Other Libertarians

Other Libertarians THE INTERNATIONAL Mikhail Bakunin's address on the Working-People's International Association: 1867 1. The International claims for each worker the full product of his labor: finding it wrong that there should be in society so many men who, producing nothing at all, can maintain their insolent riches only by the work of others. The International, like the apostle St. Paul, maintains that "if any would not work, neither should he eat." The International recognizes the right to this noble name of labor as belonging only to productive labor. Some years ago, the young king of Portugal, having come to pay a visit to his august father-in-law, was presented in the working people's association at Turin; and there, surrounded by workingmen, he said to them these memorable words: "Gentlemen, the present century is the century of labor. We all labor. I, too, labor for the good of my people." However flattering this likening of royal labor to workingmen's labor may appear, we cannot accept it. We must recognize that royal labor is a labor of absorption and not of production; capitalists, proprietors, contractors, also labor; but all their labor, having no other object than to transfer the real products of labor from their workingmen into their own pockets, cannot be considered by us as productive labor. In this sense thieves and brigands labor also, and roughly, risking every day their liberty and their life.

The International clearly recognizes intellectual labor—that 502 Liberty and the Great Libertarians of men of science as well as of the application of science to industry, and that of the organizers and administrators of industrial and commercial affairs—as productive labor. But it demands for all men a participation as much in manual labor as in labors of the mind, suited not to birth nor to social privileges which must disappear, but to the natural capacities of each, developed by equal education and instruction. Only then will disappear the gulf which today separates the classes which are called intelligent and the working masses. 2. The International declares that, so long as the working masses shall remain plunged in misery, in economic servitude and in this forced ignorance to which economic organization and present society condemn them, all the political reforms and revolutions, without excepting even those which are projected and promised by the Republican Alliance of Mazzini, will avail them nothing.

3. That consequently in their own interest, material as well as moral, they should subordinate all political questions to economic questions, the material means of an education and an existence really human being for the proletariat the first condition of liberty, morality, and humanity. 4. That the experience of past centuries as well as of all present facts ought to have sufficiently convinced the working masses that they can and should expect no social amelioration of their lot from the generosity nor even from the justice of the privileged classes; that there has never been and that there will never be a generous class, a just class, justice is able to exist only in equality, and equality involving necessarily the abolition of privileges and classes; that the classes actually existing—clergy, bureaucracy, plutocracy, nobility, bourgeoisie —dispute for power only to consolidate their own strength and to increase their profits; and that consequently the proletariat must take henceforth the direction of its own affairs into its own hands.

5. That, once clearly understanding itself and organized Other Libertarians 503 nationally and internationally, there will be no power in the world that can resist it. 6. That the proletariat ought to tend, not to the establishment of a new rule or of a new class for its own profit, but to the definitive abolition of all rule, of every class, by the organization of justice, liberty, and equality for all human beings, without distinction of race, color, nationality, or faith,—all to fully exercise the same duties and enjoy the same rights. 7. That the cause of the workingmen of the entire world is solidary, across and in spite of all State frontiers. It is solidary and international because, pushed by an inevitable law which is inherent in it, bourgeois capital, in its threefold employment,—in industry, in commerce, and in banking speculations,—has evidently been tending, since the beginning of this century, towards an organization more and more international and solidary, enlarging each day more, and simultaneously in all countries, the abyss which already separates the working world from the bourgeois world; whence it results that for every workingman endowed with intelligence and heart, for every proletaire who has affection for his companions in misery and servitude, and who at the same time is conscious of his situation and of his only actual interests, the real country is henceforth the international camp of labor, opposed, across the frontiers of all countries, to the much older international camp of exploiting capital; that to every workingman truly worthy of the name, the workingmen of foreign countries who suffer and who are oppressed like himself, are infinitely nearer and more like brothers than the bourgeoisie of his own country, who enrich themselves to his detriment.

8. That the oppression and exploitation of which the toiling masses are victims in all countries, being in their nature and by their present organization internationally solidary, the deliverance of the proletariat must also be so; that the economic and social emancipation (foundation and preliminary condition of political emancipation) of the working-people 504 Liberty and the Great Libertarians of a country will be forever impossible, if it is not effected simultaneously at least in the majority of the countries with which it finds itself bound by means of credit, industry and commerce; and that, consequently, by the duty of fraternity as well as by enlightened self-interest, in the interest of their own salvation and of their near deliverance, the working-people of all trades are called upon to establish, organize, and exercise the strictest practical solidarity, communal, provincial, national, and international, beginning in their workshop, and then extending it to all their trade societies and to the federation of all the trades,—a solidarity which they ought above all to scrupulously observe and practice in all the developments, in all the catastrophes, and in all the incidents of the incessant struggle of the labor of the workingman against the capital of the bourgeois, such as strikes, demands for decrease of the hours of work and increase of wages, and, in general, all the claims which relate to the conditions of labor and to the existence, whether material or moral, of the working-people.

Economic Interpretation of History.—From the truth which I have just laid down as a principle flows another consequence as important as the first,—that all religions and all systems of morality which prevail in a society are always the ideal expression of its real, material situation, that is to say, of its economic organization first of all, but also of its political organization, the latter being, moreover, nothing but the legal and violent consecration of the former. The revolt of the laborers and the spontaneous organization of human solidary labor through the free federation of the workingmen's groups! This, then, is the answer to the enigma which the Eastern Sphinx forces us today to solve, threatening to devour us if we do not solve it. The principle of justice, liberty, and equality by all and in solidary labor which is agitating today the working masses of America and Europe must penetrate the East equally and completely. The salvation of Europe is to be had only at this price, for this is the true, Other Libertarians 505 the only constitutive principle of humanity, and no people can be completely and solidariiy free in the human sense of the word, unless all humanity is free.

(It has been) stated, that Protestantism established liberty in Europe. This is a great error. It is the economic, material emancipation of the bourgeois class on the one hand, and on the other its necessary accompaniment, the intellectual, antiChristian, and anti-religious emancipation of this class, which in spite of Protestantism, have created that exclusively political and bourgeois liberty which is today easily confounded with the grand, universal, human liberty which only the proletariat can create, because its essential condition is the disappearance of those centers of authority called States, and the complete emancipation of labor, the real base of human society. The human race, like all the other animal races, has inherent principles which are peculiar to it, and all these principles are summed up in or reducible to a single principle which we call Solidarity. This principle may be formulated thus: no human individual can recognize his own humanity, or, consequently, realize it in life, except by recognizing it in others and by cooperating in its realization for others. No man can emancipate himself save by emancipating with him all the men about him. My liberty is the liberty of everybody, for I am really free, free not only in idea, but in fact, only when my liberty and my right find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and right of all men, my equals. What all other men are is of great importance to me, because, however independent I may imagine myself or may appear by my social position, whether I am pope, czar, or emperor, or even prime minister, I am always the product of the lowest among them; if they are ignorant, miserable, enslaved, my life is determined by their ignorance, misery, and slavery. I, an enlightened or intelligent man, for example—if such is the case—am foolish with their folly; I, a brave man, am the slave of their slavery; 506 Liberty and the Great Libertarians I, a rich man, tremble before their misery; I, a privileged man, turn pale before their justice. In short, wishing to be free, I cannot be, because all the men around me do not yet wish to be free, and, not wishing it, they become instruments of my oppression.

