIAN PRESS CENSORSHIP.
Typical of Its Zeal in Spreading: Truth.
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WANTED—Adults devoid of prejudice, even though unwilling to get off the m asses' backs, to such will be furnished "without money and without price"—if they will engage to "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the same—a course of reading in proof that the gospel of anarchism is a gospel of "peace on earth and good will to man" and In perfect accord with evolutionary progress. Apply in any old way to
HENRY BOOL.
A well printed book of 512 pages, being a (fragmentary exposition of ipthilosophical Anarchism (the antithesis of Absolute Monanchism) culled from the writings of Benj. R. Tucker, editor of "Liberty." It discusses Money and Interest, Land and Rent; The Individual, Society and the State; and severely criticises State Socialism and Communism. Price, paper, 50c; cloth, $1.
Address BENJ. R. TUCKER, Box 1312,
New York City.
A Memorandum of Modern Principles by Charles Ferguson, author of (The Affirmative Intellect.)
Edwin Markham says: "It has style, insight, high seriousness, spiritual passion. It is a great book of a great epoch."
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Published by
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY.
New York and London.
by stephen pearl andrews.
A well-printed book of 165 large pages, consisting of two essays bearing the following titles respectively: "The True Constitution of Government in the Sovereignty of the Individual as the Final Development of Protestantism, Democracy, and Socialism;" "Cost the Limit of Price: A Scientific Measure of Honesty in Trade as On* of the Fundamental Principles in the Solution of the Social Problem."
This work is an elaborate exposition of the teachings of Josiah Warren by one of his foremost disciples. Price in Cloth, $1; in Paper, 50c.
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Address,
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by4ernest crosby.
Count Tolstoy says: I like the book very much. Some of the pieces—the choice is difficult because all are very good—I will have translated into Russian and published.
Edwin Markham says: Plain Talk in Psaln1 and Parable is one of the significant books of the time—a suggestive and inspiring utterance. These prophet chants are a noble protest against the wrongs and failures of civilization.
I. ZangwlU says the book is crammed with vital matter.
This most Interesting volume.* * There is a strange power in some of these songs—the power which sincere conviction carries with it. There is also a feeling of all-embracing brotherhood. •
* It is a strong book.—New York Commercial Advertiser.
The above volume, handsomely printed an*" bound, gilt-edged on deckel-edged paper, will be sent pospaid, on receipt of $1.50, by
SMALL MAYNARD & CO.,
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by ernest crosby.
is a merciless satire on war and militarism in which the parallel between savagery and soldiery is unerringly drawn. It is a biting burlesque on the various forms of cheap hero-worship. It holds up to withering scorn every Important feature of militarism.
The New England Magazine, Boston: "Very amusing indeed—were it not so sadly near the truth—is Ernest Crosby's satire upon jingoism and American army life." Price $1.50 postpaid.
Published by
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Per year, $1. Single copies, 10 cents.
I regard The Conservator as one of the best papers published in America; in fact I know of no other paper that stands on so high a plane and Is such an inspiration.—John P. Altgeld.
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For any of the above works at best possible discounts, and for sample copies of "Conservator" ' and."Stuffed Club" free ito a limited extent.
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