The true, human liberty of a single individual implies the emancipation of all; because, thanks to the law of solidarity which is the natural basis of all human society, I cannot be, feel, and know myself really, completely free, if I am not surrounded by men as free as myself, and because the slavery of each is my slavery. SYNDICALISM Emma Goldman In view of the fact that the ideas embodied in Syndicalism have been practised by the workers for the last half century, even if without the background of social consciousness; that in this country five men had to pay with their lives because they advocated Syndicalist methods as the most effective in the struggle of labor against capital; and that, furthermore, Syndicalism has been consciously practised by the workers of France, Italy and Spain since 1895, it is rather amusing to witness some people in America and England now swooping down upon Syndicalism as a perfectly new and never before heard-of proposition.

Already as far back as 1848 a large section of the workers realized the utter futility of political activity as a means of helping them in their economic struggle. At that time already the demand went forth for direct economic measures, as against the useless waste of energy along political lines. This was the case not only in France, but even prior to that in England, where Robert Owen, the true revolutionary Socialist, propagated similar ideas. After years of agitation and experiment the idea was incorOther Libertarians 507 porated by the first convention of the Internationale in 1867, in the resolution that the economic emancipation of the workers must be the principal aim of all revolutionists, to which everything else is to be subordinated. In fact, it was this determined radical stand which eventually brought about the split in the revolutionary movement of that day, and its division into factions: the one, under Marx and Engels, aiming at political conquest; the other, under Bakunin and the Latin workers, forging ahead along industrial and Syndicalist lines. The further development of those two wings is familiar to every thinking man and woman: the one has gradually centralized into a huge machine, with the sole purpose of conquering political power within the existing capitalist State; the other is becoming an ever more vital revolutionary factor, dreaded by the enemy as the greatest menace to its rule.

The fundamental difference between Syndicalism and the old trade union methods is this: while the old trade unions, without exception, move within the wage system and capitalism, recognizing the latter as inevitable, Syndicalism repudiates and condemns present industrial arrangements as unjust and criminal, and holds out no hope to the workers for lasting results from this system. Of course Syndicalism, like the old trade unions, fights for immediate gains, but it is not stupid enough to pretend that labor can expect humane conditions from inhuman economic arrangements in society. Thus it merely wrests from the enemy what it can force him to yield; on the whole, however, Syndicalism aims at, and concentrates its energies upon, the complete overthrow of the wage system. Indeed, Syndicalism goes further: it aims to liberate labor from every institution that has not for its object the free development of production for the benefit of all humanity. In short, the ultimate purpose of Syndicalism is to reconstruct society from its present centralized, authoritative and brutal state to one based upon the 508 Liberty and the Great Libertarians free, federated grouping of the workers along lines of economic and social liberty.

With this object in view, Syndicalism works in two directions: first, by undermining the existing institutions; secondly, by developing and educating the workers and cultivating their spirit of solidarity, to prepare them for a full, free life, when capitalism shall have been abolished. Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism. That circumstance accounts for the presence of so many Anarchists in the Syndicalist movement. Like Anarchism, Syndicalism prepares the workers along direct economic lines, as conscious factors in the great struggles of today, as well as conscious factors in the task of reconstructing society along autonomous industrial lines, as against the paralyzing spirit of centralization with its bureaucratic machinery of corruption, inherent in all political parties. As a logical sequence Syndicalism, in its daily warfare against capitalism, rejects the contract system, because it does not consider labor and capital equals, hence cannot consent to an agreement which the one has the power to break, while the other must submit to without redress.

Syndicalism has grown out of the disappointment of the workers with politics and parliamentary methods. In the course of its development Syndicalism has learned to see in the State—with its mouthpiece, the representative system— one of the strongest supports of capitalism; just as it has learned that the army and the church are the chief pillars of the State. It is therefore that Syndicalism has turned its back upon parliamentarism and political machines, and has set its face toward the economic arena wherein a lone gladiator Labor can meet his foe successfully. Equally so has experience determined their anti-military attitude. Time and again has the army been used to shoot down strikers and to inculcate the sickening idea of patriotism, for the purpose of dividing the workers against themselves and Other Libertarians 509 helping the masters to the spoils. The inroads that Syndicalist agitation has made into the superstition of patriotism ar# evident from the dread of the ruling class for the loyalty of the army, and the rigid persecution of the anti-militarists. Naturally, for the ruling class realizes much better than the workers that when the soldiers will refuse to obey their superiors, the whole system of capitalism will be doomed.

Indeed, why should the workers sacrifice their children that the latter may be used to shoot their own parents? Therefore, Syndicalism is not merely logical in its anti-military agitation; it is most practical and far-reaching, inasmuch as it robs the enemy of his strongest weapon against labor. Direct Action: Conscious individual or collective effort to protest against, or remedy, social conditions through the systematic assertion of the economic power of the workers. One of the objections of politicians to the General Strike is that the workers also would suffer for the necessaries of life. In the first place, the workers are past masters in going hungry; secondly, it is certain that a General Strike is surer of prompt settlement than an ordinary strike. Witness the transport and miner strikes in England: how quickly the lords of State and capital were forced to make peace. Besides, Syndicalism recognizes the right of the producers to the things which they have created—namely, the right of the workers to help themselves if the strike does not meet with speedy settlement.

These ideas and methods of Syndicalism some may consider entirely negative, though they are far from it in their effect upon society today. But Sydicalism has also a directly positive aspect. In fact, much more time an d effort is being devoted to that phase than to the others. Various forms of Syndicalist activity are designed to prepare the workers, even within present social and industrial conditions, for the life of a new and better society. To that end the masses are trained in the spirit of mutual aid and brotherhood, their initiative and self-reliance developed, and an esprit de corps maintained whose very soul 510 Liberty and the Great Libertarians is solidarity of purpose and the community of interests of the international proletariat. Chief among these activities are the mutualiteesy or mutual aid societies, established by the French Syndicalists. Their object is, foremost, to secure work for unemployed members, and to further that spirit of mutual assistance which rests upon the consciousness of labor's identity of interests throughout the world.

In his The Labor Movement in France, Mr. L. Levine states that during the year 1902 over 74,000 workers, out of a total of 99,000 applicants, were provided with work by these societies, without being compelled to submit to the extortion of the employment bureau sharks. These latter are a source of the deepest degradation, as well as of most shameless exploitation, of the worker. Especially does it hold true of America, where the employment agencies are in many cases also masked detective agencies, supplying workers in need of employment to strike regions, under false promises of steady, remunerative employment. The French Confederation had long realized the vicious role of employment agencies as leeches upon the jobless worker and nurseries of scabbery. By the threat of a General Strike the French Syndicalist forced the government to abolish the employment bureau sharks, and the workers' own mutualitees have almost entirely superseded them, to the great economic and moral advantage of labor.

Besides the mutualitees, the French Syndicalists have established other activities tending to weld labor in closer bonds of solidarity and mutual aid. Among these are the efforts to assist workingmen journeying from place to place. The practical as well as ethical value of such assistance is inestimable. It serves to instill the spirit of fellowship and gives a sense of security in the feeling of oneness with the large family of labor. This is one of the vital effects of the Syndicalist spirit in France and other Latin countries. What a tremendous need there is for just such efforts in this country! Can anyone doubt the Other Libertarians 511 significance of the consciousness of workingmen coming from Chicago, for instance, to New York, sure to find there among their comrades welcome lodging and food until they have secured employment? This form of activity is entirely foreign to the labor bodies of this country, and as a result the traveling workman in search of a job—the ''blanket stiff"—is constantly at the mercy of the constable and policeman, a victim of the vagrancy laws, and the unfortunate material whence is recruited, through stress of necessity, the army of scabdom.

I have repeatedly witnessed while at the headquarters of the Confederation, the cases of workingmen who came with their union cards from various parts of France, and even from other countries of Europe, and were supplied with meals and lodging, and encouraged by every evidence of brotherly spirit, and made to feel at home by their fellow-workers of the Confederation. It is due, to a great extent, to these activities of the Syndicalists that the French government is forced to employ the army for strikebreaking, because few workers are willing to lend themselves for such service, thanks to the efforts and tactics of Syndicalism. No less in importance than the mutual aid activities of the Syndicalists is the cooperation established by them between the city and the country, the factory worker and the peasant or farmer, the latter providing the workers with food supplies during strikes, or taking care of the strikers' children. This form of practical solidarity has for the first time been tried in this country during the Lawrence strike, with inspiring results.

And all these Syndicalist activities are permeated with a spirit of educational work, carried on systematically by evening classes on all vital subjects treated from an unbiased, libertarian standpoint—not the adulterated "knowledge" with which the minds are stuffed in our public schools. The scope of the education is truly phenomenal, including sex hygiene, the care of women during pregnancy and confinement, the care of home and children, sanitation and general hygiene; in fact, every 512 Liberty and the Great Libertarians branch of human knowledge—science, history, art—receives thorough attention, together with the practical application in the established workingmen's libraries, dispensaries, concerts and festivals, in which the greatest artists and literateurs of Paris consider it an honor to participate. One of the most vital efforts of Syndicalism is to prepare the workers, now, for their role in a free society. Thus the Syndicalist organizations supply its members with textbooks on every trade and industry, of a character that is calculated to make the worker an adept in his chosen line, a master of his craft, for the purpose of familiarizing him with all the branches of his industry, so that when labor finally takes over production and distribution, the people will be fully prepared to manage successfully their own affairs.

A demonstration of the effectiveness of this educational campaign of Syndicalism is given by the railroad men of Italy, whose mastery of all the details of transportation is so great that they could offer to the Italian government to take over the railroads of the country and guarantee their operation with greater economy and fewer accidents than is at present done by the government. Their ability fco carry on production has been strikingly proved by the Syndicalists in connection with the glassblowers' strike in Italy. There the strikers, instead of remaining idle during the progress of the strike, decided themselves to carry on the production of glass. The wonderful spirit of solidarity resulting from the Syndicalist propaganda enabled them to build a glass factory within an incredibly short time. An old building, rented for the purpose and which would have ordinarily required months to be put into proper condition, was turned into a glass factory within a few weeks, by the solidaric efforts of the strikers, aided by their comrades who toiled with them after working hours. Then the strikers began operating the glassblowing factory, and their cooperative plan of work and distribution during the strike has proved so satisfactory in Other Libertarians 513 every way that the experimental factory has been made permanent and a part of the glassblowing industry in Italy is now in the hands of the cooperative organization of the workers.

This method of applied education not only trains the worker in his daily struggle, but serves also to equip him for the battle royal and the future, when he is to assume his place in society as an intelligent, conscious being and useful producer, once capitalism is abolished. Nearly all leading Syndicalists agree with the Anarchists that a free society can exist only through voluntary association, and that its ultimate success will depend upon the intellectual and moral development of the workers who will supplant the wage system with a new social arrangement, based on solidarity and economic wellbeing for all. That is Syndicalism, in theory and practice. FREEDOM IN MUSIC James Huneker Have not all great composers been anarchs—from Bach to Strauss? At first blush the hard-plodding Johann Sebastian of the IVell-Tempered Clavichord seems a doubtful figure to drape with the black flag of revolt. He grew a forest of children, he worked early and late, and he played the organ in church of Sundays; but he was a musical revolutionist nevertheless.

His music proves it. And he quarreled with his surroundings like any good social democrat. He even went out for a drink during a prosy sermon, and came near being discharged for returning late. If Lombroso were cognizant of this suspicious fact, he might build a terrifying structure of theories, with all sorts of inferential subcellars. However, it is Bach's music that still remains revolutionary. Mozart and Gluck depended too much on aristocratic patronage to play the role of Solitaries. But many tales are related of their refusal to lick the boots of the rich, to curve the spine of the suppliant. Both were by nature gentlemen, and both occasionally arose to the situation 514 Liberty and the Great Libertarians and snubbed their patrons outrageously. Handel! A fighter, a born revolutionist, a hater of rulers. John Runciman— himself an anarchistic critic—calls Handel the most magnificent man that ever lived. He was certainly the most virile among musicians.

I recall the story of Beethoven refusing to uncover in the presence of royalty, though his companion, Goethe, doffed his hat. Theoretically I admire Beethoven's independence, yet there is no denying that the great poet was the politer of the two and doubtless a pleasanter man to consort with. The mythic William Tell and his contempt for Gessler's hat were translated into action by the composer. Handel, despite the fact that he could not boast Beethoven's peasant ancestry, had a contempt for rank and its entailed snobberies, that was remarkable. And his music is like a blow from a muscular fist. Haydn need not be considered. He was henpecked, and for the same reason as was Socrates. The Croatian composer's wife told some strange stories of that merry little blade, her chamber-music husband. As I do not class Mendelssohn among the great composers, he need not be discussed. His music was Bach watered for general consumption. Schubert was an anarch all his short life. He is said to have loved an Esterhazy girl, and being snubbed he turned sour-souled. He drank "far more than was good for him," and he placed on paper the loveliest melodies the world has ever heard. Beethoven was the supreme anarch of art, and put into daily practice the radicalism of his music.

Because of its opportunities for soul expansion, music has ever attracted the strong free sons of earth. The most profound truths, the most blasphemous things, the most terrible ideas, may be incorporated within the walls of a symphony, and the police be none the wiser. Suppose that some Russian professional supervisor of artistic anarchy really knew what arrant doctrines Tschaikowsky preached! It is its freedom from the meddlesome hand of the censor that makes of music a playOther Libertarians 515 ground for great brave souls. Richard Wagner in Siegfried, and under the long nose of royalty, preaches anarchy, puts into tone, words, gestures, lath, plaster, paint, and canvas an allegory of humanity liberated from the convention of authority, from what Bernard Shaw would call the Old Man of the Mountain, the Government. I need only adduce the names of Schumann, another revolutionist like Chopin in the psychic sphere; Liszt, bitten by the socialistic theories of Saint-Simon, a rank hater of conventions in art, though in life a silken courtier; Brahms, a social democrat and freethinker; and Tschaikowsky, who buried more bombs in his work than ever Chopin with his cannon among roses or Bakunin with his terrible prose of a nihilist. Years ago I read and doubted Mr. Ashton-Ellis's interesting "1849,"

with its fallacious denial of Wagner's revolutionary behavior. Wagner may not have shouldered a musket during the Dresden uprising, but he was, with Mikhail Bakunin, its prime inspirer. His very ringing of the church bells during the row is a symbol of his attitude. And then he ran away, luckily enough for the world of music, while his companions, Roeckel and Bakunin, were captured and imprisoned. Wagner might be called the Joseph Proudhon of composers—his music is anarchy itself, coldly deliberate like the sad and logical music we find in the great Frenchman's Philosophy of Misery (a subtitle, by the way). And what a huge regiment of painters, poets, sculptors, prosateurs, journalists, and musicians might not be included under the roof of the House Beautiful! Verhaeren of Belgium, whose powerful bass hurls imprecations at the present order; Georges Eckhoud, Maurice Maeterlinck; Constantin Meunier, whose eloquent bronzes are a protest against the misery of the proletarians; Octave Mirbeau, Richepin, William Blake, William Morris, Swinburne, Maurice Barres, the late Stephane Mallarme, Walt Whitman, Ibsen, Strindberg; Felicien Rops, the sinister author of love and death; Edvard 516 Liberty and the Great Libertarians Munch, whose men and women with staring eyes and fuliginous faces seem to discern across the frame of his pictures febrile visions of terror; and the great Scandinavian sculptors, Vigeland and Sinding; and Zola, Odilon Redon, Huysmans, Heine, Baudelaire, Poe, Richard Strauss, Shaw,—is not the art of these men, and many more left unnamed, direct personal expression of anarchic revolt?

Nor is there cause for alarm in the word of anarchy, which means in its ideal state unfettered selfgovernment. If we all were selfgoverned, governments would be sinecures. Anarchy often expresses itself in rebellion against conventional art forms—the only kind of anarchy that interests me. A most signal example is Henry James. Surprising it is to find this fastidious artist classed among the anarchs of art, is it not? He is one, as surely as was Turgenieff, the de Goncourts, or Flaubert. I have left Berlioz and Strauss for the last. The former all his life long was a flaming individualist. His books, his utterances, his conduct, prove it. Hector of the Flaming Locks, fiery speech, and crimson scores, would have made a picturesque figure on the barricades waving a red flag or casting bombs. His Fantastic Symphony is full of the tonal commandments of anarchic revolt. Strauss, who is a psychological realist in symphonic art, withal a master symbolist; back of his surface eccentricities there is a foundational energy, an epic largeness of utterance, a versatility of manner, that rank him as the unique anarchist of music. He taps the tocsin of revolt, and his velvet sonorities do not disguise either their meagre skein of spirituality or the veiled ferocities of his aristocratic insurgency. Sufficient to add that as in politics he is a social democrat, so in his vast and memorial art he is the anarch of anarchs. Not as big a fellow in theme-making as Beethoven, he far transcends Beethoven in harmonic originality. His very scheme of harmonization is the sign of a soul insurgent.

Other Libertarians 517 OBSCENITY LAWS Theodore Schroeder Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture. Has it ever occurred to you that the witchcraft superstition was almost identical, in its essence, with the present superstitious belief in the reality of the "obscene," as a thing outside the mind? Think it over. Fanatical men and pious judges, otherwise intelligent, have affirmed the reality of both, and, on the assumption of their inerrancy in this, have assumed to punish their fellowmen. It is computed from historical records that 9,000,000 persons were put to death for witchcraft after 1484. The opponents of witch-belief were denounced just as the disbelievers in the "obscene" are now denounced. Yet witches ceased to be, when men no longer believed in them. Think it over and see if the "obscene" will not also disappear when men cease to believe in it.

In 1661, the learned Sir Mathew Hale, "a person than whom no one was more backward to condemn a witch without full evidence," used this language: "That there are such angels (as witches) it is without question." Then he made a convincing argument from Holy Writ, and added: "It is also confirmed to us by daily experience of the power and energy of these evil spirits in witches and by them." (See Annals of Witchcraft, by Drake, preface, page 11.) A century later, the learned Sir William Blackstone, since then the mentor of every English and American lawyer, joined with the witch-burners in bearing testimony to the existence of these spook-humans, just as our own courts today join with the obscenity-burners to affirm that obscenity is in a book and not in the reading minds, and that, therefore, the publisher and not the reader shall go to jail for being "obscene."

518 Liberty and the Great Libertarians And yet when men ceased to believe in witches, they ceased to be, and so when men shall cease to believe in the "obscene" they will also cease to find that. Obscenity and witches exist only in the minds and emotions of those who believe in them, and, neither dogmatic judicial dictum nor righteous vituperation can ever give to them any objective existence. In the "good old days," when a few, wiser than the rest, doubted the reality of witches, if not themselves killed as being bewitched they were cowed into silence by an avalanche of vituperation such as "infidel/' "atheist," or "emissary of Satan," "the enemy of God," "the Anti-christ," and some witch-finder would get on his trail to discover evidence of this heretic's compact with the devil. How this is duplicated in the attitude of the nasty-minded portion of the public toward those who disbelieve in the objectivity of "obscenity"! Whether obscenity is a sense-perceived quality of a book, or resides exclusively in the reading mind, is a question of science, and, as such, a legitimate matter of debate. Try to prove its non-existence by the scientific method, and the literary scavengers, instead of answering your arguments, by showing the fallacy of its logic or error of fact, show their want of culture, just as did the witch-burners. They tell you that you are "either an ignoramus or so ethereal that there is no suitable place on earth for you," except in jail. They further hurl at you such illuminating epithetic arguments as "immoral," "smut dealer," "moral cancer-planter," etc., etc.

It is a regrettable fact that the miscalled "moral" majority is still too ignorant to know that such question-begging epithets, when unsupported, are not argument, and its members are too obsessed with sensual images to be open to any proof against their resultant "obscene" superstition. Think it over and see if when you cease to believe in the existence of "obscenity," you must not also cease to find it. If that be true, then it exists only in the minds and the emotions of those who believe in the superstition. Connect your mind Other Libertarians 519 with a sewer, and empty therein all the ideational and emotional associations which the miscalled "pure" people have forced into your thoughts. Having done this, you may be prepared to believe that "unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled." (Titus, i: 15.) Not till thus cleansed can you join in these words: "I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." (Romans, xiv:14.) When you have cleansed your own mind of the "obscene"

superstition, proclaim a real purity on the highways and byways, until other minds are likewise cleansed, and then our obscenity laws will soon die a natural death, and healthy-mindedness will have a chance to control the normal functioning of a healthy body. Once let the public become sufficiently clean-minded to allow every adult access to all that is to be known about the physiology, psychology, hygiene and ethics of sex, and in two generations we will have a new humanity, with more health and joy, fewer wrecked nerves and almost no divorces. All morbid curiosity will then be dispelled, and thus the dealer in bawdy art and literature will be bankrupted. Our sanitariums, and hospitals and insane asylums in that day will be uninhabited by those hundreds of thousands of inmates who are now there because of compulsory ignorance of their own sex nature. All these present evils are the outgrowth of that enforced sexual ignorance resulting from our legalized prudery, brought about by our general acquiescence in the "obscene" superstition, forced upon us by the vehement insistence of our over-sexed, prurient prudes. Let all clean-minded persons unite to abolish this twin to the witchcraft superstition and secure the annulment of all present laws against "obscene" literature. Thus you can best further the interest of humanity by promoting a sane and scientific physical and moral culture.

520 Liberty and the Great Libertarians MAJORITY VS. MINORITY Henrik Ibsen in letters to George Brandes And what can be said of the attitude assumed by the press of these leaders of the people who speak and write of freedom of thought, and at the same time make themselves the slaves of the supposed opinions of their subscribers? I receive more and more corroboration of my conviction that there is something demoralizing in engaging in politics and in joining parties. It will never, in any case, be possible for me to join a party that has the majority on its side. Bjornsonsays: "The majority is always right;" and as a practical politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on the contrary, must of necessity say, "The minority is always right." Naturally I am not thinking of that minority of stagnationists who are left behind by the great middle party, which with us is called Liberal; but I mean that minority which leads the van, and pushes on to points which the majority has not yet reached. ...

Liberty, equality, and fraternity are no longer the things they were in the days of the late lamented guillotine. This is what politicians will not understand, and therefore I hate them. What they want is special revolutions, revolutions in externals, in the political sphere. But all this is mere trifling. What is really wanted is a revolution of the spirit of man. . . . The struggle for liberty is nothing but the constant active appropriation of the idea of liberty. He who possesses liberty otherwise than as an aspiration possesses it soulless, dead. One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands still in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by so doing that he has just lost it. Now this very contentedness in the possession of a dead liberty is characteristic of the so-called State, and, as I have said, it is not a good characteristic. No doubt the franchise, self taxation, etc., are benefits—but to whom? To the citizen, not to the individual. Now, reason does not imperatively demand that the Other Libertarians 521 individual should be a citizen. Far from it. The State is the curse of the individual. With what is Prussia's political strength bought? With the absorption of the individual in the political and geographical idea. The waiter is the best soldier. And on the other hand, take the Jewish people, the aristocracy of the human race—how is it they have kept their place apart, their poetical halo, amid surroundings of coarse cruelty? By having no State to burden them. Had they remained in Palestine, they would long ago have lost their individuality in the process of their State's construction, like all other nations. Away with the State! I will take part in that revolution. Undermine the whole conception of a state, declare free choice and spiritual kinship to be the only allimportant conditions of any union, and you will have the commencement of a liberty that is worth something. Changes in forms of government are pettifogging affairs—a degree less or a degree more, mere foolishness. The State has its root in time, and will ripe and rot in time. Greater things than it will fall—religion, for example. Neither moral conceptions nor art forms have an eternity before them. How much are we really in duty bound to pin our faith to? Who will guarantee me that on Jupiter two and two do not make five? . . .

I have not the gifts that go to make a good citizen, nor yet the gift of orthodoxy; and what I possess no gift for I keep out of. Liberty is the first and highest condition for me. At home they do not trouble much about liberty, but only about liberties, a few more or a few less, according to the standpoint of their party. OPTIONAL SINGLE TAX Alexander Horr The Single Tax movement is no exception to the general principle in matters social, as its adherents consist of an individualistic and socialistic wing; of a libertarian and authoritarian group.

522 Liberty and the Great Libertarians The authoritarian Single Taxers, misled by the language of political economy, insist that rent is an indestructible, natural phase of economic life, that land monopoly is inevitable; and, like the humane persons they are, they would prefer public to private monopoly, just as the Greenbackers and Populists preferred public monopoly to private monopoly in banking and transportation. The Spencerian principle of the law of equal freedom, that "every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties, compatible with the like claim of every other man," negates such a theory, and libertarians like Col. Greene, Lysander Spooner, Benj. R. Tucker, Victor Yarros and others, have long insisted that' banking, insurance, railroading, etc., are competitive, are not naturally monopolies; hence, that government is not necessary to abolish interest or profit. Rent, according to Ricardo, is caused by the "excess of the productivity of a given piece of land over that of the best free land." Waiving all technical difficulties in this definition, I deny the implied fact (the bottom fact of the authoritarian Single Taxer when he claims that rent is natural) that rent could exist unless the government was ready to secure the ownership of this "excess of ... productivity" to somebody. Rent is thus artificially created by the State—just as are interest and profit— by a denial of equal freedom. If all mankind had access to all land, then with the "open group system" of land tenure advocated by Duehring and Hertzka, a larger number of workers would be gathered on the more productive land, and through the free mobilization of labor, in consequence of the well known economic law of increasing and diminishing returns on unit land, by the continued application of additional units of labor and capital (as in intensive cultivation), the productivity of all land would be equalized according to work performed; and thus rent would be abolished (made non-existent, not merged into wages) The optional single tax has the further merit that it could be Other Libertarians 523 the nucleus of all other non-invasive social forms, and thus could be universally applied (the one great test of Emerson for the validity of any moral principle). There would be nothing to prevent the Communists from practising their theories among themselves; they could not enforce Communism on others of course, but if they wished to form a closed group (exclude non-Communists) and were the occupiers of valuable land, they could pay a single tax on the annual value of their land, and divide their own product among themselves in their own way. Ditto with the Mutualists, Freelanders, Single Taxers, or any group of collectivists who would refrain from invading the liberties of their neighbors and content themselves with their own products, which they could divide among themselves (like the Communists) according to any non-competitive basis that appealed to their sense of justice or to their sentiments. These group methods would, of course, be themselves subject to competition, and thus be kept at their best.

Any group that could not show a good balance-sheet would be subjected to close scrutiny, to criticism; and if it did not or could not mend its ways, would be disciplined by the abandonment of it by its members for better methods or for other groups which could show better results, either in efficiency, general wellbeing, or social achievement MR. DOOLEY ON LIBERTY Peter F. Dunne It takes vice to hunt vice. That accounts f'r polisman. I care not who makes th' laws iv a nation, if I can get out an injunction. No matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' Supreme Coort follows th' iliction returns. Laws ar-re made to throuble people, an' th' more throuble they make th' longer they stay on the stachoo books. Gover'mint, 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.

524 Liberty and the Great Libertarians Th' pope, imprors, kings, an' women haven't th' right to make laws, but they have th' privilege iv breakin' thim, which is betther. Di-plomacy has become a philanthropic pursoot like shopkeepin', but politics, me lords, is still th' same ol' spoort iv highway robbry. If I wanted to keep me money so that me gran'childer might get it f'r their ol' age, I'd appeal it to th' Supreme Coort. Why is it that th' fair sect wudden't be seen talkin' to a polisman, but if ye say "Sojer" to thim, they're all out iv th' window but th' feet. A man that'd expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a loony tic; but a man that thinks men can be tur-rned into angels be an iliction is called a rayformer an' remains at large. Hinceforth th' policy iv this gover'mint will be, as befure, not to bully a sthrong power or wrong a weak, but will remain thrue to th' principle iv wrongin' th' sthrong an' bullyin' th' weak.

If we'd begun a few years ago shuttin' out folks that wudden't mind handin' a bomb to a king, they wudden't be enough people in Mattsachoosets to make a quorum f'r th' Anti-Impeeryal S'ciety. If me ancestors were not what Hogan calls regicides, 'twas not because thay were not ready an' willin/ on'y a king niver came their way. An autocrat's a ruler that does what th' people wants, an' takes th' blame f'r it. A constitootional ixicutive, Hinnissy, is a ruler that does as he dam pleases, an' blames th' people. LIBERTY IN ART W. L. Judson Time was when the Egyptian artist painted by formula at the direction of an overfed priesthood, the basest and least progressive era of painting with which we are acquainted.

Other Libertarians 525 In a later time painting, like everything else, fell under the sacredotal yoke again. It became a soulless convention and relapsed into absolute imbecility. There is no surer sign of the decadence of art than the search after formulae, striving to lay down rules in imitation of the methods of the past, as if discovery were dead. The modern renaissance of art was simultaneous with its emancipation from tradition. Almost every rule and dogma of the old painters finds refutation in some splendid recent canvas. It is no longer safe to lay down rules of composition. Some mannerless fellow is sure to prove their futility tomorrow. The best we can do is to make some suggestions showing how others have succeeded, which will at least be helpful for a beginning. There are, in fact, men great enough to override ail the theories ever expounded and plenty of men who seek to prove their greatness by breaking all the rules they ever heard of. Any conventional treatment of chiaroscuro should be regarded only as a temporary expedient. Every young artist will base his method on the work of some master, perhaps many masters in succession Gradually his own individuality begins to emerge and he adopts a manner of his own. Every man has his own ideal or personal convention in composition by which he selects his subject or into which he makes his subject fit.

MEDICAL FREEDOM Dr. J. H. Greet The acquisition of authority and the exclusive privilege of controlling the bodies of others for mercenary purposes appears to be the chief aim of the medical fraternity. To aid in accomplishing their designs, by deception and wily subterfuge they have secured the enactment of unconstitutional laws and the appropriation of State funds to be placed at their disposal. Thus have they established and do they maintain one of the most gigantic trusts that ever cursed a free-born people. Medical monopoly is the last remnant of mercenary priestcraft to 526 Liberty and the Great Libertarians thrive upon mankind's afflictions and misfortunes. But its chains, forged centuries ago by ignorance and superstition, have gradually weakened by the continuous strain put upon them by education and enlightenment. Tighter and tighter does it seek to draw those weakened chains, and greater and greater grows the resistance afforded by increased public knowledge. Before long the fetters must give way, and humanity will be free to enjoy the liberty of striving to know all things and of exercising the right of self-preservation.

LIBEL C. L. Swarti Under a rational conception of free speech there can be no such thing as libel, considered as an invasive act. Speech after all is not a complete act. An indispensable complement is the hearing of what is said. And even then the thing does not attain to the dignity of an act. An invasion must be an overt act. To determine an invasion, the consequences of the overt act must be considered. To say a thing, no matter how untrue, outside of the hearing of anyone, is, it is clear, of no consequence. There is no reason, therefore, to believe that the situation changes, in so far as the speaker is concerned, when the thing spoken is heard. And neither does the simple fact of its being heard alter the conditions. It is only when the hearer thinks or takes action that any person lied about can feel the effect of the lie. He could not be injured by it if it were not heard; he could not be injured by it if it were heard and not believed; he could not be injured by it if it were heard and believed if no action were taken by the person hearing and believing it. It is only when a person hears a lie, believes it, and then takes some action toward the person lied about that the latter can be injured. After the liar has told his lie, three things must take place before it can have any injurious effect, and these three things are in no wise connected with the liar.

What, then, has the liar to do with it anyway?

Other Libertarians 527 LIBERTY AND DUTY George E. Macdonald Liberty is always consistent with itself, as one fact fits every other fact, while one law always repeals its predecessor and needs a third law to correct its own mistakes. The only time that law makes angels of men is when it hangs them. It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen, and, anyhow, there are not enough of them to fill the offices. By arguments from psychology, Mr. Theodore Schroeder, attorney for the Free Speech League, proves that the quality of a thing which is defined as "obscenity" has existence, not in the thing itself, but only in the mind of the person who imagines that he detects its presence there. It follows that, when the courts have been brought around to this view, the man who charges "obscenity" against a picture or print will be locked up for improper exposure of his mind. And the law will do justice then oftener than it does now, because it will catch the fellows who made it.

Mr. Roosevelt says: "The performance of duty stands ahead of the insistence upon one's rights." I conceive duties (towards others) to be what others have the right to exact. If, then, as Mr. Roosevelt says, our duty to others is greater than our right, the said duty being their right, it follows that their right is greater than ours. And then, from their point of view, we ourselves become others, when, according to Mr. Roosevelt, their duties toward us stands ahead of their own right; and this duty of theirs, being now the same as our right, enlarges our right so that it stands ahead of our duty, which duty, as premised, is equivalent to their right, and so on. If Mr. Roosevelt can demonstrate that duty is ahead of right, he can prove that every man in the world owes more than is coming to him. This is 528 Liberty and the Great Libertarians pure altruism, enticing as a theory, but unlikely to work out when you come to collect.

LAND, LIBERTY AND JUSTICE Louis F. Post No nation or class has ever forced its dominion upon another for the good of the latter, and none ever will. The desire for mastership is the most evil of all passions; and however it may mask its designs in philanthropic pretensions, the nation or class that seeks to govern others does so for its own aggrandizement. "It is not for my breakfast that you invite me down," said the goat in the fable to the wolf who had urged him to descend to the foot of the cliff where rich grass would give him a better breakfast, "but for your own." Popular liberties never have been and never will be destroyed by the power of usurpers. They are destroyed by the free consent of the people themselves. When a free people turn from the principles of liberty to worship its lifeless symbols, they are in condition to become easy dupes of the first bold leader who has the shrewdness to conjure them with those symbols. No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshiping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.

Since in justice rights are equal, there must in justice be equal rights to land. Without land man cannot sustain life. It is to him as water to the fish or air to the bird—his natural environment. And if to get land whereby to support life, any man is compelled to give his labor or the products of his labor to another, to that extent his liberty is denied him and his right to pursue happiness is obstructed. Enforced toil without pay is the essence of slavery, and permission to use land can be no pay for toil; he who gives it parts with nothing that any Other Libertarians 529 man ever earned, and he who gets it acquires nothing that nature would not freely offer him but for the interference of land monopolists. EGOISM Dr. James L Walker What is good? What is evil? These words express only appreciations. A good fighter is a "good man" or a "bad man"! both words expressing the same idea of ability, but from different points of view. To the beggar a generous giver is a good man. To the master a servant is good when he cheerfully slaves for the master. A good subject is one obedient to his prince. A good citizen is one who gives no trouble to the State, but contributes to its revenues and stability. Evil is only what we do nob find to our good, but what we have to combat. A horse is not good because strong and swift if he be "vicious"; that is, if we find him hard to tame. A breed of dogs is good if readily susceptible of training to hunt all day or watch all night for the benefit of the owner. A wife is "good"

if she will not be good to any man but her husband. ' The love of money within reason is conspicuously an Egoistic manifestation, but when the passion gets the man, when money becomes his ideal, his god, we must class him as an Altruist. There is the characteristic of "devotion to another," no matter that that other is neither a person nor the social welfare, nothing but the fascinating golden calf or a row of figures. We Egoists draw the line of distinction between the Egoist and the devotee. It is the same logically when a person becomes bewitched with another of the opposite sex so as to lose judgment and selfcontrol, though this species of fascination is usually curable by experience, while the miser's insanity cannot be reached. The love-sick man or woman has the illusion dispelled by contact with the particular person that caused it; but in certain cases absence or death prevents the remedy from being applied, and in some of these instances the mental malady is lifelong.

530 Liberty and the Great Libertarians Laconics Where there is but one there is neither liberty nor slavery. Where there are more than one there may be despotism (sometimes called "government/' sometimes "absolute liberty") for one or more, and liberty for one or more, or there may be approximate equal liberty for all. In a word, the conception and the facts of liberty and slavery result from association, not isolation; and the sparseness or density of population, the simplicity or complexity of association, will create the customs, rules and laws governing human relations. Therefore, what the solitary man rightfully may do is no measure of what he rightfully may do when he comes into contact with another man. The liberty of one is conditioned by the liberty of the other. Thomas Paine wrote these words in The Crisis: "The Grecians and the Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind."

The kind of equal liberty possible is determined by environment. It is not a matter of guesswork, of intuition; it is not indicated by the undisciplined spirit of mastership which sometimes expresses itself today in the demand for "absolute" freedom. It is to be ascertained by the activities of brain and tested by ethics, ethics here meaning the conception of fair play, of the nearest possible equality of opportunity. For equal liberty simply means fair play. Of course "equal liberty" does not mean equal liberty to invade, to indulge in "self-expression" careless of the thus denied self-expression of others, to rob, to tyrannize, as careless or unbalanced thinkers sometimes have said, but equal freedom from invasion, from robbery, from the exaction of tyranny. Fair play (liberty) cannot exist in the atmosphere of absolutism, Laconics 531 whether the absolutism be that of czar, majority, or lawless individual outside of formal government.—Edwin C.

Walker. In all ages, the truest lovers of mankind have toiled to imbue their fellows with the spirit of open-mindedness. The cause of free-speech numbers the most glorious martyrs in history, Socrates, whose name we hold in reverence today, was murdered by the Athenian people, for seeking to lead them to think for themselves. Bruno in death and Galileo in imprisonment paid the penalty of loving truth more than public opinion. Roger Bacon upheld the cause of scientific research against unnumbered persecutions. Milton perceived that no error was so fatal as the suppression of thought, and penned his glorious Areopagitica, which remains to this day an unanswerable argument to all who, either from mental weakness or from a tyrannous disposition, seek to set bounds to human speculation or expression. Voltaire, Paine and a host of others have followed in demonstrating that free minds and free lips were necessary, in order that men might grow and learn. In our own land, Elijah Love joy gave his life for the principle of freedom of the press; and from his martyrdom was born the grand apostleship of Wendell Phillips in the cause of freedom. We stand indeed on holy ground, when we approach the sublime company of those who, through the ages, have striven to secure, not only for themselves, but for all mankind, the right of unfettered utterance on every theme. Well for us, if we are found worthy to tread in their footsteps, and to bear the most humble part in this great work.—James F. Morton.

The philosophy of Egoism, which is merely the doctrine of evolution applied to psychology, teaches us that each individual always seeks his own greatest happiness. Any interference with an individual in the pursuit of his happiness is unwarranted, as no one can know better than the person himself in what direction his happiness lies. Individual freedom is necessary to the attainment of individual happiness. Any restraint of 532 Liberty and the Great Libertarians the free activities of the individual are certain to violate the conditions of social progress. If freedom is the condition of progress, all invasion of that freedom is bad and should be resisted, whether it is practiced by one upon another, by one upon many, or by many upon one. In other words, individual freedom presupposes the suppression of the invader, whether that invader appears as an individual criminal or as the corporate criminal—the State,—and whether as the Republican or as the Imperial form of State.

The first essentials of freedom are, of course, the freedom to live unmolested and the freedom of the producer to retain unrestricted the full product of his toil. While there may be serious differences of opinion in regard to the definitions of "producer" and "product," I think no one will deny that crimes against person and property—murder, assault, theft, etc.— are violations of Equal Freedom.—Francis D. Tandy. No man ever ruled other men for their own good; no man was ever rightly the master of the minds or bodies of his brothers; no man ever ruled other men for anything except for their undoing and for his own brutalization. The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of the power and to those over whom it is exercised. And the great man of the future, in distinction from the great man of the past, is he who will seek to create power in the people, and not gain power over them. The great man of the future is he who will refuse to be great at all, in the historic sense; he is the man who will literally lose himself, who will altogether diffuse himself, in the life of humanity. All that any man can do for a people, all that any man can do for another man, is to set the man or the people free. Our work, whensoever and wheresoever we would do good, is to open to men the gates of life—to lift up the heavenly doors of opportunity Give men opportunity and opportunity will give you men.— George D. Herron.

It is the fundamental condition of liberty that no one shall Laconics 533 be deprived of the opportunity of securing the full product of his labor. Economic independence is consequently the first demand of Anarchism; the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. That exploitation is made impossible: by the freedom of banking, i. e. liberty in the matter of furnishing a medium of exchange free from the legal burden of interest; by the freedom of credit, i. e. the organization of credit on the basis of the principle of mutualism, of economic solidarity; by the freedom of home and foreign trade, i. e. liberty of unhindered exchange of values from hand to hand as from land to land; the freedom of land, i. e. liberty in the occupation of land for the purpose of personal use, if it is not already occupied by others for the same purpose; or, to epitomize all these demands: the exploitation of man by man is made impossible by the freedom of labor.—John Henry Mackay.

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 widespread 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 civilized countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus 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, 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 pre534 Liberty and the Great Libertarians tended 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. Today we pay our last sad homage to the most devoted lover, the most abject slave, the fondest, wildest, dreamiest victim that ever gave his life to liberty's immortal cause.—Clarence S. Darrow, at Altgeldt's funeral.

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 resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, 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.

Every attempt to gag the free expression of thought is an unsocial act, a crime against society. That is why judges and juries who try to enforce these laws make themselves ridiculous. It is very hard for a robber to convince his victims that he is acting in their behalf and for their good. Is there no parallel between the gag of the burglar and the gag of the law? Why Laconics 535 does the burglar use a gag? It is because he wants to get away with your goods, and he doesn't want you to make an outcry and call the neighbors. He knows that he cannot convince you by argument that he is entitled to the goods and that it is really to your best interest to pass them over to him. Capitalism holds up the toilers; it robs them of their labor and is enjoying life to its fullest on the result of its plunder. Naturally it doesn't want to be deprived of its special privilege, therefore it puts the gag of the law in the mouth of anyone who attempts to make an outcry.—Jay Fox.

Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license;" and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.—Voltairine De Cleyre. Of course if we knew the whole truth Liberty would not be so necessary as far as the race is concerned. But because we do not know the truth we must leave all the avenues for its discovery open, and hence every individual must have perfect liberty to follow his own inclination and desire. In this way all of society would be transformed into one great sociological laboratory in which all the isms in each succeeding age would be subjected to laboratory tests and only the truths remain. Not only does Liberty solve all of our sociological problems but it is the only possible source for material advancement. The innumerable social advantages that have come from individual inventions and discoveries illustrate this. Thus it must be perfectly plain that if the race is to climb to higher levels and make 536 Liberty and the Great Libertarians still farther advances the one big prime necessity for such advancement is Liberty.—Dr. Claude Riddle.

Instead of defending "free love," which is a much-abused term capable of many interpretations, we ought to strive for the freedom of love; for while the former has come to imply freedom for any sort of love, the latter must only mean freedom for a feeling which is worthy the name of love. This feeling, it may be hoped, will gradually win for itself the same freedom in life as it already possesses in poetry. The flowering, as well as the budding of love, will then be a secret between the lovers, and only its fruits will be a matter between them and society. As always, poetry has pointed out the way to development. A great poet has seldom sung of lawfully wedded happiness, but often of free and secret love; and in this respect, too, the time is coming when there will no longer be one standard of morality for poetry and another for life. To anyone tender of conscience, the ties formed by a free connection are stronger than the legal ones, since in the former case he has made a choice more decisive to his own and the other's personality than if he had followed law and custom.—Ellen Key.

God so made us, and put such instincts in us, that to gratify them is wrong, and to crush them is right; to be happy is wicked, while to be miserable is righteousness. The old asceticism said: "Be virtuous, and you will be happy." The new hedonism says: "Be happy and you will be virtuous." Self-development is greater than self-sacrifice. It will make each in the end more helpful to humanity. To be sound in mind 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. That is the central idea of the new hedonism.—Grant Allen. Men mistake when they imagine the Single Tax agitation to aim only at fiscal change, a new method of taxation. Its sole purpose is to secure the larger freedom of the race. It is not Laconics 537 the method but the result that is precious. For it is idle to talk of the equal rights of men when the one thing essential to such equality is withheld. The Physiocrats of France grasped the central truth, and saw that freedom of natural opportunity, comprised in the term land, was the foundation-stone of freedom and justice. Had the French Revolution proceeded on their line, it would have had a different ending. The succeeding spectre of Napoleon,devastating Europe and wading through the blood of his sacrificed countrymen to the throne, would not have affrighted mankind. The fruits of liberty would have been gathered.—William Lloyd Garrison.

It is vain to echo Nietzsche's mad cry for absolute freedom— the freedom of the strong to enslave the weak, of the cunning to rob the candid. That we already have and it does not satisfy. The personal life cannot satisfy the growing sympathies of man. The demand of the centuries, never so virile and insistent as today, is for equal freedom. The modern Everyman asks not for himself what all may not have. The asking were vain, indeed, for there is no freedom till all are free. Master and slave are bound by the same thong. Human solidarity is not a moral fancy but a stern fact.—Luke North {Editor of Everyman). The Single Tax does not intend to add to or multiply the already almost infinite statutory enactments now confusing and befuddling the social state, but rather means to abolish, one after the other, every law on the statute books granting a special privilege to any one man or body of men that is at the expense of the unprivileged mass of society. This will destroy the petty and grand larceny now preying upon the social body.

Aside from the million of petty privileges granted by municipalities, states and the nation to individuals, the great and glorious pillage shows itself in privileges and monopoly in laborsaving inventions, trade restrictions and the private ownership of natural resources, the major part of which is a matter of taxation; therefore, the Single Tax would abolish all taxes on 538 Liberty and the Great Libertarians barter, trade, exchange, personal property and improvements, commensurately raising all taxes from the value of land alone, till there was in existence but one single tax upon the value of bare land exclusive of improvements. This would be a single tax on land value—not on land, for some land would pay no tax while other land would pay much tax. For instance, one acre of land worth a million dollars would pay as much tax as a million acres worth only one dollar per acre.—Edmund Norton.

So long as society is founded on injustice, the function of the laws will be to defend and sustain injustice. And the more unjust they are, the more respectable they will seem. Observe also that, being ancient, for the most part, they do not represent altogether present iniquity, but a past iniquity—rougher and more brutal. They are the monuments of barbarous times which have survived to a gentler period.—Anatole France. If that is the best government which governs least, is no government at all the summum bonum? What use for Church or State if man, with every burden cast off, every bond broken, rises to his full stature and development, with a spirit purified into selflessness by very surrender to the instincts of self! What is this but the sublimation, the apotheosis of Herbert Spencer's enlightened self-interest? What is it but Prof. James' Pragmatism—the idea that there is no good but what is good to me?

—William Marion Reedy. The people, the standpatters, who for profit, or for an unthinking but sincere conservatism, try to suppress radical tendencies because they fear revolution and destruction, are themselves fostering revolution and destruction. The force and power of their reactionary intolerance tend to make the idealist desperate and induce him to resort to violence; he, therefore, who stands in the way of free speech and free expression in art, politics or industry is an enemy of society.—Hutchins Hapgood. This government was established to protect primarily the Laconics 539 rights of men in social union, not the rights of property-holders, merely as such. Therefore, traffic in ideas is more important than traffic in merchandise. To suppress the former on pretense of protecting the latter, even in the use of streets, is an unpardonable outrage which becomes quite intolerable when done by arbitrary police violence, or with favoritism for approved opinions.—Leonard Abbott.

The political franchise for women is a strike in the direction of equal justice to all, regardless of sex, but woman has been endowed by nature with a franchise incomparably more important than any that man can bestow upon her, namely, the right to elect whether she shall become a mother or not, the right to elect her masculine helper in the creative process, and the added right to elect the economic conditions, the home surroundings under which she will consent to become a mother. —Moses Harman. Noble souls wish not to have anything for nothing. The crowd will follow a leader who marches twenty steps in advance; but if he is a thousand steps in front of them, thejr do not see and do not follow him, and any literary freebooter who chooses may shoot him with impunity.—George Brandes. 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.

—Steven T. Byington. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self. Whosoever will be free, must make himself free: freedom is no fairy's gift to fall into any man's lap. Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster. It even bites with stolen teeth. Its very bowels are counterfeit. We carry faithfully what we are given, on hard shoulders, over rough mountains! And when perspiring, we are told: 540 Liberty and the Great Libertarians "Yea, life is hard to bear!" 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.—Nietzsche. More liberty, not less, is demanded by every rational thinker in the world today, but the clergy are not in that category, so we still see them sitting on the lid, so to speak, trying their best to keep liberty in check. Liberty to them is the most offensive word in the English language, and to keep the mass of mankind from enjoying it, has always been the prime object of priestcraft.—Charming Severance.

The glorification of the State as a kind of all-wise Providence has neither historic nor logical foundation. The quixotic belief of the Socialists that the State can be captured by the proletariat and used to expropriate the capitalists, then afterwards carry on all the industrial functions of society on collectivist principles, is as economically unsound as it is chimerical. —William Bailie. Liberty, divinest word ever coined by human brain or uttered by human tongue. It is the spirit of liberty that today undermines the empires of the old world, sets crowns and mitres askew, and in its onward elemental sweep is shaking the institutions of capitalism in this nation as frail weeds are shaken in the blasts of the storm king's fury.—Eugene V. Debs. As for discussions about my one ideal form of government, they are simply idle. The ideal form of government is no government at all. The existence of government in any shape is a sign of man's imperfection.—Professor E. A. Freeman.

Only a monopoly which prevented a free supply could for any length of time command tribute for the use of land, money, plant, or commodities.—/. K. Ingalls. 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.